'Two men affiliated to Hindutva supremacist outfits are among the six who have been arrested in Patna for the murder of Amir Hanzla (18), who had participated in an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) protest on December 21, 2019 called by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RLD), where Hanzla was seen with a tricolor in his hand. Hanzla worked at a bag stitching unit in the Phulwari Sharif area and his body was found ten days later on December 31, 2019.
'A video purportedly showing BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya threatening government officials went viral on social media here on Friday. In the video, apparently shot during a protest organised by the BJP in Residency area here on Friday afternoon, showed Vijayvargiya saying, "Our Sangh (RSS) leaders are (here), otherwise (we) would have set Indore on fire today." RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and other senior leaders are in the city since Thursday for an internal conclave of the organisation...'
'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 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.
'Narrating her ordeal, a girl said here on Wednesday that she and her sister were denied a passport by the concerned authorities citing that they look like Nepali. "When we went to the passport office at Chandigarh, they saw our faces and wrote that we are Nepali. They ask us to prove our nationality," said one of the sisters...'
'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 key social indices — no poverty, zero hunger, quality education, gender equality, sustainable consumption and production — Gujarat is at the bottom of the ladder while the undivided state of Jammu and Kashmir is among the performing states. On gender equality, Jammu and Kashmir is among the top performing states — in a league of three, the other two being Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. Jammu and Kashmir outperforms the other two by a notch with a score of 53 while Himachal scored 52 and Kerala 51...'
'Till three years ago, Rahima Begum, 24, from Dhubri spent her days by looking after her three children and making them learn the alphabets, while her husband was away for construction work. But now Rahima spends eight hours a day rolling beedi (tobacco in tendu leaf). Her three children — Salma, 9, Faruk, 5, and Suleman (4) — also join in, rolling one bundle of beedi after another in the backyard of her house in Gaspara village, along the Indo-Bangla border, 16 km from Dhubri town...
'“The enemy is not just on the other side of the border, but inside the house as well, living like a termite,” read a message that landed in the WhatsApp group of the Resident Welfare Association (RWA) of an East Delhi neighbourhood earlier this month.
“Termite” is the word that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah, now India’s Home Minister, had used to describe persons living without papers in the country in an election speech he gave in April.
'The contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) have led to a volatile situation nationwide. In Bihar’s Aurangabad, a brutal police crackdown has led to allegations of instances where Muslims were arbitrarily arrested... Video clips making rounds on social media have shown Bihar Police in Aurangabad town vandalising cars and bikes. Reports claim 45 men were arrested in Aurangabad town since December 21 in cases of stone pelting. It is alleged that many of them were innocent...
