"A four-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator and former state minister from communally sensitive Akola takes pride in calling himself the original campaigner against "Love Jihad". In all seriousness, Govardhan Sharma, 59, says no interaction should be allowed between Hindu girls and Muslim boys; girls should not be allowed the use of mobile phones and should have a stricter dress code. Worse, Hindu women should not be allowed to go grocery shopping. Sharma's efforts have yielded political dividends. Akola is seen as the BJP's safest seat in the district.
"After winning the Delhi University Students' Union polls, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has started a campaign to dissuade students from live-in relationships. The live-in-relationships are against the institution of family, the student union's national secretary was quoted as telling a newspaper. "Such relationships hardly succeed. We will form group of students in all colleges in DU to create awareness against such relationships," Rohit Chahal told The Indian Express.
"The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has decided to form vigilante groups in all major student campuses to “keep a watch on Muslim youths who try to lure Hindu women to pursue their agenda of love jihad.” This was announced at the end of the two-day national meeting, titled “Girls — India’s Real Leaders”, held by the BJP’s students’ wing. The ABVP will run a “general awareness” campaign on women’s safety, female foeticide and other issues.
"An influential committee of vaishyas in Uttar Pradesh has asked school girls from the community to stop using cell phones to save themselves from falling prey to "love jihad". In what is perhaps a first for an urban association with such reach and influence, the Akhil Bharitiya Vaishya Ekta Parishad (ABVEP), a committee of vaishyas (mostly traders by caste), has decided to ban the use of mobile phones by school-going girls and teenagers, staring with Agra..."
"Well before Narendra Modi’s advent, before his acolyte Manohar Parrikar could become chief minister in 1994, Hindu fundamentalists have viewed Goa’s Catholics as an impediment to their larger aim of ‘Bharat’ becoming a ‘Hindu nation’. Thanks to the asinine comments of Goa’s PWD minister Sudhin Dhavalikar urging bikinis be banned and pubs closed down, it helps to revisit extremist fears—to see, if nothing else, whether women visitors to the beach will choose to show him a thing or two.
"Karnataka high court Justice Ashok B Hinchigeri has struck down the part of Rule-11(1) of the Karnataka Excise Licences (General Conditions) Rules 1967 banning dance as a form of entertainment in error petition filed by a restaurant in Domlur and two professional female dancers, reported the Times of India.
"A morphed photo of a Goa minister in a pink swimsuit, posted on Facebook, has provoked a First Information Report (FIR), the first step in the filing of formal charges, against a man from Goa who lives in America. The photo, which was posted on Facebook last week, has gone viral. The minister featured in the photo is Sudin Dhavalikar, who heads the Public Works Department and recently declared that bikinis should be banned on Goa's beaches. Other advice from him included "Young girls wearing short skirts in nightclubs are a threat to the Goan culture.
"Pramod Muthalik of the infamous Sri Ram Sene and Sudin Dhavalikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Goa’s public works department minister, are not the first to be worried about skirt lengths in Goa. Goa’s parish priests have also had anxious moments, not just over skirts but also revealing wedding dresses... But even anxious parish priests would be startled to hear Dhavalikar argue that skirts were against Goan culture, given that for even the most demure and devout Catholic ladies, ranging in age anywhere between eight and 85, skirts that stop one inch above the knee or five inches below it are de rigueur...
"... Public display of affection between two consenting adults is frowned upon—think of the police officer in Uttar Pradesh who humiliated couples in public parks even if they had broken no law; of senior police officials warning women not to wear revealing clothes; of hooligans attacking women who go to pubs; of Samajwadi Party leaders who make light of sexual violence and rape, by saying “boys will be boys”; and of Trinamool Congress MP Tapas Pal’s callous call to his activists to rape women cadres of the Communist Party. (He has since apologized).
"A senior minister in Goa's BJP-led government, Sudin Dhavalikar, has said women should not wear bikinis in beaches "for their own safety", and "girls in short skirts visiting pubs" is against the culture of the popular beach destination... Mr Dhavalikar, a member of BJP ally Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, had provoked sharp criticism after suggesting on Monday that "young girls going to pubs in short dresses is against our culture." When NDTV asked him to clarify, he not just defended the comment but went a step further.
