'A headmaster of a government primary school in Uttar Pradesh has been suspended after Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers complained that he was making students recite a “religious prayer,” reported Indian Express. The “prayer” in question is the iconic Urdu poem Lab pe aati hai gua, also known as Bachche ki dua, which was written in 1902 by Muhammad Iqbal, who also wrote Saare jahaan se achchha. The poem is frequently sung in schools across India and deals with the subject of god guiding one from darkness to light.
'On September 29, Tathagata Roy, retweeted a tweet with the headline, “Muslims rape 16-year-old Hindu girl, who begs them ‘Please leave me for your Allah’s sake’.” The original tweet was by Robert Spencer, the founder of the extremist Islamophobic propaganda blog, Jihad Watch, which based the news on a report by another propaganda website – one inspired by Hindutva – the Hindu Post. Roy’s Twitter timeline is replete with tweets of this nature: incendiary, hate-filled communal propaganda. Why are we talking about Roy?
'Maharashtra BJP unit on Tuesday said it will ask the party-led NDA government at the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. In its election manifesto, released by BJP working president J.P. Nadda along with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state party president Chandrakant Patil and Mumbai unit head Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the state unit also sought the honour for social reformers Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule, a party leader told PTI...'
'The Bharatiya Janata Party released its manifesto or “Sankalp Patra” for the Haryana elections on Sunday... The manifesto, which has 15 chapters and 248 points, has been termed by the BJP as its vision document for “The Haryana of My Dreams”. Khattar said the manifesto is in line with the principles of creating a “Ram rajya”... Since Haryana has earned the dubious distinction of becoming the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country at around 28%, the manifesto also makes promises for promoting industry and providing jobs to the youth...'
'The News Broadcasting Standards Authority has ordered the TV channel to air an apology at 10 pm on an issue pertaining to its #CongBharatMataClaim debate... Republic TV is supposed to tender an apology tonight at 10 for a broadcast from March this year. The issue pertains to a primetime debate, #CongBharatMataClaim, where the anchor Arnab Goswami, with the help of a panellist, Shantanu Gupta, cornered another panellist, Faheem Baig, into chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”...'
'This is the ‘desh badal raha hai (the country is changing)’ story in all its finery. It encompasses everything and makes no attempt to hide anything: communal tension, society’s attitude towards inter-community marriages, right-wing assertion on ‘deviant’ women, Beti Bachao-Sanskari Banao, the partisan attitude of the police and media, and the helplessness of the judiciary. Anjali Jain (22) met Ibrahim (34) at a college festival and fell in love. They got married in February 2018. Ibrahim was already married when he met Anjali, but estranged from his wife whom he subsequently divorced.
'On October 7, Times Now channel’s “India Upfront” programme claimed that the Congress was attempting to present a “counter-narrative to the RSS view of history” by circulating a 128-page booklet among its members. Few should have any objection to the idea of pushing back against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s majoritarian view of history, which, in many instances, involves grave misrepresentations of fact, deliberate distortions and, on occasion, complete fabrications.
'The shocking incident took place at the Silver Link Oyo hotel on Saturday morning when the man, a 31-year-old assistant professor from Udaipur tried to check in to his room. His companion, the Hindu woman was expected to join him later when she arrived from Delhi. He told Indian Express, “I had booked a room for two in the hotel through a travel app. I reached the hotel somewhere around 8-9 am. The receptionist then asked me about the other person who was to check in with me and I gave them my friend’s name, but to my shock I was told that ‘this is a problem.
'The police in Alwar, Rajasthan on Sunday (October 6) morning arrested two men for forcing a Muslim couple to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and harassing them. According to the Hindustan Times, the couple, from Haryana, was waiting at a bus stop in Alwar at 11:30 pm on Saturday when two men on a motorcycle stopped and harassed them. “According to the FIR, they forced the couple to chant Jai Shri Ram and one of the men flashed before the woman,” police said...'
'An FIR was lodged here on Thursday against nearly 50 celebrities, including Ramchandra Guha, Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching, police said... He said nearly 50 signatories of the letter were named as accused in his petition in which they allegedly “tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the Prime Minister” besides “supporting secessionist tendencies”...
