'What happens when you ask leaders in the Narendra Modi government why they resent criticism? You get publicly hauled over the coals – and told you “hurt national interest” – by a whole army of Bharatiya Janata Party ministers and senior leaders. On Saturday, Bajaj Group chairman Rahul Bajaj asked a group of ministers – including Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal – some tough questions on lynching, Pragya Thakur and the government’s ability to accept criticism...
'The Madhya Pradesh police has conducted raids at the office of an Indore-based evening newspaper run by a local entrepreneur, along with other business concerns that he and his family own. The newspaper, Sanjha Lokswami, owned by Jitendra Soni, had reportedly published photographs of a former BJP minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government and the state principal secretary, considered a close confidant of the former chief minister, in a compromising position with some women, and simultaneously also released their video clips on YouTube.
'It has been 100 days since the made-for-television arrest of former home and finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram in the INX-Media matter... So after 100 days of ‘rigorous custodial interrogation’, what have the CBI and the ED been able to prove? How have their cases improved? Is custodial interrogation relevant for cases which largely rely on documentary evidence where fear of tampering is unsubstantiated? These are logical questions that must be raised and answered...'
'A 26-year-old veterinary doctor went missing on November 27 near Hyderabad. A day later, her charred body was found at the underpass of a National Highway in Chatanpally village. The victim was gang-raped and subsequently murdered and burnt by four. The accused, Mohammed Pasha, Naveen, Keshavulu and Shiva, were identified by the police after scanning CCTV footage installed near a toll plaza where the victim had parked her two-wheeler... The names of the four accused were revealed hours before the police held a press conference.
'Tamil actor and former AIADMK MLA Radha Ravi joined the BJP on Saturday. Radha Ravi, who also heads Kollywood’s Dubbing Artistes Union, met with the national ruling party’s Working President JP Nadda. The actor-politician is a well-known party-hopper from Tamil Nadu, having switched between the AIADMK and the DMK multiple times... In 2018, Radha Ravi was accused of sexual harassment by women from the industry, brought to light by singer Chinmayi during the #MeToo movement.
'...The two candidates with the highest number of cases filed against them are both from the BJP. Both face murder charges. BJP’s Panki candidate Kushwaha Shashi Bhushan Mehta has 11 cases filed against him, including murder, attempt to murder, criminal intimidation, evidence tampering, and undue influence and personation at an election.
'The assault on Dalit gender equality activist Bindu Ammini, by a fervent Ayyappa devotee, reveals the fragility of the Hindu nationalist male ego and a deals a chink to the Hindutva armour... Like other nativist and anti-pluralist projects, Hindutva is premised upon the restoration of a primeval order that involves the dominance of man over woman, father over son, savarna over avarna, avarna over Dalit, fair skin over dark, state over subjects, religion over law, priest over devotee, teacher over student.
'The Bengaluru Police registered a case of sedition on Wednesday against former Karnataka Chief Ministers Siddaramaiah and HD Kumaraswamy, along with 23 other Congress and JD(S) politicians and nine police officials for protesting outside the Income Tax Department Office in Bengaluru ahead of the Lok Sabha elections...
'Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the national trade union affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has come out against the government’s labour reforms, saying the proposed law against the interest of workers. The government tabled the Industrial Relations Code, 2019 in the Parliament on Thursday. The Bill seeks to offer a slew of benefits to industries by curtailing compliance burden as well as employee benefits.
