'Portions of the November 15 order of the Delhi High Court dismissing the bail plea of Congress leader P Chidambaram in the INX Media money laundering case, it has emerged, bear striking resemblance to both a previous High Court order as well as a Supreme Court decision on the bail plea of lawyer Rohit Tandon, arrested in several money laundering cases (he is currently out on bail).
'In what appears to be yet another case of the government punishing journalists for their critical writing, the Telangana police charged N. Venugopal, editor of Telugu monthly journal Veekshanam, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and The Telangana Public Security Act, among other stringent laws. Although he has not been arrested, he was booked as the seventh accused in a case of Maoist conspiracy against the state. Venugopal has been a severe critic of the majoritarian leanings of the Modi government as well as of the K.
'Before unveiling the electoral bonds scheme – which renders political funding more opaque and allows parties to receive unlimited amounts of money without having to disclose where it came from – the Narendra Modi government ignored the Reserve Bank of India’s recommendation not to go ahead with it, HuffPost India has reported. Four days before Arun Jaitley was to announce the scheme in his Budget speech of 2017, a tax official going through the documents realised that the change would require amendments to the Reserve Bank of India Act, Nithin Sethi reports.
[A profile of Delhi based lawyer and prolific social media hate-monger, Prashant Patel Umrao, admirer of Godse and Hitler. He has on multiple occasions called for genocide against Muslims with tweets like "Each and every Muslim has to be butchered. Every mosque has to be destroyed". Unsurprisingly, he has friends in the BJP rushing to his defense.]
'Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath knew about the case involving real estate giant Ansal Developers and there were "orders from above" to close the case, Uttar Pradesh Minister Swati Singh has purportedly told a state police officer, demanding that she close the case. The audio clip of the conversation, which was widely circulated, had landed the minister in hot water, with the Chief Minister asking the state police chief to submit a report on the matter within 24 hours. Yogi Adityanath had also summoned the minister...'
'The Press Council of India’s letter to the Andhra Pradesh government in the first week of November expressing concern about an order that allows the secretaries of all department to file defamation cases against journalists was an indication of the intense pressure faced by the state’s media. The letter has also served to draw attention to more direct, brutal attacks on journalists in the state. Over the past five months, there have been four attacks on journalists, one of whom died after an assault...'
'INDIA’S ECONOMY is “doing very well” and the indicators are visible — weddings are not being called off, and trains and airports are full, Union MoS for Railways Suresh Angadi said Friday. Responding to a question from The Indian Express on the state of the economy, Angadi said “common people are happy” but some are trying to “damage the name” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on this issue...'
'Nine-year-old Zoya* found herself answering a rather confounding question at her Delhi school recently: does her father make bombs at home? What led to the question? The classmate had seen a picture of Zoya’s father in her school diary, in which he has a beard. Things slowly got worse. Zoya’s classmates would often refuse to sit with her during lunch because they assumed that she was eating meat... Fathima still remembers the day her 11-year-old son Abdul came back from school and asked if being a Muslim was a ‘bad thing’. “He said he did not want to go back to school.
'A 37-year-old Dalit construction worker in Punjab’s Sangrur has died after he was beaten over a dispute earlier this month, reported The Tribune. On November 7, Jagmail Singh was tied to a pillar and beaten by four upper caste men. When he asked for water, he was forced to drink urine. Subsequently, he was admitted in a hospital in Chandigarh and both his legs had to be amputated to prevent the spread of infection as the injuries that he sustained were severe...'
'After deciding to invite top global giants to bid for stakes in two oil companies, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), the spectre of privatisation now looms over another major public sector unit -- Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). The Modi Government is planning to reduce its stake in the Indian Oil to below 51%, reported Business Standard.
