' 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.
'... In 2014, soon after the BJP came to power at the centre, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had unceremoniously ousted Salian, an experienced special public prosecutor, from two high-profile investigations – the Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008. In 2016, Salian broke her silence and made an explosive revelation about the investigating agency’s alleged direction to her to “go soft” on the accused. When she refused to budge, she was shunted out without an explanation...
'The Gujarat high court on Friday acquitted former BJP minister Maya Kodnani in the Naroda Patiya massacre case. She had earlier been found guilty of conspiracy by a trial court in the massacre in which 97 Muslims were killed during the Gujarat riots...
'The founder and editor of Postcard News – a website accused of spreading fake news to further a communal agenda – is hoping to get a BJP ticket from Karnataka’s Moodabidri. Mahesh Vikram Hegde, the editor of the right-wing portal who was recently arrested by the Karnataka Central Crime Branch (CCB) recently, for allegedly spreading fake news and communally sensitive stories. He is currently out on bail in the case. State media convenor of BJP Yuva Morcha, Karnataka – Sandeep Ravi – confirmed to TNM that Mahesh Vikram Hegde is interested in contesting from Dakshina Kannada.
'The Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has decided to withdraw a rape and kidnapping case against former Union minister Chinmayanand, official sources said here today. A letter in this regard has been sent to the district administration on March 6 on behalf of the government, the sources said. Subsequently, the Shahjahanpur administration had on March 9 written to the prosecution officer of the case for its withdrawal.
'Over a thousand encounters in a year. That’s the record in Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh. Since March 2017, 49 persons have been killed in over 1,100 encounters, more than 370 have been injured and over 3,300 arrested across the State. Most of the incidents have taken place in districts close to the national capital such as Meerut, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Saharanpur, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad and Noida... The Opposition parties have not only criticised the encounters, calling them fake, but also questioned why most of the dead were Dalits, Muslims or members of Backward Classes.
'Education is perhaps society’s most critical responsibility. Educational institutions impart knowledge to students, lay emphasis on their physical well-being and prepare them for social challenges. But unfortunately, many educational institutions and teachers are not yet fully equipped to understand the mental health issues of students. Psychological concerns in children are on the rise, especially behavioural issues and suicides. 12 per cent of Indian students between the age of 4 and 16 suffer from psychiatric disorders.
'Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the distinction of being one of the top political leaders to have a massive following on Twitter. But, a recent study conducted by Twiplomacy revealed that a staggering 60 per cent of the BJP stalwart's Twitter followers were found to be fake. Twiplomacy, a digital platform which assists international organisations and governments to improve their digital strategy, claimed that 24,799,527 of Modi's 40,993,053 followers are fake ones while 16,191,426 are authentic ones...'
'Political watchers are divided over whether Sri Sri Ravishankar just had a foot-in-mouth moment or is playing a deeper political game on behalf of the ruling establishment in the run up to the next general election. Jumping into the Ayodhya quagmire, the godman-entrepreneur has decided that the contentious Babri Masjid/Ram Mandir dispute, that has raged for years since the 1980s and torn India apart, will escalate into a “civil war” unless it is resolved through an “out-of-court settlement”.
