'Twenty-three years after it was banned following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the Bajrang Dal on December 6 this year renewed its pledge for a Ram temple at the mosque site. The anniversary of the demolition is technically a day of “valour” (Shaurya Diwas) for the Hindutva outfit. This year, however, Shaurya Diwas wasn’t subdued as in many past years. There were elaborate press releases and there was heightened activity on right-wing Twitter handles in support of a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya.
'...Modi's emphatic victory in the 2014 elections was widely attributed to his having focused on the agenda of economic modernization - that is to say, the need to nourish technological innovation, to make manufacturing viable again, to create better infrastructure, and to improve transparency and efficiency in government. Those loyal to the BJP and Hindutva had, of course, voted for him.
'Forensic analysis of bullet cartridges found at the scene of murder of Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi in Dharwad in August this year and comparison with cartridges recovered from the spots where communist leader Govind Pansare was killed in Kolhapur earlier this year, and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune in 2013, has provided evidence of the probable involvement of a common set of killers.
'From all accounts, Superintendent of Police Pankaj Choudhary played a stellar role in ensuring that three deliberately crafted incidents of violence in Nainwa and Khanpur in Bundi district, Rajasthan, didn’t turn into a bloody communal riot. Among the measures he took was to arrest 11 activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal.
'The judgment of the Supreme Court in the Raj Bala case deals a near fatal blow to the health of the Indian democracy. In essence, the court has held that those who have no formal education, those who have no “functioning toilet” and those who are in rural indebtedness cannot contest an election for the position of sarpanch. The judgment effectively disenfranchises – and it recognises this – 68% of Scheduled Caste women, 41% of Scheduled Caste men and over 50% of all women in Haryana from contesting a panchayat election.
'Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History is back, and how. Without any cuts, barely 20 months after it was withdrawn - not banned - from the market by its original publishers Penguin India.
'Bajrang Dal will observe the 23rd anniversary of the Babri mosque demolition on Sunday as “Shourya Divas” (Valour Day). While the organisation has been observing the day all these years, the context of the recent death of Ashok Singhal, leader of the VHP, its parent organisation, and the Sangh Parivar’s reiteration of its commitment to build a Ram temple as the “true” tribute to him, has made the event, otherwise “routine”, acquire greater symbolic importance...
'Welcoming RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks on construction of a Ram temple during his lifetime, the Shiv Sena Saturday said he should announce a date for its commencement, reported Press Trust of India. “We welcome the stand taken by Mohan Bhagwat on the issue. He should now announce a date for the commencement of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya to give an impetus to the issue….
'A day after Mohan Bhagwat said he was confident of seeing the Ram Temple built in his lifetime, the RSS chief, in a series of tweets on Thursday, urged society to prepare the ground for it. “The temple will be built within my lifetime… We need to plan it carefully… (we need) a good mix of ‘josh’ and ‘hosh’,” Bhagwat had said in Kolkata on Wednesday. While he said that the Ram Temple could be built anywhere, Bhagwat added that Ayodhya was the birthplace of Ram. “Just as terrorists attacked the twin towers of World Trade Centre in the US because it was their economic centre.
;Forget cuss words, now even the images of Indian goddesses have failed to make the cut in front of the Indian censor board. In the soon-to-be-released film Angry Indian Goddesses, amongst the 17 cuts that the Indian censor board wanted filmmakers to make, was the blurring of the images of two Indian goddesses -- a picture of Lakshmi in the credits, and later in the movie, a picture of Kali. Movie producer Gaurav Dhingra said that he had failed to make the cut in front of the revising committee.
