'The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear a petition filed by social activist Harsh Manderseeking action against leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party for their hate speeches leading up to communal riots in Delhi until the matter of the activist’s allegedly derogatory comments about the judiciary are sorted out. “You made statements against the Supreme Court,” said Chief Justice of India SA Bobde. “We will not hear you now... If this is what Harsh Mander feels about the Supreme Court, then we will have to decide on that first.”...
'Tamil Nadu’s opposition party DMK and AIADMK’s ally PMK have condemned the nomination of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) vice-chancellor M Jagadeesh Kumar as head of the Madras University vice-chancellor search panel. Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, who is also the chancellor of Madras University, has nominated Kumar as the incumbent vice-chancellor P Duraisamy’s three-year tenure is ending this May...'
'Vadodara Smart City Development Company, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC), withdrew Rs 265 crore from Yes Bank a day before the Reserve Bank imposed a moratorium, an official said on Friday. On Thursday, the RBI restricted withdrawals from Yes Bank to Rs 50,000 per depositor due to the private lender's precarious financial situation...'
'On February 27, Hindu nationalist blog OpIndia published a “ground report” on the riots in North East Delhi, claiming that a temple was “forcibly occupied” and “attacked” by “frenzied Islamist fundamentalists”. The article was shared by BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya, and retweeted by the Twitter handle of BJP Assam. R Jagannathan, the editorial director of Swarajya, also retweeted the piece. Newslaundry hit the ground to verify the claims made in the report, and they turned out to be false...'
'Academician and women’s rights activist Madhu Purnima Kishwar Tuesday tweeted a video of men in skull caps indulging in violence, in a veiled reference to last week’s communal riots in the national capital... The tweet has so far received over 5,200 retweets and 7,500 likes. Kishwar, chair professor in the Indian Council of Social Science Research who founded women’s journal Manushi in 1979, has over 2 million followers on Twitter... The video shared by Madhu Kishwar is not even from India. It shows events that occurred on 1 December 2018 in Bangladesh’s Gazipur...'
'On February 28, several social media users shared a 20-second video of a building engulfed in fire. The viral message blamed “Islamic jihad” for the incident and claimed that this occurred in Paris. “After burning India’s capital, the terrorist community has burnt the French capital as well. #IslamicJihad Now tell did the riots happen because of @KapilMishra_IND’s speech. There is only one solution #EconomicBoycott,” reads the message... Twitter user @Satynistha posted the viral video (archive link).
'Faizan, the 23-year-old Muslim man who was filmed as he was brutally assaulted by policemen who forced him to sing the national anthem between beatings, died after the Delhi Police illegally detained him for over 36 hours and denied him urgent medical attention, HuffPost India can establish. Since news of Faizan’s death was made public on February 28, the Delhi Police has sought to deflect responsibility by claiming they never took Faizan into custody...'
'...When reporters asked him about the incendiary slogan – “desh ke gaddaron ko...” he raised at a rally in Delhi, the Minister of State for Finance said, “You are lying. You people should first enhance your knowledge. Half-knowledge is dangerous. The matter is sub judice, so I am not commenting further.” At an election rally in Rithala, Thakur was caught on camera saying "desh ke gaddaron ko (the nation's traitors)", to which the crowd responded by chanting: "...goli maaro s****n ko (shoot them)"...'
'In 2016, it was mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy who raised eyebrows for hosting the biggest and fattest spread Bengaluru had seen for his daughter's multi-crore wedding. Four years on, it appears that Janardhana Reddy's clout will be given a run for its money by his close aide and Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister B Sriramulu who has set aside 9 days for the multi-crore wedding of his daughter Rakshita with Hyderabad-based industrialist Ravi Kumar.
'Truck drivers and fleet owners shell out around Rs 48,000 crore annually as bribes to traffic or highway police, besides personnel from the transport and tax departments, according to a study carried out across 10 major transport and transit hubs. Even local groups like “puja samitis” extort from truckers before allowing them to cross informal checkposts, with one-fourth of drivers paying cash to them...'
