'...Officials predicted that if all 171.3 million households participated, the loss of load could be 12,452 MW. The actual total demand drop recorded during the event turned out to be 31,089 MW – more than twice as high! This implies that in order to save the grid and keep voltages and line loads within permissible limits, engineers turned off select transmission lines. This in turn means large areas were without power before and during the event, and so compliance was not totally voluntary.
'On 30 March, Dr Harsh Vardhan, India’s health minister, chaired a meeting to review the nation’s COVID-19 testing strategy. While the Modi administration has been reluctant to expand testing, the novel coronavirus has marched away from India’s megacities, and emerging evidence suggests that testing gaps will hamstring efforts to contain hotspots in smaller cities and rural areas.
'In his new book, Sebastian & Sons, TM Krishna tells of Parlandu, the “greatest mrdangam maker ever”. Parlandu was Dalit, as all makers of the mrdangam, a percussion instrument made with cow hide which is integral to Carnatic music, are. He was employed by Vaidyanatha Ayyar and, later, by his legendary pupil, the revered Carnatic musician Palghat Mani Iyer. Both teacher and disciple, as almost all mrdangam players, were Brahmin.
'Those in quarantine in government facilities will soon get some reading material to keep them company. One of these will be a collection of speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We regularly distribute the copies of these speeches to various dignitaries, as well as to schools and colleges on various occasions,” said a source aware of the development. The source said these could also be distributed at all the quarantine centres across the country...'
'The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear a petition filed by social activist Harsh Manderseeking action against leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party for their hate speeches leading up to communal riots in Delhi until the matter of the activist’s allegedly derogatory comments about the judiciary are sorted out. “You made statements against the Supreme Court,” said Chief Justice of India SA Bobde. “We will not hear you now... If this is what Harsh Mander feels about the Supreme Court, then we will have to decide on that first.”...
'Malayalam channels Asianet News and MediaOne have been barred for 48 hours by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for their 'coverage of the Delhi riots'. Both the channels have been showing a black screen since 7.30 pm on Friday, March 6, when they were taken off air. The channels can resume broadcast only at 7.30 pm on March 8. The order from the Ministry alleges that Asianet News and MediaOne were provocative, could have incited violence, critical of police, sided with a particular community and showed those who supported the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in poor light.
'On February 27, Hindu nationalist blog OpIndia published a “ground report” on the riots in North East Delhi, claiming that a temple was “forcibly occupied” and “attacked” by “frenzied Islamist fundamentalists”. The article was shared by BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya, and retweeted by the Twitter handle of BJP Assam. R Jagannathan, the editorial director of Swarajya, also retweeted the piece. Newslaundry hit the ground to verify the claims made in the report, and they turned out to be false...'
'...Draupathi depicts the OBC reaction to Dalit politics. Anger drives the film – a sense of injustice over Dalits having gone too far just as elsewhere some Hindus feel Muslims have gone too far, egged on by political appeasement... Draupathi, the eponymous character, is a village activist. With strong convictions, she mounts campaigns against oil and gas projects and scorns corporates for ‘sucking’ out resources and cultural traditions.
'Academician and women’s rights activist Madhu Purnima Kishwar Tuesday tweeted a video of men in skull caps indulging in violence, in a veiled reference to last week’s communal riots in the national capital... The tweet has so far received over 5,200 retweets and 7,500 likes. Kishwar, chair professor in the Indian Council of Social Science Research who founded women’s journal Manushi in 1979, has over 2 million followers on Twitter... The video shared by Madhu Kishwar is not even from India. It shows events that occurred on 1 December 2018 in Bangladesh’s Gazipur...'
'The news of discovery of gold mines with 3,500 tonnes of gold reserve in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district first broke on the Feb 20th in regional papers. By February 22nd, 2020, the entire Indian media was abuzz with the news that Sonbhadra gold mines had gold deposits estimated to be around 3,350 tonnes and worth Rs 12 lakh crore, which is almost five times India’s current gold reserve.
