'The journalist who wrote about members of the Musahar community eating grass in villages around the prime minister’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi has been served a notice by the district administration for spreading misinformation. Vijay Vineet, news editor of Jansandesh time, a 16-page newspaper which has five editions in the state, had filed a report with his colleague Manish Mishra about families in Koiripur village (Baragaon block) subsisting on the grass on March 26. The report was accompanied by pictures of children eating grass.
'A case that reeks of brazen abuse of power at a time when citizens are hard pressed to place full faith on the state machinery to contain the coronavirus pandemic has come to light in Uttar Pradesh. The Uttar Pradesh police arrested Dr. Ashish Mittal on March 23, 2020. At the time, chief minister Adityanath had already imposed a lockdown.
'To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. To the Indian Police, every situation can be solved with a bit of violence. That seems to be the dictum of police authorities around the country, as India enters Day 2 of the three-week lockdown announced on Tuesday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Pictures and videos have emerged from around the country of people being brutally hit by lathis, of doctors being assaulted and of vegetable vendors being slapped around and extorted for bribes...'
'A 32-year-old man in West Bengal’s Howrah went out to buy milk during the lockdown on Wednesday when he was beaten up by the police. He later passed away after the thrashing. His family has alleged he died of the injuries. The man has been identified as Lal Swami, a resident of Howrah, who stepped out of his residence to buy milk. His wife has alleged he faced police lathicharge when the personnel were clearing a gathering on the streets, reported ABP Ananda...'
'In his new book, Sebastian & Sons, TM Krishna tells of Parlandu, the “greatest mrdangam maker ever”. Parlandu was Dalit, as all makers of the mrdangam, a percussion instrument made with cow hide which is integral to Carnatic music, are. He was employed by Vaidyanatha Ayyar and, later, by his legendary pupil, the revered Carnatic musician Palghat Mani Iyer. Both teacher and disciple, as almost all mrdangam players, were Brahmin.
'Exactly a month ago, on February 20, a petite, young woman, Amulya Leona Noronha, got on to a stage filled with men and shouted “Pakistan Zindabad”. The event was part of the ongoing nationwide agitation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The slogan she shouted alarmed the men present — including All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi who was on the stage — so much that they tried to snatch the microphone away and prevent her from speaking another word.
'We should be deeply grateful to Justice Ranjan Gogoi. His conduct has disabused us of any illusions we might harbour about the legitimacy of the Indian Supreme Court. The government, in a brazen contravention of all propriety, has given him a nomination to the Rajya Sabha. He has been shameless enough to accept it. In doing so, he has not just cast doubt on his own judgement, character, and probity; he has dragged down the entire judiciary with him...'
'The senior bureaucrat tasked with laying the foundations for the Indian government’s controversial Social Registry warned that a centralised, cross-linked database of this scale could compromise the privacy and security of over a billion Indians, but his warnings were ignored, documents reviewed by HuffPost India establish... “I saw India was emerging as a police state. Strong police state. And my belief is very simple that for any country to develop, it should allow more freedom to the household sector and the businesses and impose less control,” Kumar said.
'The Press Council of India has taken suo motu cognizance of a story by The Telegraph for "projection" of the president of India "in a satirical manner" in a headline. It issued a show cause notice to the editor of the Telegraph. In a press release, the Press Council said "satirical comments ridiculing and denigrating the first citizen of the country is uncalled for and beyond the call of fair journalistic content"... Yesterday, the front page of the Telegraph mocked President Ram Nath Kovind's appointment of former chief justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, to the Rajya Sabha...'
'A district court lawyer in Kanpur was arrested on the charge of sedtion for retweeting a video of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and calling him a terrorist on Sunday. The man, Abdul Hannan, commented on a tweet by State Information Department’s Media Advisor Shalabh Mani Tripathi on Saturday. The tweet by Tripathi had a video of Adityanath’s Vidhan Sabha speech supporting cane charge on people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)...'
