'A 22-year-old woman who filed a police complaint alleging gangrape in Bihar’s Araria district has been arrested on charges of disrupting court proceedings on July 10. She had demanded the presence of social workers during the recording of her statement before the district judge, said members of the Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, a non-profit organisation that helped her through the process of filing a first information report with the Araria police. Two social workers who had accompanied her to the court – Kalyani Badola and Tanmay Nivedita – have also been arrested.
'The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has sent a notice to news agency Press Trust of India, asking it to pay more than Rs 84 crore as a penalty for alleged breaches at its office in New Delhi, reported IANS. The notice was sent by the Land and Development Office, which comes under the ministry, on July 7 but came to attention on Monday... The government’s notice to PTI comes two weeks after national broadcaster Prasar Bharati threatened to cancel its subscription of the news agency for its “anti-national coverage”. Prasar Bharati is among PTI’s biggest subscribers...'
'With the water level of several rivers rising in Uttar Pradesh due to continuous rainfall last week, state water resources minister Mahendra Singh has instructed the irrigation department to hold regular pujas (prayers) by those rivers in order to “control” possible flooding in the areas around them. The minister gave these instructions on July 12, while addressing field staff of the department through a video conference, organised to review the precautionary measures taken to check flooding. The press note issued after the meeting mentioned the minister’s specific order...'
'A woman constable in Gujarat has been transferred to the police headquarters after she reportedly had an altercation with the son of a Bharatiya Janata Party legislator for violating lockdown rules in Surat, The Indian Express reported on Sunday. An inquiry was set up after the purported audio and video clips of the incident was widely circulated on social media. Prakash Kanani, son of Varachha Road MLA and Minister of State for Health Kumar Kanani, had an argument with constable Sunita Yadav, who pointed out that he and his friends were out during curfew hours.
'Social media can be used by a person just like a gun in his hand, observed the Supreme Court on Friday as it found favour with an order asking a Congress leader from Uttar Pradesh to stay away from social media for at least 18 months. The top court has decided to formulate guidelines on use of social media in criminal cases, especially in matters of bail. "What is wrong with an order asking you not to use social media? If a court can order an accused to stay away from a gun, it can similarly ask you to stay away from social media," said Chief Justice of India SA Bobde...'
'In yet another case of police high-handedness, a family in Mawana town of Meerut district in Uttar Pradesh has alleged that cops from the local police station ransacked their house on mere suspicion that one of their family members was involved in illegal animal slaughter. The incident of alleged police vandalism took place in Rajo Wala Bagh area of Mawana on Saturday night. According to the family, nearly a dozen policemen barged into the house asking for Mohd Umar. When the family told cops that the man was not in the house, the policemen started breaking household items...'
'IN THE arms of a young girl, three years old, is another child that isn’t yet one. She struggles with his weight, slight as he is, trying to feed him out of a bottle. It is a burden that is heavy to bear. But the fight against hunger for children of the Musahari tola in Badbilla village of Bhagalpur has been a daily challenge. In this lockdown, that burden has only become heavier. A microcosm of Bihar, Bhagalpur is the focus of a month-long series by The Indian Express to understand the pandemic’s effects in smalltown India.
'On the same day that eight policemen were gunned down in Uttar Pradesh, two equally horrific incidents went unnoticed. First, four members of a family were murdered in Allahabad. Then, a 19-year-old Dalit girl and her father were murdered by her stalker, who belongs to the Thakur caste, days before her wedding. These are not isolated incidents, but part of a larger crime arc that would have been labelled ‘gunda raj’ if they had occurred under the governance of a lower-caste Chief Minister.
'What started off as a normal work day for 31-year-old Bennix, the owner of a mobile phone shop in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, turned out to be the starting point of a fatal ordeal. On Friday, June 19, around 8 pm, Bennix was in his shop near the Kamarajar statue in Sathankulam town when his friend rushed to him with the news that his father Jayaraj had been picked up by the police. Worried about his 58-year-old father, Bennix rushed to the Sathankulam police station only to be called in by the police officers there for an ‘inquiry’.
'Two government-appointed committees have flagged concerns about the reliability and capability of 10,000 low-cost ventilators, ordered by the Narendra Modi government as part of India’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to documents reviewed by HuffPost India. In a clinical evaluation report dated June 1, 2020, a committee of doctors said that the Modi government could buy these ventilators, made by Indian startup AgVa Healthcare, but added that AgVa’s Covid-model ventilators “should not be considered as a replacement for high-end ventilators in tertiary care ICUs”.
