'Nearly two months after Cobrapost first reported how some media houses were prepared to strike business deals to promote the Hindutva agenda and help polarise voters in the run up to the 2019 elections, the website has released a second batch of video recordings shot surreptitiously by an undercover reporter that shows managers and owners of some of the largest newspapers and TV channels succumbing to the same package of Hindutva advertorials.
'In response to an RTI application filed by economist and activist Prasenjit Bose, the Reserve Bank of India has now confirmed that in the last four years of the Modi Government, loan frauds have amounted to a whopping ₹55,000 crore more than in the previous five years of UPA-II under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Expressing his shock and dismay, Bose said, “Where are the investigating agencies? How many fraudsters have been arrested and prosecuted for their crimes?
'Vigilantism is flourishing in India, unabated. Mobile footage of civilians beating, kicking, flogging crime suspects, the weak and the vulnerable alike has now become a regular feature on television rundowns. The latest in the series of horrific lynch-attack videos have emerged from prime minister Narendra Modi's Gujarat. A man is bound by his waist with a rope looped through the handlebar of a door. Its other end is held by one of his four attackers. He howls in pain as two men take turns to whip him with a PVC stick.
'...Pathalgadi, which means “erecting a stone” in the local Mundari language, has been a tradition with the Mundas of Jharkhand for hundreds of years. In the tradition, pathar or stones are erected to notify, mark or demarcate important spots such as boundaries, homes, land, forests, and graveyards. The Adivasi community also erects similar stone slabs in honour of their dead.
'On the political front, the BJP is showcasing its inclusive character; however, in the social sphere, the right wing is using anti-Dalit sentiments to consolidate its political base.
'When it comes to the bureaucracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed all his favourite loyalists in plum posts, sometimes even giving the services rule book a go-by. Meet the 'Gujarat-Modified officials'... One pronounced characteristic of the Narendra Modi government is its excessive dependence on Gujarat cadre officials who hold key positions at various levels in important central ministries. Prime Minister Modi also believes that the Gujarat cadre officials who have worked with him in the past are a special tribe in the all-India services like the IAS.
'The “disease” of waiting for children to turn 18 before getting them married has led to “love jihad”, a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA in Madhya Pradesh said on Saturday. To save their daughters from getting trapped, parents should fix their marriages early, Gopal Parmar told ANI. “Love jihad” is a term frequently used by Hindutva organisations to allege a conspiracy by Muslim men to marry women from other religions solely to convert them to Islam. Parmar said no one had heard of divorces when child marriages were in practice, The Indian Express reported.
'The controversial expansion of Vedanta’s 1,200 tonnes per day copper smelter in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu has been stayed by the high court on May 23 after at least 11 people protesting against the plant were shot dead by state police. The court has ordered that the company consult people before building the plant – something the company claimed it was legally not required to do. Vedanta claims it had legally got an environmental clearance from the Union government to expand the smelter to double the capacity without consulting people.
' In 2013, the Karnataka government handed over cases of illegal export of iron ore mined from its state to the CBI. Among the accused were the powerful Reddy brothers of Ballari, candidates and top campaigners for the BJP. The charges pertained to the illegal export of ore worth Rs12,000 crore from 9 ports spread across 4 states. Four years later, as the Karnataka elections neared, the CBI began to close the cases in state after state, citing technical reasons, documents reviewed by NDTV reveal.
'A friend WhatsApped Mudassir Rana a meme as he browsed through his phone over lunch one afternoon in October 2016. Rana shared it on Facebook without comment. Next evening, there was a knock on his door. It was the police. Mudassir Rana, the owner of a school in Sardhana, Uttar Pradesh, was under arrest. His crime was his Facebook post: a cartoonish illustration of the faces of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rashritya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, and several ministers of the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party, depicted as the ten heads of Ravan.
