'On September 29, Tathagata Roy, retweeted a tweet with the headline, “Muslims rape 16-year-old Hindu girl, who begs them ‘Please leave me for your Allah’s sake’.” The original tweet was by Robert Spencer, the founder of the extremist Islamophobic propaganda blog, Jihad Watch, which based the news on a report by another propaganda website – one inspired by Hindutva – the Hindu Post. Roy’s Twitter timeline is replete with tweets of this nature: incendiary, hate-filled communal propaganda. Why are we talking about Roy?
'Maharashtra BJP unit on Tuesday said it will ask the party-led NDA government at the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. In its election manifesto, released by BJP working president J.P. Nadda along with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state party president Chandrakant Patil and Mumbai unit head Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the state unit also sought the honour for social reformers Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule, a party leader told PTI...'
'The Bharatiya Janata Party released its manifesto or “Sankalp Patra” for the Haryana elections on Sunday... The manifesto, which has 15 chapters and 248 points, has been termed by the BJP as its vision document for “The Haryana of My Dreams”. Khattar said the manifesto is in line with the principles of creating a “Ram rajya”... Since Haryana has earned the dubious distinction of becoming the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country at around 28%, the manifesto also makes promises for promoting industry and providing jobs to the youth...'
'In Assam, civil society groups have long accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government of allowing illegal coal mining to thrive in the state. Now, these allegations could singe Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal himself. In the last week of September, members of the Congress distributed what they claimed were incriminating photographs to journalists. The photographs showed Sonowal with a man named Sunil Kumar Gurung alleged to be involved in illegal mining operations.
'The induction of murder accused JMM leader Shashi Bhushan Mehta into the BJP launched high-voltage drama at the BJP headquarters in Ranchi on October 4. Mehta is facing trial in connection with the murder of Suchitra Mehta who was a warden at the school where the now former JMM leader was the director. He is currently out on bail...'
'...Privatisation is being introduced in diverse ways. Some public sector enterprises are earmarked for outright sale, not just loss-making ones, but even those which make handsome profits. In others, the government intends to reduce its own share of equity below 51% through disinvestment. In still others, the idea is to break up the total activity into several different individual activities and to privatise some individual activities by divesting the public sector of those; this last route is what is being followed with regard to the Railways.
'Just weeks before the state assembly election, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will have to face a criminal trial for allegedly failing to furnish details of two pending criminal cases in his election affidavit in 2014...'
'The decision of a bench of the Delhi High Court of comprising Justices D N Patel and C Hari Shankar on Friday September 27, to issue notices to different government bodies – the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) and its wings, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and the Registrar of Companies (RoC), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the National Housing Bank (NHB) – to investigate the allegations levelled in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a non-government organisation, the Citizens Whistle Blowers Forum against I
'It seems like the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), believes in doing away with cultural diversity and crushing cultural dissent. This can be seen in the recent move by a BJP MP from Mysuru, Pratap Simha, preventing an event called ‘Mahisha Dasara’, which was scheduled to be held on September 27. Mahisha Dasara is an event organised by various dalit organisations, progressive organisations from Karnataka as a counter to the Dasara celebration in the Mysuru palace and elsewhere in the state.
'Hindutva groups in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu disrupted the filming of action-comedy Sulthan, starring Karthi and Rashmika Mandanna and directed by Bakkiyaraj Kannan, because they thought it was a biopic of Tipu Sultan. The film was being shot near an Archaeological Survey of India protected site on Tuesday night, when members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu Munnani arrived and staged protests. A police officer told the Indian Express that while there was no damage, the shooting schedule was disrupted. “They were in the final stage of shooting.
