'Cracking down on protesters in an unusual manner, the Uttar Pradesh police officials reportedly snatched the blankets, utensils and food items of residents demonstrating against the amended Citizenship Act near the Clock Tower in Lucknow's old quarters. Miffed by the action, several took to Twitter to post videos and photos of the incident on Saturday. The posts soon started circulating on social media with '#KAMBALCHOR_UPPOLICE' becoming one of the top trends on Twitter...'
'Amidst the ongoing controversy over the collection of Aadhaar numbers during the process of updating the National Population Register (NPR), the Union home ministry on Thursday insisted the government would not force people to submit their Aadhaar credentials to official enumerators. However, official documents show that the ministry wanted mandatory collection of Aadhaar numbers to be an essential part of the NPR exercise.
'The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a criminal case against Adani Enterprises Ltd for colluding with officials of the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation (NCCF) to unfairly win a contract for supplying coal to an Andhra Pradesh government-owned company. The agency named former NCCF chairman Virender Singh, its then managing director G.P. Gupta and former senior adviser S.C. Singhal in the first information report (FIR). Adani Enterprises and the NCCF officials were booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act...'
Davinder Singh is a man with a past. He is a self-confessed torturer. Most famously, he tortured Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013 for the 2001 Parliament Attack. Singh's own words during a subsequent interview suggest that he probably tortured many others - this was essentially his job in the SOG (special operations group) at the time. Apart from torture, he was also accused of being directly involved in terrorism. In 2004 Afzal Guru had, in writing, accused Davinder Singh of making arrangements for the parliament attack, specifically of tasking him with taking one of the attackers to Delhi and arranging his accommodation. Remarkably, Singh's possible involvement in such a major terrorist atrocity was not investigated following this accusation.
'NCRB data show fake notes of Rs 2,000 entered the market days after PM Narendra Modi's demonetisation announcement. Today they are the biggest contributors to the value of seized counterfeit currency in India... While Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 banknotes were banned overnight, the government introduced new banknotes with denominations of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500. It said these banknotes have additional security features which would make them difficult to be copied by counterfeiters, hence check the menace of fake currency...
'The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deny or prove his alleged statement that top pharmaceutical companies bribed doctors with women escorts. The country’s largest doctors body demanded that the PM should apologise if he fails to do so. “Reports have appeared in the media regarding the purported statement by Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi that top pharmaceutical companies bribed doctors with women escorts. IMA takes strong exception to the statement if it has been really made by the Prime Minister,” a media release from IMA said...'
'A publisher-cum-author was evicted from his rented stall at the ongoing 43rd Chennai Book Fair by The Booksellers’ and Publishers’ Association of South India (BAPASI) for “violating rules and displaying for sale a controversial book against the government”. On Sunday, the police arrested V. Anbazhagan, who wrote a book on alleged corruption in the Chennai Corporation’s Smart City project, on charges of criminally intimidating office-bearers of BAPASI on Saturday when the eviction notice was served on him...'
'On January 10, India Today broadcast a sting operation where first-year French degree program student at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Akshat Awasthi, confessed his involvement in the January 5 attack. Awasthi identified himself as an ABVP activist. India Today investigation revealed three names – Akshat Awasthi (ABVP activist), Rohit Shah, and Geeta Kumari (former JNUSU president and AISA activist) – who confessed the roles they played that fateful night.
'Two photographs of JNSU president Aishe Ghosh have been juxtaposed together to portray that she plastered different arms at different times. Thus suggesting that her injuries are fake. Ghosh was injured during violence in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) where masked goons attacked students on January 5-6. Shefali Vaidya was among those who made the allegation but later took it down... RSS-affiliated ABVP’s national organising secretary Ashish Chauhan also shared the images. His tweet, now deleted, was retweeted by Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale, in-charge of BJP’s foreign affairs department...
'If reality spoke for itself, Prasar Bharati would probably dispute it. On January 6, a day after mob violence in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, India's state broadcaster spun a blatantly false angle on it. This was fact-checked by AltNews, but Prasar Bharati would not back down... In short, the state broadcaster of India — itself borne out of the fears around autonomy following ruthless state propaganda during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency regime — is now peddling demonstrably false information online. Unsurprisingly, this information suits the position of the current establishment.
