'The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has taken cognizance of the "indecent" remarks made by Haryana's Health Minister Anil Vij against IPS officer Sangeeta Kalia and has sought a report from the state Chief Secretary in the matter. Slamming Vij's "get out" remarks against the woman officer, the Commission's member Ishwar Singh said on Saturday that he has sought a report from the Haryana government within a week.
'Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday continued his campaign against state governor PB Acharya, and shot off a letter to the President, requesting him to immediately replace him because of “making no distinction between his constitutional functioning as Governor of a state and his political and ideological instincts.” Acharya had also converted the Guwahati Raj Bhavan into an annexe of the BJP office, he alleged.
'...Parliament has lost its importance. While Modi described Parliament as the “temple of democracy”, he has, so far, not attended as many of its meetings per year as his predecessors. Instead of promoting inside Parliament the bills he needs passed, Modi has resorted to more ordinances than recent governments. In one year, he has issued about 14 ordinances. In contrast, UPA 2 issued only 25 ordinances (four per year). This is not only because of the NDA’s lack of a majority in the Rajya Sabha.
'HRD minister Smriti Irani recommended over 5,000 requests for admission to the Central government-run Kendriya Vidyalaya chain of schools in the current academic year, a more than four-fold jump from quota levels of her predecessors. Of the admissions recommended by the minister, some 3,000 were finally effected after the others apparently opted out on some account or the other... The KVS administration is said to be looking into why only 3,000 of the 5,000-odd admissions recommended by the minister materialised. The HRD ministry did not respond to emailed queries on the matter...
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be accused of many things, but not of inconsistency. When he finally spoke about the Dadri lynching — in which a Muslim resident of western Uttar Pradesh, Mohammed Akhlaq, was murdered by a mob on the suspicion that he possessed beef — he essentially repeated what he had said from the ramparts of Red Fort in 2015: let people of different religions fight poverty together, and not each other.
"The BJP's battle for Bihar just got murkier with the party's own lawmaker and former Home Secretary RK Singh alleging that money has changed hands for tickets. "They are giving tickets to criminals. How will they give a clean government? This is injustice to the people of Bihar. Some people have sold tickets to criminals. Many BJP workers are angry over seat distribution," Mr Singh said in Patna today. "When the tickets were distributed, I called Sushil Kumar Modi, but he did not receive my call," he added.
"The exit of Mahesh Rangarajan as director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) raises uncomfortable questions about the government’s role in appointments at the highest level in institutions that have been central to the intellectual life of the nation. The loudest question is: Why now? If the minister for culture finds the permanent appointment of Rangarajan by the previous regime “unethical and illegal” today, it must have been just as questionable when the Narendra Modi government took office in May 2014.
'A new draft National Encryption Policy put out by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology seeks to define the various encryption standards allowable on data originating from the country, and does so in its traditional ham-handed way. In an abridged version of the document, put out by DEITY, the department proposes some practices that effectively run counter to the philosophy of encryption – of data as well as devices.
"India recently witnessed a strange spectacle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet colleagues subjecting themselves to an intense scrutiny by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, the Hindu nationalist organization, regarding their ‘performance’ in office. Modi himself used to be an activist of the RSS. But an elaborate charade was kept so far that Modi was in command of the government.
"The recent three-day RSS baithak with the prime minister and his Cabinet subjecting themselves to scrutiny of the RSS is a reconfirmation that the BJP is nothing else but the political arm of the RSS. Legitimate questions arose on how ministers sworn under oath to our Constitution are reporting on advancing the RSS agenda of transforming the secular democratic Indian Republic into their version of a rabidly intolerant fascistic 'Hindu Rashtra'. These are being brushed aside by drawing parallels of ministers addressing industry associations.
