'Exactly twenty years ago, on 20 March 2000, thirty-five Sikh men were massacred by armed assailants in Chitti Singhpora village in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district. Nearly everyone in the village recalls the evening in the exact same way: the assailants turned up at around 7:30 pm, lined the men up in front of the two central gurdwaras on the pretext of a routine ‘crackdown’, shot them dead, and disappeared into the night. Hidden amongst lush apple orchards, the village is hard to find, except for a yellow banner marking its entrance.
'Stoking yet another controversy, former Union minister and Bijapur City BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal questioned the credibility of freedom fighter H S Doreswamy. Speaking to mediapersons on Friday, Yatnal said, "It has been 72 years since the country got freedom. We do not know at what juncture Doreswamy was part of the freedom struggle. Has Doreswamy suffered as many lathi blows as Savarkar?" Yatnal questioned. The BJP leader had, recently, called Doreswamy a 'fake freedom fighter' and a 'Pakistani agent'. Relentless in his attack, Yatnal said he was not 'scared of anyone'...'
'The country is paying the price for its failure to send Muslims to Pakistan and bring Hindus to India after the Islamic state came into being at the time of Independence, Union minister Giriraj Singh has said, triggering a fresh controversy. The BJP leader made the remark in Purnea district in the Seemanchal region of Bihar which has a sizeable Muslim population and where the Begusarai MP was canvassing in favour of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act...'
'Former Union minister and BJP MP Anantkumar Hegde is once again in news -- for wrong reasons -- and this time for attacking Mahatma Gandhi, calling the freedom struggle led by him a "drama". He also asked how "such people" could come to be called 'Mahatma' in India. While addressing a public event in Bengaluru on Saturday, the Lok Sabha MP from Uttara Kannada said the entire freedom movement was "staged with the consent and support of the British". "None of these so-called leaders were beaten up by the cops even once. Their independence movement was one big drama.
'Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday made a reference to Harappan-era seals in her Budget speech, claiming one of them contained the word “sreni”. Social media users soon pointed out that the Harappan script had not yet been deciphered. Trade and commerce have existed in India since the Harappan civilisation, Sitharaman said in her speech to drive home the point how entrepreneurship has always been there in the country. She referred to the Indus Valley Civilisation as the “Saraswati Sindhu Civilisation”, and claimed that the word “Sreni [guilds]” was written on a Harappan seal.
'The Hindu Mahasabha on Friday announced that the organisation would felicitate the accused in Jamia firing case. The outfit further called the shooter "a true nationalist like Nathuram Godse". Hindu Mahasabha spokesperson Ashok Pandey said the organisation is "proud of the boy, who attempted to silence the anti-national activities on Jamia campus by giving the students there 'instant azadi'."...'
'“Those people from three neighbouring countries who belong to minority communities and have fled to India to escape persecution, have been provided a measure of help and relief by the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019; they have been shown some leniency. These concessions are not necessarily the outcome of Modi’s thinking. It is not that the idea materialised in Modi’s mind overnight and Modi made it happen. These concessions conform to the very spirit of Gandhi’s thought.
'An FIR was filed against Magsaysay Award winner and human rights activist Sandeep Pandey for allegedly making inappropriate comments against Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar during his speech at the Aligarh Muslim University. On Tuesday, national vice president of Hindu Mahasabha Rajiv Kumar filed a complaint alleging that Pandey made the comments while addressing anti-citizenship law protestors at AMU on Sunday, police said.
'Historian Irfan Habib was slapped with a notice by an Aligarh Civil Court advocate for taking a jibe at the Prime Minister during a speech at the Aligarh Muslim University, calling him “illiterate”.
'West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, while addressing a science and engineering fair in Kolkata on Tuesday, said that mythological character Arjuna’s arrows had nuclear power and chariots mentioned in the Mahabharata actually flew. He immediately drew flak from scientists and scholars. “In Mahabharata, we had a situation where Sanjay narrated everything and not from the field (the battle between the Pandavas and Kauravas).
