'Those in quarantine in government facilities will soon get some reading material to keep them company. One of these will be a collection of speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We regularly distribute the copies of these speeches to various dignitaries, as well as to schools and colleges on various occasions,” said a source aware of the development. The source said these could also be distributed at all the quarantine centres across the country...'
'Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has been nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha by President Ram Nath Kovind. A notification to this effect was issued by the Union home ministry on Monday... This is the first time that a government has nominated a CJI to the upper house and will raise questions about the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary, especially since Gogoi headed benches in key cases that the same government which has nominated him had important political stakes in.
'Three days after a gangrape case was registered in Bhadohi district against local BJP MLA Ravindranath Tripathi, his three sons and three nephews, the police on Saturday gave a clean chit to the MLA, two of his sons and two nephews, claiming that no evidence was found against them... However, the woman said on Saturday that she would “continue her fight”. “In the middle of the inquiry, the police have given them a clean chit… without hearing my side and completing the probe,” she said...'
'The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday announced that it had cleared former special director Rakesh Asthana and deputy superintendent of police Devender Kumar of bribery charges, The Hindu reported. Asthana and Devendra Kumar, along with middleman Manoj Prasad, were under the CBI lens for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore in exchange for a clean chit to Hyderabad-based businessman Sathish Babu Sana, who was being investigated in the Moin Qureshi corruption case. Qureshi is accused in multiple graft cases...'
'NCC cadets from institutes run by former Union minister Chinmayanand offered a salute to him and visitors at his ashram were served a special ''prasad'' after his release on bail from the district prison. Chinmayanand walked out of the prison on Wednesday, two days after being granted bail in the case in which he is accused of sexually abusing a law student. Chinmayanand's advocate Om Singh said NCC cadets saluted him when he visited Mumukshu Ashram...'
'Soaps, toothpastes, room fresheners, incense sticks, eye drops and pain-relieving oils and other products made from cow urine and cow dung are now on sale at the ongoing Magh Mela in Prayagraj. These products have been manufactured at a gaushala in Bithoor in Kanpur and among the best sellers are medicines for indigestion, arthritis, cataract, diabetes and lung infection.
'Amid nationwide protests against Citizenship Amendment Act in the country, taxi aggregator company Uber came under the scanner on Thursday after one of its drivers on overhearing a phone conversation of a passenger called the cops to "turn in" and denounced him as a "communist". CPI-ML member and activist Kavita Krishnan took to microblogging site Twitter, sharing screenshots of a conversation between her and poet Bappadittya Sarkar, who was the passenger during the incident. The poet, hailing from Jaipur, was in Mumbai as he was invited to read his work at the Kala Ghoda Festival...'
'The Allahabad High Court Monday granted bail to former union minister and BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand in the sexual harassment case filed against him by a law student, ANI reported. Chimayanand was arrested on September 21 last year after police booked him under sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
'The Karnataka police on Monday told the High Court of Karnataka that Swamy Nithyananda, who has absconded from India, was on a "spiritual tour". This was in response to the direction passed by the Court on January 31 to serve notice on Nithyananda in a petition seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in a rape case of 2010. Deputy Superintendent of Police, Balraj B, who is the investigating officer in the case, filed a report before the court stating that the notice issued on Friday was served on Kumari Archanananda, an aide of absconding accused.
'Caught up in the maelstrom of divisive politics, India is silently but surely sliding into an environmental abyss under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's watch. The latest EPI ( Environmental Performance Index) report released on the sidelines of the WEF conclave at Davos puts us at third from the bottom- at 177 out of 180 countries, a decline of 36 places since 2016 ( when we were at 141). We do even worse in the index of air quality, at 178 out of 180.
