'A headmaster of a government primary school in Uttar Pradesh has been suspended after Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers complained that he was making students recite a “religious prayer,” reported Indian Express. The “prayer” in question is the iconic Urdu poem Lab pe aati hai gua, also known as Bachche ki dua, which was written in 1902 by Muhammad Iqbal, who also wrote Saare jahaan se achchha. The poem is frequently sung in schools across India and deals with the subject of god guiding one from darkness to light.
'India has slipped to 102 position in the Global Hunger Index 2019 of 117 countries, behind its neighbours Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Seventeen countries, including Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI scores of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index that tracks hunger and malnutrition said on Wednesday. The report, prepared jointly by Irish aid agency, Concern Worldwide, and German organisation, Welt Hunger Hilfe termed the level of hunger in India "serious". In 2000, India was ranked 83 out of 113 countries.
'Ideally, the 14th convention on the RTI, on October 12, where Central and state commissioners were present, should have resolved against the amendment which reduces their collective independence. However, I am surprised that even non-bureaucrat commissioners also did not raise their voice against it. The least a convention of commissioners could have done was to ask for information on the status of commissioners themselves. But do information commissioners have the right to information on the status of commissioners?
'On September 29, Tathagata Roy, retweeted a tweet with the headline, “Muslims rape 16-year-old Hindu girl, who begs them ‘Please leave me for your Allah’s sake’.” The original tweet was by Robert Spencer, the founder of the extremist Islamophobic propaganda blog, Jihad Watch, which based the news on a report by another propaganda website – one inspired by Hindutva – the Hindu Post. Roy’s Twitter timeline is replete with tweets of this nature: incendiary, hate-filled communal propaganda. Why are we talking about Roy?
'Maharashtra BJP unit on Tuesday said it will ask the party-led NDA government at the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. In its election manifesto, released by BJP working president J.P. Nadda along with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state party president Chandrakant Patil and Mumbai unit head Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the state unit also sought the honour for social reformers Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule, a party leader told PTI...'
'The expulsion of six students of a Wardha-based university for organising a function without permission on campus and writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over contentious issues like mob-lynching and rape cases against political leaders was revoked on Sunday. The students, from Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya (MGAHV), were expelled on October 9 after varsity officials accused them of violating the code of conduct which is in force throughout the state for the October 21 Assembly polls...'
'Only 2.2% of children under the age of two years in Maharashtra receive the minimum acceptable diet, according to the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) 2016-2018 that was published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare earlier this week. According to the survey, the proportion of children between 6 months and 2 years of age receiving the minimum acceptable diet across the country is shockingly low, at just 6.4%. However, this proportion varied greatly across various states.
'On October 7, Times Now channel’s “India Upfront” programme claimed that the Congress was attempting to present a “counter-narrative to the RSS view of history” by circulating a 128-page booklet among its members. Few should have any objection to the idea of pushing back against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s majoritarian view of history, which, in many instances, involves grave misrepresentations of fact, deliberate distortions and, on occasion, complete fabrications.
'In yet another case of crackdown on dissent in academic institutions, six students of the Mahatma Gandhi Antarastriya Hindi Viswavidyalaya (MGAHV), Wardha (Maharashtra), have been reportedly been sent suspension letters for allegedly violating university orders. All the six belong to socially marginalised sections of the society, So, what was their crime and what order did they violate?
'Naveen Dayal, one of the two accused in the near fatal attack on former JNU scholar, Umar Khalid last year, has been given a Shiv Sena ticket for the upcoming state polls from Bahadurganj in Haryana. Currently, out on bail for the assault, Dayal is a self-proclaimed gau rakshak, Dalal said he joined the Sena six months ago because their ideologies on “nationalism and cow protection” matched. When he shot at Umar Khalid, his gun had jammed, saving Umar’s life.
