'India’s thriving metropolitan cities are also some of the world’s most unequal. Three Indian cities – capital Delhi, financial centre Mumbai, and tech hub Bengaluru – came lowest in a ranking of global cities in terms of inclusivity and equality in The Prosperity and Inclusion City Seal and Awards index. The ranking, which has been compiled for the first time, measures the holistic development of major global cities based on factors such as the affordability of housing, access to education and healthcare, and GDP per capita.
'The February 2002 Sabarmati train fire, which killed 59 kar sevaks and triggered large-scale riots, was part of a "conspiracy" hatched by Congress's elected members from Godhra, according to a reference book on political history of Gujarat published by a state board... The book, titled ''Gujarat Ni Rajkiya Gatha'' (Political Saga of Gujarat) and published in December 2018, is edited by Bhavnaben Dave, a former BJP MP and current vice-chairperson of the board... "To destabilise a stable government, a conspiracy was hatched on February 27, 2002.
'Though the Ministry of Finance had thought about sharing details of the electoral bond scheme with political parties and seeking the public’s comments on it, the idea was dropped after a presentation before the prime minister on August 21, 2017... RTI activist Bharadwaj says it is apparent that during the meeting with the prime minister, the decision to not consult political parties and not circulate the draft scheme to all national and state parties with a 15-day window to seek their comments was taken.
'NCP leader Ajit Pawar sparked alarm, controversy and furious debate in Maharashtra this morning after leading his party in support of the BJP in its bid to retain power in Maharashtra. Mr Pawar, who was last month named by the Enforcement Directorate in the Rs. 25,000-crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank Ltd. scam, was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister. Seconds earlier the BJP's Devendra Fadnavis, whose government had repeatedly attacked Ajit Pawar over alleged corruption charges, had been sworn in as Chief Minister for a second term.
'In the early hours of Saturday, when the people of Maharashtra were fast asleep, the country awoke to strife and unfreedom. News of the death of democracy – the tearing up of constitutional norms – was broken by the executioner-in-chief, Narendra Modi, through his preferred medium, Twitter. Curiously, the morning newspapers had all led with the headline that the Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray was going to be Maharashtra chief minister.
'The controversy over electoral bonds has resurfaced, this time after a five-part investigative series by Nitin Sethi that was published in HuffPost India. The series alleged that the government lied, bent rules and repeatedly ignored objections raised by various stakeholders. To demand answers, the Congress protested at the Parliament’s Gandhi Statue on Friday/ The party’s MP’s have been demanding that the ruling BJP government — especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi — break the silence over the issue...
'Two men were lynched in West Bengal’s Coochbehar district Thursday for allegedly ferrying two stolen cows in a vehicle with no number plate, police said, adding that 13 people have been arrested so far. According to an officer probing the case, rumours of cows being stolen had been rife in the area of late...'
'Narmada Bachao Andolan activist Medha Patkar, who has been issued a show-cause notice by the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Mumbai, for allegedly not revealing criminal cases against her, said it’s an attempt to defame her. Patkar told ThePrint Friday that she has responded to the notice. “I was acquitted from all the cases before applying for a passport. The cases were not registered against me alone…in Barwani (a town in Madhya Pradesh) we were charged for violating Section 144 during a peaceful protest called ‘mook rally’ (silent rally).
'The Bhartiya Janta Party took a large donation from a company that is now being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for facilitating “terror funding,” financial declarations by the BJP itself reveal. RKW Developers Ltd, a company at the heart of a probe by the ED for carrying out transactions with and buying properties from the late Iqbal Memon alias Iqbal Mirchi – an accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts and a close aide of mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim – gave money to the ruling party, according to the BJP’s filings with the Election Commission.
'At the start of this month we asked the following question: Can the Indian government confirm it did not use WhatsApp spyware on Indians? We weren’t the only ones. A group of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists that had been targeted by the spyware, known as Pegasus, wrote to the government two weeks ago asking the same question. The matter was also brought up in the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology, despite an attempt to prevent a discussion by the Bharatiya Janata Party members. And Members of Parliament have put the question directly to the government...
