'In yet another step towards the Hindu right’s attempts to distance themselves from the published National Register of Citizens in Assam, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat said on Sunday that no Hindu would have to think about leaving the country even if their names were excluded from the citizens’ register.
'UK-based Taran Kaur Dhillon – popularly known by her rapper name ‘Hard Kaur’ – has been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including sedition for posts on social media sharply critical of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat... Kaur’s Facebook and Instagram pages feature posts referring to Adityanath as ‘rapeman’ and blaming the RSS for Hemant Karkare’s death.
'Selection of the Kota-Bundi MP, Om Birla for the post of the Lok Sabha speaker surprised many including MPs from the treasury bench. But what came as a real shocker is that the Lok Sabha secretariat - which is responsible for the maintenance of the Lok Sabha website - removed paragraphs mentioning Birla’s association with the BJP’s parent organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Ayodhya movement from his profile.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday defended his party’s decision to field Pragya Singh Thakur as its candidate from Bhopal, saying it was a symbolic response to those who falsely labelled the glorious Hindu civilisation as “terrorist”. Modi accused the Congress party for creating “false narratives” on saffron terror. However, there was a time when the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of Modi’s party, had tried to distance itself from the “activities” of Lt Col Prasad Srikant Purohit and his associates, which included Thakur.
'At 10 am on Saturday, two days after a suicide bomber tore into a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force in Kashmir, killing 41 soldiers, a group called “Clean the Nation” was created on Facebook by a man named Madhur Zucc Singh. Just hours before, Singh had posted a video on Facebook in which he is wearing a yellow t-shirt bearing the words “Indian Army” and the image of a man strapped to the front of a jeep as a human shield. “This is not the time to change your DP [display picture] or take out candle marches,” Singh said.
'Saddled with new school textbooks introduced in July 2016 that educationists criticised as narrow, sectarian and unscientific, some teachers in Rajasthan made an effort to limit the damage. Vakil Singh, former principal of Government Senior Secondary School in Kaliyan in Sri Ganganagar district, for instance, stocked the school library with magazines and other reading material for even the junior classes. He made weekly library visits mandatory for all children.
'On Tuesday, the Union government appointed S Gurumurthy as part-time, non-official director on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India. Gurumurthy is co-convener of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, an economic pressure group affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological parent – but has few other credentials that would call for association with the country’s central bank.
'A friend WhatsApped Mudassir Rana a meme as he browsed through his phone over lunch one afternoon in October 2016. Rana shared it on Facebook without comment. Next evening, there was a knock on his door. It was the police. Mudassir Rana, the owner of a school in Sardhana, Uttar Pradesh, was under arrest. His crime was his Facebook post: a cartoonish illustration of the faces of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rashritya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, and several ministers of the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party, depicted as the ten heads of Ravan.
'The West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights has taken suo motu cognisance of children carrying arms in processions organised during Ram Navami on Wednesday. Commission Chairperson Ananya Chatterjee told The Hindu that she had asked the District Child Protection Officer, Birbhum, to “send a report on the issue”. While the Commission has expressed concern only over the developments at Birbhum, similar rallies were organised in Durgapur in Bardhaman district, and Titagarh in the North 24 Paraganas district, among other places.
'On 29 December 2007, Sunil Joshi, a one-time member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was shot and killed near his home in the district of Dewas, in Madhya Pradesh. Nearly a decade later, in February 2017, eight people who were charged with his killing were acquitted of the crime. Joshi’s murder, it appeared, was destined to remain unsolved. The significance of the acquittals extended far beyond the case of Joshi’s killing.
