'A 24-year-old man was killed in his village in the Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu amidst the nationwide lockdown for allegedly marrying outside his caste. According to a report in the Frontline, M. Sudhakar from the Morappan Thangal village belonged to the Oddar caste and had returned to his village from Chennai after the lockdown owing to fears surrounding the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. After returning to his village, he attempted to meet his wife which angered the women’s parents and relatives...'
'Even as the total number of the people testing positive for COVID-19 rose to 335 in Uttar Pradesh (UP) , in the first such case all over the country, a Dalit youth committed suicide on Wednesday after he was allegedly beaten up by the UP police for breaking quarantine rules. A resident of Fariya Pipariya village which falls in Lakhimpur district, the Dalit youth, Roshan Lal worked as a daily wage worker in Gurugam...'
'Sale of cow urine has picked up in Gujarat as belief that it has immunity boosting property gains ground in the state amid the coronavirus outbreak. Vallabh Kathiria, chairman of Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog, told ET that consumption of goumutra (cow urine) and goumutra ark, or condensed cow urine, in the state has risen significantly after the coronavirus outbreak to about 6,000 litres a day. Cow urine has long been promoted by cow entrepreneurs as a panacea for a myriad of ailments.
'Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday asked people to read the Bhagavad Gita for half an hour every day over the remaining lockdown period, triggering fears that such advice could alienate sections of the society... This wasn’t the first time Kejriwal had resorted to religion in recent times. Ahead of the Delhi elections last month, he had invoked Hanuman — a popular deity especially in North India — in what appeared to be an attempt to undercut the BJP’s narrative of projecting the AAP as anti-Hindu for its opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act...'
'Of the scores of horrific video clips in circulation of the anti-Muslim violence that engulfed large parts of North East Delhi a month ago, one piece of mobile-phone footage has been indelibly seared into our collective memories. Even a country habituated to seeing Muslim victims of lynchings being filmed by their attackers was stunned at the sight of the assailants in this video – men in police uniform... A month later there has been no investigation, no explanations offered by police, leave alone starting an inquiry that would hold the assailants accountable.
'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.
'On March 21, Ashok Gehlot became the first chief minister to announce a lockdown in India, stopping all movement within and into Rajasthan. Three days earlier, three doctors and as many nurses at a private hospital in Bhilwara, a city in southeastern Rajasthan, had tested positive for coronavirus. The Brijesh Bangar Memorial Hospital is one of the region’s largest multispecialty hospitals. In the weeks before the medical staff started showing symptoms, they had met at least 6,192 patients from 13 of the state’s districts and 39 patients from outside Rajasthan.
'In the past week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in every speech he made, stressed on the importance of staying home right now. Given the urgency to curtail the spread of coronavirus in the country, PM Modi said, “Ghar main rahiye, ghar main rahiye, ghar main rahiye (stay home, stay home, stay home).” A similar message was repeatedly broadcasted by Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in his daily video bulletins. “Ghari raaha, surakshit raaha (stay home, stay safe)” was how he ended each of his speeches.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a complete lockdown of the country for a period of twenty-one days. All work, except that of essential service providers, is to be stopped. Daily wage workers nationwide are suffering under the lockdown because of the nature of their work. Hunger and poverty are looming over their heads. The prime minister’s Lok Sabha constituency, Varanasi, is no exception. On Wednesday, a group of children were seen sitting cross-legged and eating grass, called “akri” in the local language.
'Ardra Narayanan, a student-activist in Bengaluru who was arrested by Bengaluru police for holding a “Muslim, Kashmiri, Bahujan, Adivasi, Trans liberation now” placard a month ago, was released on bail on Tuesday after a month.
