Over the years, every so-called spontaneous attack on free expression has had the support of political groups... Violence is the weapon of choice of all self-styled defenders of faiths and ideas in India. This week’s example comes from Maharashtra, where offices of the Marathi newspaper Lokmat in Akola and Jalgaon were vandalised. The attackers, it seems, were upset by an illustration for an article in the newspaper’s Sunday edition about how the ISIS is funded.
'T Raja Singh Lodh, the BJP's party whip for Telangana and MLA from Goshamal, has said that he is ready to 'kill or get killed' to protect the 'Gau Mata' (cow). His outrage is in response to a planned beef festival at Osmania University, Hyderabad... Issuing a chilling threat to the festival organisers, Singh said, "We warn them against a Dadri-like incident in Telangana. We can both give our lives and take life for the sake of protecting the cow".
Notwithstanding popular perception, professional soldiers do not join the armed services out of overwhelming ‘patriotism’. They are in fact driven by the desire to get a job that offers material security for them and their family. It is predominantly their own livelihood needs that drives people to enlist.
'The BJP’s victory in the Lok Sabha election of 2014 was the result of a strategy that concentrated single-mindedly on building up Narendra Modi as a national leader who could salvage India from what the media projected as the mess created by the Congress Party during the previous three or four years. That regime was marred by corruption scandals and a pervasive sense that Manmohan Singh had failed to rein in corrupt ministers and allies.
'The Congress made a spectacular comeback in Gujarat on Wednesday, taking control of the rural local bodies in a stunning blow to the BJP in an election seen as a referendum on the ruling party’s state and central leadership. The setback to the BJP in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah’s home state comes barely weeks after the party suffered an embarrassing defeat in the assembly polls in Bihar.
'A family was evicted by fellow patrons at a cinema hall here on November 29 for allegedly not standing up when the national anthem was played. As per a State government order passed in 2003, cinema halls in Maharashtra are required to play the national anthem before the start of each movie. The incident came to light when a moviegoer in the same theatre (PVR Cinemas in the suburb of Kurla in central Mumbai) filmed the altercation and posted it on Twitter and Facebook, leading to an online uproar...
'On Saturday, senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram admitted that the ban on Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses was unjust. “I have no hesitation in saying that the ban on Salman Rushdie’s book was wrong,” he said. The proscription was imposed 27 years back, in 1988, when Chidambaram was the Minister of State Home Affairs in Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet. The novel had outraged conservative Muslim opinion when it was published.
'Madras High court on Tuesday directed Tamil Nadu Government and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department to implement dress code for devotees coming to offer worship in temples to enhance spiritual ambiance. Disposing a petition filed by one Rasu seeking police protection and permission for "Adal Paadal programme" (dance and music) at Sri Shenbaga Vinayagar temple in Tiruchirappalli district, Justice S Vaidyanathan said "we should dress for public worship in a way that is generally considered appropriate".
'A leading Marathi newspaper group, Lokmat's office was attacked in multiple places in Maharashtra. The copies of the Sunday edition of the newspaper were also burnt at several places because of a blasphemous cartoon which was published in Lokmat's supplement Manthan. The article titled 'ISIS cha Paisa' (ISIS' money) and its accompanying image irked the members of the Muslim community and hundreds of Muslims in Dhule, Nandurbar, Malegaon and other parts of Maharashtra staged various protests...'
'From relative anonymity to becoming the subject of a campaign to free him, Kovan, a small-town anti-liquor campaigner based in Trichy, Tamil Nadu is now being seen as a symbol of the state’s abuse of power against an individual.
