'An FIR has been registered against Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA Surendra Singh's son and his supporters for allegedly manhandling a Dalit revenue official, police said on Thursday. On a complaint lodged by the official Radheyshyam Ram, the FIR has been registered against Hazari Singh and 10 others on Wednesday for manhandling and abusing him, Bairiya SHO Sanjay Tripathi said. All the accused have been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code along with the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the SHO added.
'Union minister Giriraj Singh on Thursday stoked a fresh controversy alleging that children who study in missionary schools lack "sanskaar" and end up in practices like "beef-eating" when they go abroad. Addressing a religious function at his Lok Sabha constituency in Begusarai of Bihar, the firebrand BJP leader also advocated, as an antidote, teaching of "shlokas" of Bhagvad Gita and the verses Hanuman Chalisa at private schools.
'Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Ravindra Nath Tripathi and six others in Uttar Pradesh’s Bhadohi district were booked on Wednesday for allegedly raping a woman multiple times over a month in 2017, reported PTI. The complainant claimed that Tripathi’s nephew Sandeep Tiwari, who is one of the accused, first raped her in 2016, and continued to sexually exploit her. However, she did not approach the police then as Tiwari had promised to marry her, said Superintendent of Police Ram Badan Singh.
'The Karnataka Police Tuesday arrested two persons — a poet and a journalist — in Koppal district in north Karnataka over a poem against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). Poet Siraj Bisaralli had recited his poem “Ninna Dakhale Yaavaga Needuttee? (When will you give your documents?)” last month at the Anegundu Utsava, an annual cultural event, the police said. The editor of Kannadanet.com, Rajabaxi H V, posted a video of the recital on social media on January 14.
'A deepfake of the president of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Manoj Tiwari, went viral on WhatsApp in the country earlier this month, ahead of legislative assembly elections in Delhi, according to Vice. It’s the first time a political party anywhere has used a deepfake for campaigning purposes. In the original video Tiwari speaks in English, criticizing his political opponent Arvind Kejriwal and encouraging voters to vote for the BJP.
'...Last Wednesday, the sonu and monu of online misinformation, OpIndia and My Nation, jointly organised an event at Delhi’s Constitution Club titled “Bharat Bodh”. The esteemed house had Twitter influencers, authors, columnists and Madhu Kishwar as panellists. “Is India being pushed towards Khilafat 2.0?” was the question to be urgently contemplated. The blurb: “Riots, anti-Hindu imagery, Jinnah wali azadi and more — dissent or foundation for Khilafat 2.0?”...
'...Muslims do want to materially improve their lives, like anyone else, but they are willing to build alliances against those in whom they see their biggest enemy: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)... And then, there is this piece of evidence from the India Today-Axis My India exit poll: “When asked about the reason for voting in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Muslim voters said it was on account of its winnability against the BJP.
'On February 12, National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ram Madhav tweeted in celebration – “US classifies India as developed nation” – drawing close to 13,000 likes... Had the ones who shared the Inshorts link bothered to open it, this is what they’d have read, “The US has classified India as a developed nation, eliminating the preferential treatment it received in countervailing duty investigations. This makes it easier for the US to penalise India if it harms US industries with unfairly subsidised exports.”...'
'If there is one social demographic that played the most significant role in ensuring AAP’s second consecutive landslide victory in Delhi, it is that of women. Not only did women electors this time nearly match their male counterparts when it came to voting, falling short by just 0.07 percentage points, they also ended up voting overwhelmingly in favour of AAP, far more than men did, disproving the long-held belief that women vote on the advice of their husbands or other male members of their family.
'Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar, on Friday denied calling Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal a terrorist... It may be recalled that on February 3, Javadekar had slammed Kejriwal and claimed that there was ample amount of proof against the AAP leader to prove that he was a terrorist. He had said, "He is making a very innocent face and asking whether he is a terrorist. There is sufficient proof that he is one. He has already called himself an anarchist and there is not much difference between an anarchist and a terrorist."...'
