"...Last week as hundreds of people exercised their democratic right and demonstrated in solidarity with their Palestinian sisters and brothers at the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, the Indian state violently attacked the unarmed, nonviolent demonstrators, injuring several and arresting several more. But in doing so, it also settled once more the question of where the democratic impulse of a country truly lies: in its people, never in its state.
"Praveen Bhai Togadia, the International working President of Vishwa Hindu Prashid (VHP) did it again. On Saturday (19th July 2014), he reportedly said, “Aap Gujarat bhul gaye honge, par aapko Muzaffarnagar yaad hoga.” He said it in Indore (Madhya Pradesh) while addressing a press conference about the World Hindu Congress Summit scheduled to be held in New Delhi in November this year. “If you set Hanuman’s tail on fire, Lanka will burn. The Godhra incident led to the Gujarat riots, and the alleged rape of a Hindu girl led to the Muzaffarnagar riots,” he added.
'Indian democracy is dishonoured from time to time by brutal massacres of the country’s historically oppressed communities — mostly Dalits and Muslims. But its even greater disgrace is that mass killers who periodically target people only because of their religion or caste are rarely punished. This legal impunity of mass murderers indulging in hate crimes derives from deep institutional prejudice, which scars India’s otherwise independent judicial system.
'Recently, Gujarat Police is having a very hard time with the Supreme Court. Judgements after judgements in various ‘terror cases’ are shredding apart the integrity of Gujarat Police and putting a big question mark on their capabilities. On July 17, 2014, the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgement, has acquitted all the eleven persons who were convicted and sentenced by a TADA Court in October 2008 for alleged involvement in the ‘twin blasts’ Surat bomb blasts case of 1993.
"...Having avoided the US model in 2000, Maneka has even more reason to do so in 2014. Yet, the draft she has come up with for replacing the 2000 law incorporates a US-style transfer provision for juveniles between 16 and 18. This is how the transfer mechanism is envisaged to work: if the charges against a juvenile between 16 and 18 include heinous offences such as rape and murder, the JJB is required to conduct an inquiry within a month to determine whether the case should be transferred to a court dealing with adult accused persons.
'A dozen soldiers burst through the front and back doors of a small home here in the middle of a July night, dragged Thangjam Manorama into a room and began to torture her. Her older brother tried to stop them and was badly beaten. Her mother rose to defend her and was knocked unconscious. After about an hour, Ms. Thangjam was taken out of the house. The next morning, the family found her bullet-ridden body by the side of the road three miles away. Soldiers later claimed that Ms. Thangjam was an insurgent who was shot while she was trying to escape.
" The Supreme Court on Friday acquitted all the 11 accused convicted for 1993 Surat bomb blast in Gujarat, in which a woman was killed and several people were injured. An apex court bench of Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice C. Nagappam while acquitting the 11 accused reversed the TADA court verdict that gave them imprisonment varying from 10 to 20 years... In October 2008, a TADA court in Surat had sentenced five persons, including former Congress minister Mohammad Surti, to 20 years in prison while others were awarded 10 years jail term in the cases."
"On the ambitious Statue of Unity project, Rs 27.6 crore has been spent so far, even as the actual construction work on the 182-metre-tall statue is likely to begin after monsoon this year. Of this, Rs 23.6 crore has been spent on a consortium of global consultancy services providing company, which was hired in August 2012 to provide design, engineering, project management and construction management services for the statue. State Finance Minister Saurabh Patel announced a fund of Rs 500 crore for the project in the 2014-15 Budget other than Rs 100 crore allocated in the 2012-13 Budget.
'He may be controversial. He may also be an aide of the equally controversial yoga guru Baba Ramdev. But does that mean that Ved Pratap Vaidik, who has created a huge tumult by meeting Hafiz Saeed, ceases to be a journalist just because of the company he keeps and the kind of journalism he does? Does that mean that he should be accused of sedition just because of meeting Saeed? As irony would have it, the sedition clause itself has been called too anachronistic to remain on the statute book.
"The Manickpur police arrested the Vasai taluka chief of the BJP on Tuesday after the Election Commission (EC) cracked its whip against the organizer of Narendra Modi's 3D rally for not taking adequate permissions to erect a pandal on government-owned land in April. Uttamkumar Bhaskar Nair, the BJP president in Vasai, was arrested under IPC Section 171(h) for making illegal payments in connection with an election, and sections 37(3) and 145 of the Bombay Police Act. He was granted bail the same afternoon by the Vasai court, said sub-inspector Vijaykumar Dhumal of the Manickpur police.
