"The newly elected Assam BJP MPs have issued an ultimatum to illegal immigrants to start leaving Assam voluntarily. Announcing to start the campaign to drive out illegal Bangladeshi migrants from his Jorhat constituency, BJP MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa said, “The campaign will be initiated by the youth wing of the party within next 15 days. In the first phase of the campaign, we will appeal to illegal immigrants to leave our land voluntarily in next 15 days.
"A Facebook profile in the name of 'Dharamveer Shree Sambhaji Maharaj' was noticed on Saturday night, carrying morphed pictures containing allegedly derogatory references to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Thackeray, Lord Ganesha and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj. There was an instant reaction and by the time the police machinery reacted, 12 buses were damaged at Chaphekar Chowk in Chinchwad by 9.30 pm. "The post spread like wildfire through WhatsApp. Rumourmongers took advantage of the situation and started spreading false alarms.
"The SC’s recent acquittal of five of the six accused in the Akshardham attack case, citing “gross violation of fundamental rights” by the lower courts and investigating agencies, exposes the dangerous nexus between the lower judiciary and government machinery... “Truth is stranger than fiction,” wrote the division bench of the Gujarat High Court in 2010, invoking Mark Twain to explain two letters recovered in perfect, unsoiled condition from the bullet-perforated and blood-soaked bodies of two fidayeens.
"The Badaun gang-rape explicitly portrays all that is rotten in India. It reveals the pernicious savagery women face as a daily reality. It highlights the peripheral position of individuals belonging to the lower castes... The Badaun gang-rape also re-emphasises the need for a dramatic shift in India’s policy-making and political landscape... The simple fact remains that the lack of toilets and poor sanitation facilities is one of the major reasons women face sexual assault and abuse across the country... The second is the need for institutional reforms, namely police reforms.
"...According to BBC Hindi, at least 193 buses in Pune City and around 200 buses in Kolhapur have been damaged by angry Shiv Sainiks protesting against photo- shopped pictures of Shivaji uploaded on Facebook. In Pune, Shiv Sainik miscreants pelted stones at mosques, and in Kolhapur a statue of singer Allah Dia Khan was broken.There is news of stone-pelting in Muslim areas of Basti Muhalla, Bindu Chowk, Mutton Market. This news has not been adequately covered and the hooliganism was ignored by the mainstream media.
"The aggravated sexual assault and brutal murder of two young dalit girls in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, on Wednesday fills us with anger, raging grief and a deep sense of failure. It is so easy to spirit girls away, like the two cousins were; so routine and everyday to torture them in unimaginable ways; and yet so easy to proclaim that India has moved beyond caste. ..."
"How close a grip will PM Narendra Modi keep on the Indian government? Will it be run as it was in Gujarat, where many things were almost totally controlled by Mr Modi as CM?..."
"Angry Shiv Sainiks took to the streets in Pune around 9 pm after derogatory images of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray appeared on social media on Saturday. Sena leaders gheraoed Home Minister RR Patil who promised to speak to Facebook and Google to remove objectionable content in 24 hours..."
"As journalists, academics and other pundits scramble to make sense of the just concluded elections to the Indian parliament, one can discern a few broad strands of opinion... In this brief essay, I would like to assess the significance of these elections from a slightly different tangent, one that arguably eludes all of the outlined positions. I pose these questions: what does it mean for an openly religious party to achieve a clear majority in our national Parliament? What does that mean for our ideas of nationhood, and our desired futures?
