'With the BJP and the Centre coming in for intense criticism for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the party had begun a campaign asking people to give a missed call to a number to “register” their support for the controversial law. While reports said that the BJP IT cell would also “give a push” to the campaign on social media outlets, the strategy took a rather interesting turn, as it later emerged...
'On November 19, 2019, Union minister for tourism Prahlad Singh Patel told parliament that, effectively, there wasn’t any significant impact on tourism in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) on account of his government’s scrapping of Article 370 in August, and the prolonged lockdown, restrictions and detentions in the region since then...
'On January 2, several social media users shared a video and claimed that anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protesters burned pictures of Hindu gods during a rally. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra quote-tweeted one of the tweets that had shared the clip and wrote, “This video is shocking …how can any protest have a right to defile the tenets of Hinduism ..who gives them the right to burn the pictures of Hindu Gods & Goddesses ..why should any protest be an Anti-Hindu protest?? Is this is what the Congress & Communists promote?? #Shame“...
'On January 1, the Chennai Police Commissioner held a press conference about crime statistics – and when asked a question about the kolam protest in Besant Nagar, the top cop seemed well prepared with printed slides and a video on a projector. Answering the questions that many have been asking around why the protesters were detained for simply drawing kolams on the road, AK Viswanathan declared that the detention was not for the traditional art. “We did not give them permission for the Kolam protest but the arrest was not made for drawing kolams.
'Author Bhaavna Arora tweeted two images – a screenshot of an injured elderly man and a photo of an old man who can be seen pelting a stone – along with the message, “Chacha patharbaaji karega to kya khane ko milega? Biryani? (Uncle, if you pelt stones, what will you eat? Biryani?)”. Her tweet has garnered over 1,000 retweets... Another Twitter user Vivek posted the images and quipped, “Newton’s third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”... One more tweet, comparing the same two images, has garnered more than 1,000 retweets so far...
'A chargesheet has been filed against actor-turned-politician BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Gopi on Tuesday for alleged evasion of luxury car tax. Suresh Gopi is accused of using fake documents to get his luxury car registered in Puducherry in order to allegedly avoid the steep tax on luxury vehicles in Kerala. The chargesheet was filed by the Crime Branch in the Thiruvananthapuram court on Tuesday, soon after the MP got anticipatory bail in the case. If convicted, the BJP MP could face imprisonment up to seven years...'
'On December 28, BJP social media head Amit Malviya tweeted a video and claimed that it shows anti-CAA protesters in Lucknow raising ‘Pakistan zindabad’ slogans. Malviya wrote, “Since this is a season of pulling out old videos, here is one from Lucknow where anti-CAA protestors can be seen raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans… Damn!
'...The NPR, and the planned NRC it is linked to, are enormous data-gathering exercises, and will give the government access to personal information about everyone living in this country. This information can then potentially be used as the government (and therefor ruling party) pleases – whether to deny people citizenship, as many are afraid will happen, or to target voters in different areas based on demographic analysis. This, clearly, is the kind of data the Modi government likes. But there is plenty of data the ruling regime does not like.
'Lavasa had dissented against the EC's clean chit to Narendra Modi in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections... The Income Tax (I-T) department has once again brought election commissioner Ashok Lavasa under the scanner, this time alleging stamp duty evasion during the transfer of an apartment in Gurugram from Lavasa’s wife, Novel Lavasa, to his sister, Shakuntala Lavasa.
'As tends to happen whenever its policies are controversial and face some backlash, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has again tried to insist that its efforts are no different from those of the Congress-led regime that preceded it. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar this week adamantly said that the National Population Register update planned for next year – which many have pointed out that, despite denials, is the first step on the path to a National Register of Citizens – was simply a continuation of a policy that the previous government also implemented.
