'The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has sent a notice to news agency Press Trust of India, asking it to pay more than Rs 84 crore as a penalty for alleged breaches at its office in New Delhi, reported IANS. The notice was sent by the Land and Development Office, which comes under the ministry, on July 7 but came to attention on Monday... The government’s notice to PTI comes two weeks after national broadcaster Prasar Bharati threatened to cancel its subscription of the news agency for its “anti-national coverage”. Prasar Bharati is among PTI’s biggest subscribers...'
'Social media can be used by a person just like a gun in his hand, observed the Supreme Court on Friday as it found favour with an order asking a Congress leader from Uttar Pradesh to stay away from social media for at least 18 months. The top court has decided to formulate guidelines on use of social media in criminal cases, especially in matters of bail. "What is wrong with an order asking you not to use social media? If a court can order an accused to stay away from a gun, it can similarly ask you to stay away from social media," said Chief Justice of India SA Bobde...'
'IN THE arms of a young girl, three years old, is another child that isn’t yet one. She struggles with his weight, slight as he is, trying to feed him out of a bottle. It is a burden that is heavy to bear. But the fight against hunger for children of the Musahari tola in Badbilla village of Bhagalpur has been a daily challenge. In this lockdown, that burden has only become heavier. A microcosm of Bihar, Bhagalpur is the focus of a month-long series by The Indian Express to understand the pandemic’s effects in smalltown India.
'On the same day that eight policemen were gunned down in Uttar Pradesh, two equally horrific incidents went unnoticed. First, four members of a family were murdered in Allahabad. Then, a 19-year-old Dalit girl and her father were murdered by her stalker, who belongs to the Thakur caste, days before her wedding. These are not isolated incidents, but part of a larger crime arc that would have been labelled ‘gunda raj’ if they had occurred under the governance of a lower-caste Chief Minister.
'What started off as a normal work day for 31-year-old Bennix, the owner of a mobile phone shop in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, turned out to be the starting point of a fatal ordeal. On Friday, June 19, around 8 pm, Bennix was in his shop near the Kamarajar statue in Sathankulam town when his friend rushed to him with the news that his father Jayaraj had been picked up by the police. Worried about his 58-year-old father, Bennix rushed to the Sathankulam police station only to be called in by the police officers there for an ‘inquiry’.
'...Initially isolated from the epidemic that has swamped the capital New Delhi and financial center Mumbai, rural areas were exposed when millions of migrant workers who lost their jobs in the cities when the government implemented a strict nationwide lockdown on March 25 went home. The states of Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh received the most number of returning laborers — now they are also witnessing the sharpest rise in new cases in the two weeks to June 8, according to internal government estimates seen by Bloomberg.
'Fifty-seven minor girls have tested positive for the novel coronavirus at a state-run children’s shelter home in Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, with five of them found to be pregnant and one HIV positive. Since the information was confirmed, the UP administration has gone into a frenzy, even as officials said the pregnancies began before the lockdown. The shelter home has been sealed, and its staff quarantined.
'The Delhi Police’s First Information Report into one the most controversial deaths in the 2020 Delhi Riots omits any reference to the police’s alleged role in the incident. 23-year-old Faizan died in February this year, days after he was violently assaulted by uniformed policemen and forced to sing the national anthem. A video of the incident sparked outrage after it went viral online and was also carried by several news outlets.
'Even as CM Rupani promotes Rajkot-based private company’s ‘breathing apparatus’, Gujarat’s largest Covid-19 hospital urgently seeks full-fledged ventilators from Centre. Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has not left his citadel in Gandhinagar and visited Ahmedabad, the worst-hit corona-affected city in the State. But Rupani did so on April 4 when he inaugurated Gujarat-made ventilators at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.
'Early on 9 May 2020, as the world stayed home to stay safe from the Covid-19 pandemic, the residents of Ratahara neighbourhood in central India’s Rewa city woke up to a loudspeaker telling them to leave their homes. They had one hour before their homes would be demolished, a man was saying on the loudspeaker.
