"Sakshi Maharaj, the self-proclaimed godman and Bharatiya Janata Party politician, has been grabbing the headlines ever since he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao constituency. In the eight months since the election, he has claimed that madrasas teach students terrorism and "love jihad", called Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse a patriot, asked Hindu women to protect their religion by producing at least four children and declared that cow slaughter and conversion to Islam and Christianity would soon be punishable by death.
"The cover photo of the latest issue of Himalaya Dhwani, a magazine brought out by the women’s wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad called Durga Vahini, has gone viral for it features the morphed face of actress Kareena Kapoor Khan half covered with a ‘burqa’. A strap underneath reads, ‘dharmantaran se rashtraantaran’ meaning ‘conversion of nationality through religious conversion’. Durga Vahini has apparently launched a campaign to convert Hindu women who married Muslim men, claiming the ghar wapsi campaign must address ‘love jihad’.
"An Indian lawmaker with the ruling Hindu conservative party has claimed death sentences should be introduced for people who convert to other religions, in the last episode to fuel communal tensions since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year. Controversial MP Sakshi Maharaj, an outspoken member of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also told a religious gathering in Uttar Pradesh that each Hindu woman should mother four children in order to protect the predominance of India's largest religious group.
'Sangh hotheads just won't be reined in. Despite reservations from the BJP leadership at the centre, which had to recently face considerable flak in both houses of Parliament in the aftermath of the Agra conversion controversy, Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj has once again stirred a hornet's nest by saying all Hindu women must produce at least four children.
"The Gujarat High Court on Monday rejected the bail application of incarcerated self-styled godman Asaram Bapu in a rape case. Justice AJ Desai dismissed the plea in the case filed by a Surat-based woman in 2013. In July 2014, Asaram had sought bail on the ground that Gujarat Police had already filed a charge sheet... Two Surat-based sisters had lodged separate complaints against Asaram and his son Narayan Sai, accusing them of rape and illegal confinement, among other charges..."
"Raigarh in Chhattisgarh has elected the country’s first transgender mayor, nine months after a court ruled that transgender be recognised as a legal third gender, local media reported. Madhu Kinnar, 35, won the mayoral election in Raigarh on Sunday, beating her opponent from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by more than 4,500 votes, the Press Trust of India reported in a story published on the news web site Firstpost.com. Television images showed a sari-clad Kinnar, with a large red bindi on her forehead, greeting supporters who placed marigold garlands around her neck.
"The much touted "one stop crisis centre" — conceived in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case and the Justice Verma report — has been scrapped by the NDA government. The project worth about Rs 200 crore was expected to provide medical, legal, police and emergency services to women in distress. The women and child development (WCD) ministry, which was helming the project, had planned to set up the centres in every district of the country.
"Since August when news of allegedly murky activities involving the Ramachandrapura Mutt, a Brahmin religious centre in Shimoga, Karnataka, emerged, the story of its seer and a singer has unravelled like a potboiler. The saga began on August 27 this year when a former lead singer in Ramakatha programmes organised by the Ramachandrapura Mutt was arrested by the police along with her husband for allegedly demanding Rs 3 crore from chief pontiff Raghaveshwara Bharati to “suppress” her charges of sexual exploitation against him.
"In the first of its kind in India, youth in Kochi launched a campaign called ‘Kiss of Love’ to challenge the moral policing of the Hindu Right. While that protest was attacked by right wing thugs and suppressed by the police, this form of protest has since spread to different parts of the country like Hyderabad, Bombay and Calcutta. Today, the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest was held at nowhere short of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) head office in New Delhi.
"An accessories store owner in Mangalore, Zabeullah, was on Monday attacked by a gang when he was escorting one of his women employees home. She happened to be a Hindu and the attackers allegedly accused Zabeullah of being a 'love jihadist' as they assaulted him. The police have arrested six Bajrang Dal activists for the attack and identified them as Prasad (21), Arun (24), Rakshit (21), Praveen (26), Deepak (26) and Yuvaraj (23)... Coming to the defence of the six attackers, senior lawyer and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Jagadish Shenava told HT, "We don't believe in violence.
