'While crimes against SCs registered an increase of 32 per cent, the crimes against STs increased by 55 per cent in the period between 2013 to 2017... Despite higher number of criminal cases committed against the marginalised sections of the society, the state authorities have failed in bringing the culprits to the book. The data furnished by vigilance and monitoring committee of social justice and empowerment suggest that the state has miserably lagged as far as the conviction rate is concerned. The state registered a 3.78 per cent conviction rate in 2017 and 2018...'
'An assistant professor at the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Bhubaneswar was told to resign from her post after she appeared on an Odia TV channel discussion on the Pulwama attack and said that India should not go to war with Pakistan. Madhumita Ray, who taught in the private university’s School of Rural Management, appeared on a Kanak News discussion last Monday, February 18, along with retired Indian Army Colonel Purna Chandra Patnaik...'
'In the wake of the Pulwama terror attack which left at least 40 CRPF personnel dead, the accusations of '`anti-nationalism' against prominent activists and journalist is back on spotlight, but with a higher intensity this time. On this pretext, the trolls and IT cells of Hindu- right wing political parties have started spamming and threatening journalists on social media sites in the name of nationalism. In the latest, Professor Koushal Mishra, from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has been alleged to have circulated the phone number of prominent Hindi journalist Ravish Kumar.
'On Saturday, February 16, a circular was issued by the proctor’s office of Delhi University, banning any kind of protests or demonstrations on the university campus. The circular read: “All students of Delhi University are advised not to occupy premises of departments, library and administrative blocks for protests and dharnas. These acts cause disruption in academic activities as well as day to day functioning of the respective offices. The students found violating the ordinance can be expelled, rusticated, fined or debarred from taking the examinations.”...
'The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh has suspended a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer — who had booked Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in 2002, when Adityanath was the Member of Parliament (MP) from Gorakhpur, under the National Security Act (NSA). The suspension came more than a fortnight after the IPS officer, Jasvir Singh, said in an interview with Huffington Post that he had been sidelined ever since he had booked Adityanath.
'While Shakti Kapoor asked for a fee of Rs 9 crore for 9 months, Vivek Oberoi agreed to settle for Rs 80 lakh per month... After exposing the media outlets last year that were eager to be propaganda machines of the political parties in exchange for hefty sums, in another investigation, Cobrapost has found out that at least three dozen Bollywood celebrities were ready to follow the lead.
'The Principal and Vice-Principal of HK Arts College in Ahmedabad have resigned in protest against the trustees caving in to Right Wing threats and disallowing a function that was to be attended by Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, an alumnus of the college, as part of the college’s annual day function on Monday. According to media reports, the programme was cancelled after Brahmchari Wadi Trust, which governs HK College, refused to provide a hall for the function where Mevani, an Independent MLA, was the chief guest. The Trust has some Padma awardees as members.
'The Prime Minister claimed his government built 1.25 crore houses in their tenure till January 19, 2019, while the previous UPA government had built only 25 lakh houses. But the numbers don’t add up... Did the Modi government really build 1.53 crore houses for the urban and rural poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana? India’s interim finance minister Piyush Goyal stated the same while presenting the interim Union Budget 2019 on 1 February.
'In the wake of Dalit scholar Anand Teltumbde’s illegal arrest by Pune police and his subsequent release, the five petitioners who had approached the Supreme Court against the arrest of the civil rights activists, have called the development a “mockery of constitutional guarantees, of due process and of democracy”. Teltumbde, who was granted relief from arrest until February 11 by the apex court was regardless arrested on Saturday after a Pune court refused to grant him anticipatory bail in a case related to the Bhima Koregaon violence.
'In what comes as an attack on the freedom of press, a journalist in the state capital of Chhattisgarh was brutally attacked by the workers and the members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for filming a scuffle between them on Saturday afternoon.
