'For the past few years, countries like the United States and Britain have been gripped by allegations that Russia interfered in their elections. Even as that controversy is yet to die down, a new and rather unlikely candidate for election interference has emerged: India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. In the United Kingdom, the President of the Overseas Friends of the BJP, Kuldeep Singh Shekhawat has made it clear that his organisation will be playing an active part in the upcoming General Election by supporting the Conservatives over the left-leaning Labour Party...'
'A leaked report by the National Statistical Office (NSO), based on a consumption expenditure survey conducted by the organisation between July 2017 and June 2018, has shown a drop in consumer spending for the first time in more than four decades on weak rural demand, Business Standard reported on Friday, 15 November. However, hours after the newspaper report, the government said that the 2017-18 consumer spending survey won't be released due to "data quality issues.” It added that the government will release the next report in two years...'
'Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns a week-old wave of online threats and hate messages targeting this well-known Indian journalist and calls on the authorities to shed light on the possible complicity of members of the police force... It began when Rana Ayyub, who is nowadays a Washington Post columnist, posted a cryptic message on Twitter on 8 November about the ruling that India’s supreme court was due to issue the next day on a fraught 30-year-old dispute between Hindus and Muslims over a religious site in the northern city of Ayodhya.
'The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday conducted raids at the offices of Amnesty International India’s (AII) offices in Bengaluru and New Delhi. According to ANI, the CBI team is investigating the human rights organisation over alleged irregularities in the funds it obtained through the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Amnesty India, however, is contesting the charges and views these raids as “harassment” by the Union government...'
'Another shocking scoop from Business Standard showed that the Narendra Modi government did not release a report that showed economy in distress. India's consumer spending fell for the first time in four decades according to a survey approved for release in June 2019, but is yet to hit the public domain. This is the second time a similar allegation has been made against the government; another NSO survey on rising unemployment was held back from release by the government until the elections were over...'
'Cities in Uttar Pradesh may be topping the air pollution charts this season, but their police seem to have other priorities in mind. A tweet by a differently abled student to draw attention to an instance of stubble burning in his Bareilly neighbourhood backfired recently, with the local police inspector allegedly threatening to charge him under the National Security Act instead of acting on the complaint. Irshad Khan, a differently abled first-year law student, had tweeted on November 9 about a farmer in his neighbourhood burning crop stubble from his field in violation of the law.
'Republic TV and Zee News, among other channels, called the students ‘freeloaders’ for protesting against the steep fee hike... On November 11, Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami hosted a primetime segment on the “chaos and mayhem” created by students of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi “for a mere Rs 290 fee hike”. As the channel flashed the hashtag #JNUFreebies, he asked if “those who want to freeload forever” should be allowed to “hold a university and its administration to ransom”.
'Malegoan blast-accused and Member of Parliament from Bhopal constituency, Pragya Singh Thakur, yet again raked up a controversy by claiming that Nathuram Godse, assassin of M K Gandhi, was a patriot. When asked why she was missing from the 42-day long ‘Gandhi Sankalp Yatra’ organised by her own party (Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP) to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Thakur said on Wednesday that she believed in following the path shown by Gandhi ‘instead of publicising it’...'
'An EU non-profit group researching disinformation campaigns has said that the controversial European parliamentarians’ visit to Kashmir is linked to a network of fake local media networks and think-tanks across the world. Last month, the Indian government allowed a group of Members of European Parliament, a majority of whom were from far-right parties, to visit Kashmir for the first time since the state was put under lockdown following the reading down of Article 370...
'Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations next year...'
