'With the water level of several rivers rising in Uttar Pradesh due to continuous rainfall last week, state water resources minister Mahendra Singh has instructed the irrigation department to hold regular pujas (prayers) by those rivers in order to “control” possible flooding in the areas around them. The minister gave these instructions on July 12, while addressing field staff of the department through a video conference, organised to review the precautionary measures taken to check flooding. The press note issued after the meeting mentioned the minister’s specific order...'
'After controversy erupted last week over the teaser of the Tamil show Godman on Zee5, the streaming platform has said that it has suspended the release of the show at the moment. The statement also said that the platform and producers of the show did not intend to offend anyone or hurt anyone’s personal or religious beliefs of any community... The show, which is fictional and starred actors Jayapakash and ‘Daniel’ Balaji, came under fire last week after the two minute teaser of the show faced a lot of backlash on social media and was eventually pulled down.
'Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday asked people to read the Bhagavad Gita for half an hour every day over the remaining lockdown period, triggering fears that such advice could alienate sections of the society... This wasn’t the first time Kejriwal had resorted to religion in recent times. Ahead of the Delhi elections last month, he had invoked Hanuman — a popular deity especially in North India — in what appeared to be an attempt to undercut the BJP’s narrative of projecting the AAP as anti-Hindu for its opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act...'
'The Narendra Modi government is in the final stages of creating an all-encompassing, auto-updating, searchable database to track every aspect of the lives of each of India’s over 1.2 billion residents, previously undisclosed government documents reviewed by HuffPost India establish. If the plans of Modi’s bureaucrats and advisors are realised, this system will automatically track when a citizen moves between cities, changes jobs, buys new property, when a member of a family is born, dies or gets married and moves to their spouse’s home.
'In an apparent bid to avoid a 'Hindu' backlash, especially, when the next assembly polls in the state are due in two years times, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh has given a go-ahead for the 'Ram Navami Mela' in Ayodhya dismissing concerns against its own advisories against large gatherings in view of the Coronavirus outbreak. According to some estimates, around one million devotees from across the country would be congregating in Ayodhya to take part in the 'Mela, which would be held from March 25 to April Two...'
Arvind Gunasekar: "...we got information about a group of men trying to destroy a building... so we tried going towards that particular location. When we reached that particular location we saw a group of men - a mob actually - trying to destroy a religious site right next to the flyover. So when we started moving towards them, we saw two policemen coming along with some ten to fifteen young men holding sticks - they were walking towards that religious site, so we followed them.
'Raising questions over Pakistan’s intent in agreeing to throw open the Kartarpur Corridor, the Punjab Police chief, Dinkar Gupta, Friday said the visa-free passage cleared for Sikh pilgrims was “a huge security challenge from terrorism point of view”. Claiming that there were reasons why the Corridor was not opened all these years, Director General of Punjab Police said that some elements based in the neighbouring country were “trying to woo the pilgrims and making overtures to them”.
'Bajrang Dal workers and activists of some right wing Hindu groups on Friday forced a newly-married inter-faith couple in Moradabad to call off their wedding reception despite 50 of the protesters being detained, police said. The couple was to host the wedding reception on Valentine’s Day in the Civil Lines area of Moradabad. While the woman is from Moradabad, the man who is a Muslim hails from Bijnor. Parents of neither had any objection to the marriage, police said...'
'Post the tragic incident in Mettupalayam, Coimbatore, where a wall collapsed and led to the death of 17 Dalits, close to 3,000 people from the Dalit community announced that they were to convert to Islam. Illavenil, the state secretary of the Tamil Puligal Katchi, told India Today that legally 430 people have converted to Islam and many more are in the process of the conversion...'
'Soaps, toothpastes, room fresheners, incense sticks, eye drops and pain-relieving oils and other products made from cow urine and cow dung are now on sale at the ongoing Magh Mela in Prayagraj. These products have been manufactured at a gaushala in Bithoor in Kanpur and among the best sellers are medicines for indigestion, arthritis, cataract, diabetes and lung infection.
