Mandatory attendance row: Delhi HC directs JNU not to resort to ‘coercive action’ against students

July 18, 2018

The Delhi High Court has directed the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to refrain from imposing coercive measures in order to ensure mandatory attendance while the matter is subjudice.

The court was adjudicating on a writ petition filed by JNU’s School of Arts and Aesthtics Dean Ms. Kavita Singh and four others against the mandatory attendance police, as per the JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA). Through the petition, the petitioners contested the legality of the decision regarding their suspension, as well as the decision on attendance by the 144th AC meeting held on 1 December 2017.

The court added, “Needless to state that the above direction shall be subject to the outcome of the petition, and no equities shall be created in favour of the students, in the event, the court uphold the decision of the JNU.”

In December 2017, the university management had issued a circular saying it was planning to make 75% attendance for all courses compulsory. Students and many sections of faculty had called it an “arbitrary move”. Over 90% students had voted against mandatory attendance in a referendum conducted in March.

In March, the University removed seven of the faculty members who had complained against the rule. However, the next month, the Delhi High Court reinstated a dean and four other department heads.

As per the new rules, “all research students are to sign an attendance register daily whether or not they live on campus and regardless of the nature of their research work”. The JNUTA claimed that the university said that students who didn’t comply with the new rules would be debarred from taking examinations, availing fellowships and scholarships, retaining seats in hostels or having access to medical facilities. Apart from this, the university has also been trying to impose harsh rules related to fellowships and scholarships, withdrawal of hostel seats etc.

The next hearing has been posted for October 29.

Ex-GOI Secretary criticises gov’t’s move over DNA profiling bill

July 18, 2018

Writes to PM Modi asking gov’t to “reset its priorities”

E. A. S. Sarma, who previously served as Secretary to the Government of India, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, exhorting him to reconsider the Central Government’s plans to introduce a bill regarding DNA-based technology to be used for the DNA profiling of Indian citizens.

Earlier this month, the Union Cabinet approved the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2018, which permits law enforcement agencies to gather DNA samples, establish ‘DNA profiles’ and special databases that can be used for criminal investigations. The latest bills comes after previous efforts to draft similar bills in 2007, 2015, and 2017.

According the bill’s final draft, which was readied in December 2017, the bill aims to “provide for the regulation of use and application of DNA technology for the purposes of establishing identity of certain categories of persons including the victims, offenders, suspects, undertrials, missing persons and unknown deceased persons and for matters connected therewith…,” the Indian Express reported, noting that the bill’s features include a DNA regulatory board, along with a national DNA databank and some regional DNA databanks. According to the bill, the DNA data, including profiles, samples and records that are stored in any DNA labs and databanks “shall be used only for the purpose of facilitating identification of the person and not for any other purpose.” The Indian Express notes that The data is only to be accessible to help with identifying of individuals in criminal cases in adherence to the rules of admissibility of evidence, to help with prosecution or defence, and for civil investigations.

Sarma has expressed distress in his letter to Modi, saying that “a legislation on DNA-profiling of the citizens has serious implications for the citizens’ privacy,” adding, “In view of the far reaching public interest implications associated with any proposal to identify citizens through their DNA profiles, there should have been a much wider public discussion and debate on the subject, prior to the government going ahead with the drafting of such a law.”

Noting the right to privacy “as one of the basic rights of the citizen,” Sarma highlights that the right is enshrined in the Indian Constitution as well, recalling that the Supreme Court, too, “has reiterated the right to privacy as intrinsic to right to life granted under Article 21 of the Constitution.” Sarma also expresses surprise over the fact that the “government should rush into a law on DNA profiling” in spite of the fact the Justice BN Srikrishna Committee, which was appointed to formulate a framework and law for protecting data, has not submitted his report.

Sarma has acknowledged that although “DNA technology can be a good investigative tool, its wider use can result in the violation of human rights of the citizens and invasion of their privacy.” He notes that, in light of this, several other governments are attempting reduce it use. “Indiscriminate use of this technology can lead to an Orwellian environment, detrimental to the interests of a free and open society. It can be misused by irresponsible governments and officials,” Sarma emphasises.

Sarma stressed the need “to de-politicise the police and the other investigating agencies, professionalise them and train them in scientific investigation techniques,” noting that, up until now, “no government has thought it fit to implement the order issued by Hon’ble Supreme Court in Prakash Singh case to delink the police from the political executive and subject it instead to independent judicial oversight.” Sarma takes note of the irony in overlooking “such basic reforms and rush into areas such as DNA-profiling,” and calls on the government to “rest its priorities.”

The full text of Sarma’s letter can be read here:

Shri Narendra D Modi
Prime Minister

Dear Shri Modiji,

I understand that the Central Government is about to introduce a law to facilitate the use and regulation of DNA-based technology with the primary objective of DNA-profiling the citizens of the country. Such a proposal is apparently based on a recommendation made in July, 2017 by the Law Commission in their Report No 271.

If what has been reported is true, I feel distressed, as a legislation on DNA-profiling of the citizens has serious implications for the citizens’ privacy. There are ethical and human rights concerns arising from such an enactment. In view of the far reaching public interest implications associated with any proposal to identify citizens through their DNA profiles, there should have been a much wider public discussion and debate on the subject, prior to the government going ahead with the drafting of such a law.

Protection of the privacy of the individual has been globally recognised as one of the basic rights of the citizen and several countries are presently enacting laws in that direction. In our own Constitution, Article 20(3) guarantees the right against self-incrimination and Article 21 guarantees protection of life and liberty of every person. Hon’ble Supreme Court has reiterated the right to privacy as intrinsic to right to life granted under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Justice BN Srikrishna Committee appointed for suggesting a framework and a new law for protecting institutional and private data in India is yet to finalise its report. The proposal to DNA-profile the citizens can run counter to protecting the private data of the citizens. It is surprising that the government should rush into a law on DNA profiling without waiting for the Srikrishna Committee to finalise its report.

While DNA technology can be a good investigative tool, its wider use can result in the violation of human rights of the citizens and invasion of their privacy. In most countries accross the world, the respective governments are trying to minimise the use of DNA technology as evident from the UK law, namely, Protection of Freedoms Act, 2012. In view of the privacy concerns, most governments are restricting the use of DNA technology for the purpose of investigation only, that too, subject to judicial oversight. Indiscriminate use of this technology can lead to an Orwellian environment, detrimental to the interests of a free and open society. It can be misused by irresponsible governments and officials.

I am sure that it has never been the intention of NDA government to move in that direction.

A more urgent change that is called for in India is to de-politicise the police and the other investigating agencies, professionalise them and train them in scientific investigation techniques. Till date, no government has thought it fit to implement the order issued by Hon’ble Supreme Court in Prakash Singh case to delink the police from the political executive and subject it instead to independent judicial oversight. It is somewhat ironic that the government should ignore such basic reforms and rush into areas such as DNA-profiling. The government should, in my view, reset its priorities.

In view of what I have stated above, I feel that the proposal to enact a law in a hurry to DNA-profile the citizens is inopportune at this moment. Before suggesting the formulation of such a law, there should be a wide ranging debate on the efficacy of the use of the DNA technology per se, the extent to which it may be used in investigations as envisaged in Criminal Procedure Code and Indian Evidence Act and the state of preparedness of the investigating agencies to use it meaningfully. It will be highly imprudent for the government to enact a law to introduce DNA profiling of the citizens accross the board.

Regards,
Yours sincerely,

E A S Sarma
Former Secretary to GOI
Visakhapatnam
17-7-2018

Nobody is safe when the mob rules the country

July 18, 2018

We do not have an effective Government in Delhi to speak of anymore, what with Prime Minister jet-setting across the world with hardly any time for India. He has visited over 60 countries in the last four years spending a total of Rs. 3600 million of Indian taxpayers money for his travels. Meanwhile, Talibani mobs rule the country.

I was shocked to learn about the mob attack on Swami Agnivesh in Jharkhand today. The mob removed Swami’s saffron robes and tried to disrobe him in public.

I spoke to Swami Agnivesh a few hours after the incident happened and he said that the mob would have lynched him had he not managed to escape.

I have known Swami Agnivesh for over 25 years. He is an apostle of peace and a fighter for the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized.

For over 30 years now, he has been at the forefront of the fight against child labour in the country. He laid the foundation for our understanding of the gross violation of human rights that child labour and bonded labour is.

The later work on child labour by the UN and other agencies in India has much to be thankful for because of Swami Agnivesh.

His historic struggle against bonded labour in the Brick Kilns in Haryana in the late 1980s and his legal fight against bonded labour ended with a seminal Supreme Court judgement against the mafia that ran the brick kilns in Haryana with bonded labour.

The word Agnivesh means one who is dressed in flaming robes. The flaming robes that Swami wears are the flame of truth, nonviolence and justice for the poor and the oppressed.

Those who know him know that Swami Agnivesh is a fighter. He single-handedly fought against the Brick Kiln mafia three decades ago and won a historic battle for the bonded labourers there.

An Indian Talibani bunch of cowards attacking and trying to lynch him will not stop Swami Agnivesh. It will only add strength to his resolve and to the historic non-violent struggle that he has carried out against oppression and fascism.

Swami Agnivesh is well-known across the world and the world community would be aghast at the moral decline that India has been witnessing in the past few years.

That a person of Swami’s stature can be attacked in daylight in public by a violent mob, shows that India has travelled many centuries back in time in a matter of four years.

The attack yesterday by a similar Indian Talibani mob on the office of Dr. Shashi Tharoor due to some of his comments shows the extent of the breakdown in public morality that the country has recently been witness to. He is the former External Affairs Minister of the country and former Under Secretary General of the UN.
Mobs run the country today. Mob lynching has become commonplace across the country. Initially, they were mobs lynching Muslims for allegedly killing a cow or for allegedly carrying beef. But now not only Muslims, but Hindus and people belonging to all faiths and castes are being lynched across the country for a variety of reasons. The latest round of lynchings is on suspicion of being child lifters.

Many innocent lives have been lost to lynch mobs in the last few months.

We do not have an effective Government in Delhi to speak of anymore, what with Prime Minister jet-setting across the world with hardly any time for India. He has visited over 60 countries in the last four years spending a total of Rs. 3600 million of Indian taxpayers money for his travels.

Meanwhile, Talibani mobs rule the country.

Democracy in India is descending into Mobocracy. The mob attacks on Swami Agnivesh and Dr. Tharoor are the latest examples.

The author is the Additional Chief Secretary of Government of Kerala. He was a Chief Technical Advisor at International Labour Organization. He also has a master’s in Solid State Physics.

Can We Promote Peace in India, Today?

July 18, 2018

We also need to actively ensure that the misconceptions and hate which is ruling our society and streets is countered with messages of love. We need the truth to be propagated and the message of peace should be more effective.

We are witnessing times when hate against weaker sections of the society and religious minorities is increasing by leaps and bounds. The increase in mob lynching’s all over the country on the pretext of child lifting, is coming on the back of mob lynching on the pretext cow-beef, public flogging-humiliation of Dalits with beef as an issue and other caste humiliation. Mobs seem to be emboldened by the fact that there has been an approval of these acts from the top. Ministers like Mahesh Sharma came to the funeral of Dadri accused. Now Mr. Jayant Sinha welcomed the accused of Alimuddin lynching case when they got bail. The incidents are frighteningly increasing as now, the horrid incidents of rape are being given a communal twist. Fake news is being generated with impunity on one side and rape accused are getting social support on the other. It’s a matter of shame that in the wake of the Kathua rape incident, the then Ministers from BJP, Chaudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, attended the event organized by Hindu Ekta Manch, which was protesting against the arrests in the case.

In Mandsaur rape, the incident is being given a false twist to demonize a community. The accused belong to the Muslim community. Muslim groups took out a procession demanding severe punishment for the accused. Jyotiraditya Scindia of Congress joined a candlelight procession to demand the death penalty of the accused. Social media was used to spread the hateful message as if he was demanding the release of the accused. The pictures of the procession were photoshopped to present Muslims in a bad light. A message was circulated, which said that members of the Muslim community rallied in Mandsaur demanding that the perpetrator of the crime be released because the Quran sanctions rape of non-Muslim women.

The text of the placards in the Mandsaur procession was “We won’t tolerate attacks on daughters, stop this brutality.” A tweet was circulated later reading, “NCRB report: India is most dangerous for women reason: In India, 95 per cent of the rape cases have a Muslim perpetrator. Of the total 84734 rape cases, 81,000 rapes had a Muslim rapist and 96 per cent of the victims are non-Muslims and with an increase in their population, the number of rapes will also increase.”

Nothing can be further from the truth. NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) does not record the religion in cases of rape. This tweet and the one about Jyotiraditya Scindia was exposed by AltNews, the portal going to the roots of such fake news and is doing a great service to society by serving the truth and exposing the news which is deliberately trying to demonize the religious minorities. One recalls that in the case of Muzzafarnagar, the violence was incited by circulating a photo of two young men being beaten by a Muslim looking crowd. It was presented that Hindu youth are being beaten. The picture was actually from Pakistan and the crowd was beating two thieves.

Recently in Kairana, the Mahagathbandhan candidate Tabassum Hasan won the election against the BJP candidate. After winning she stated, “This is the victory of truth and ‘Mahagatbandhan’ (coalition) and the defeat of the BJP in the state and Centre. Everyone has come out and supported us. I thank them.” On social media and on TV debates, what was presented was that she said, “This is the victory of Allah and defeat of Ram.” This quote was posted on a number of pro-BJP pages on Facebook among which the page Yogi Adityanath-True Indian posted it on June 1, and was shared massively.

One recalls that in recent times, BJP has deliberately muddied the waters of social media by employing thousands of trolls, as Swati Chaturvedi’s “I am a Troll,” tells us. As such, the hate propaganda began with the demonization of Muslim kings for breaking Hindu temples in the medieval period, for spreading Islam, for having large families, indulging in polygamy, being terrorists, etc. Now it has taken a dangerous turn with people trained in communal ideology and in the use of social media twisting the facts blatantly. There are reports that in the forthcoming elections, BJP is planning to train lakhs of volunteers in the use of social media for electoral gains. The rising hatred is becoming like a monster, propelling itself beyond control.

Can we accuse just the social media for intensifying this hate? Some control and restraint is needed and fact-checking seems more and more necessary in the times of social media impact and instant gratification. What is also needed is that mechanisms like AltNews should be made more popular to counter these falsehoods.

It is heartening to note that Twitter has decided to suspend seven crore fake accounts. We also need to ensure that the misconceptions and hate which is ruling our society and streets is countered with messages of love. We need the truth to be propagated and the message of peace should be more effective.

We have activists like Faisal Khan, who through his Khudai Khidmatagar, organises peace marches. Harsh Mander’s Paigam-E-Mohabbat (Message of peace) has been doing yeomen service by meeting the families of lynching victims and creating an atmosphere of amity. Mahant from Ayodhya, Yugal Kishore Sharan Shastri, through his less advertised peace marches, is trying to reach sections of society with a message of tolerance and peace. Such efforts need to be upheld and broadened. These are just a few examples of the initiatives in this direction, there are many more which need to be projected to promote and preserve amity in India.

Countering hate and promoting amity became the central message of the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, who struggled to promote peace, in the highest traditions of his Hinduism. As the fake news is assuming frightening proportions and is doing serious harm to the concept of fraternity inherent in Indian nationalism, we need to retune ourselves to the core value of amity, which was the foundation of the freedom movement and is very much the part of our Constitution.

Ram Puniyani is Chairman, Centre of Study of Society and Secularism and has written several books including Communal Politics: Facts Versus Myths (Sage, 2003), Deconstructing Terrorist Violence (Sage 2015), Indian Nationalism versus Hindu Nationalism (Pharos 2014) and Caste and Communalism (Olive 2013).

The many moods, shades, and sides of harassment

July 18, 2018

Treat others as you would have them treat you

Sexual harassment is not a problem that will fix itself Photo: BIGSTOCK

I’ve always been a staunch follower of the Golden Rule.

I try and maintain a good demeanour with others in my day-to-day interactions, and I try and remain calm while debating my friends and peers over any given subject — all in my (mostly) futile quest to gather some sort of reciprocity from other parties.

Now, unless you’re some sort of sadomasochistic psycho killer with a penchant for snooping into other people’s texts and emails when they aren’t noticing, I’m certain that you, like most, want to be treated with some level of decency.

Which is, unfortunately, something of an alien notion to most anyone living in the city of Dhaka, where a man on a motorcycle doesn’t even think twice before plying his two-wheeled death-trap over a heavily occupied sidewalk — of course, having a law enforcer set the precedent for such behaviour all but encourages citizens to follow suit.

So, yes, the average citizen has a fundamental problem with respecting the wishes of anyone that is not him. Or “her,” for that matter — the ladies don’t get a pass.

An assault on common sense
One of the ugliest, and sadly, most common manifestations of this flagrant disregard for the Golden Rule is sexual harassment. It’s everywhere in our society. From the remote villages in the fringes of Bangladesh to a cocktail party in Gulshan, it feels almost as if there’s something fundamentally wrong with how boys are being brought up in our society.

Of course I’m being facetious.

The level of entitlement crammed into the heads of Bangladeshi men during their formative years, mostly by their mothers, all but ensures that their first experience with romantic rejection almost always ends up with the obvious outcome.
While sexual assault and rape are disgustingly common in our society, we witnessed something of a breakthrough with the Raintree case last year, the details of which I have no intention of repeating. Needless to say, the incident really opened the floodgates to discussions over rape being taken seriously and then … nothing.

What happened to all that outrage and discourse?

Domestic rape is still a time-honoured tradition in Bangladesh, and most women are still hesitant to report their experiences to the authorities in fear of the associated stigma. This is not a problem which is going to fix itself.

Kingdom of Bawdy Arabia
In the distant land of our spiritually kindred brothers and sisters, Saudi Arabia, a woman was recently arrested because of her abrupt act of endearment towards a male singer on-stage — where she broke free from the crowd and unexpectedly hugged the performer.
The most incredible bit was that the woman was charged with harassment.

Not by the singer, mind you, but the state, as her act is considered harassment by default due to the nation’s laws against women mixing in public with men they are not related to.

Now, I understand just how much of a bubble Saudi Arabia is — it is one of the greatest inadvertent social experiments in our history — and it’s definitely not the best example when talking about issues related to women (the entire country is basically a women’s rights issue).

But I can’t help but be curious just how justified the harassment claims are in this case, even going by the country’s rather myopic views towards women and sexuality.

I mean, she did grab the guy out of the clear blue without his apparent consent.

Knock on Hollywood
Moving from one bubble to another, thespian extraordinaire Henry Cavill recently lit something of a fire under the posteriors of culture commentators all across Hollywood with his recent statement regarding what it’s like being an A-list actor in the dating scene.
While his use of the word “rape” perhaps errs a bit too much on the side of misinformed conflation, I believe his apprehensions beg for some genuine discourse.

Hollywood is in an uncomfortable period right now — its grossly exploitative and just plain gross innards now lay exposed in the aftermath of the Weinstein revelations. And while it’s great to know that the industry is finally acknowledging its problems when it comes to exploitation, there is also fear that all the progress from movements such as #metoo and #timesup are on the cusp of falling under their own weight.

No matter how many times you polish a turd it will still remain just that, unfortunately.

As an industry that is almost exclusively run by opportunists, it perhaps won’t be long before Hollywood sees an influx of enterprising young men and women trying to coast in on these movements to try and get their 15 minutes of fame.

And we’ve witnessed instances of this already, with the misplaced accusations towards comedian Aziz Ansari earlier this year by someone who experienced a bad date with him signalling something close to that. Not to mention the sordid affair which led to Anthony Bourdain committing suicide (for more information, please refer to Leah McSweeney’s Penthouse article “Can we talk about toxic femininity?”).

Harassment is never one-size-fits-all, it depends on the prevailing culture, and — given the already murky nature of human interaction — depends upon innumerable other factors.

But, at the end of the day, it all boils down to one thing: Don’t be a jerk.

Treat others as you would have them treat you — with decency and a modicum of respect for their rights as individuals.

Unless, of course, you are someone who wants to be treated like garbage, in which case, please refrain from doing so.

Rubaiyat Kabir is an Editorial Assistant at the Dhaka Tribune. He can be followed on Twitter @moreanik.

First Published on Dhaka Tribune

Majority Of Indians Prefer Leaders From Own Caste, Religion, Tribe

July 18, 2018

Mumbai: A majority of Indians prefer political leaders from their own caste, tribe or religion, according to a 2018 study, indicating how identity politics plays a significant role in state and general elections. This was especially so among non-literates across caste and religious groups.

Across eight states–Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana–55% of Indians would prefer a political leader from their own caste and religion, found the study, ‘Politics And Society Between Elections 2018’, carried out by the Azim Premji University (APU) and Lokniti (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies [CSDS]) in 22 assembly constituencies with 16,680 respondents.

No more than 10% would actively choose a political leader from a different caste or religion (9%). A little more than a third of those surveyed said caste (35%) or religion (37%) of their political leader would not matter.

“There is a distrust of leaders from outside the community across all classes, and all caste-class intersections,” the study, accessed by IndiaSpend, said.

“The upper castes in general express the lowest trust in leaders from outside their own.”

Indians with higher education more willing to have leaders of different caste/religion

Caste and religious identity of a political candidate were less likely to make a difference to college-educated persons (47%) compared to non-literates (63%) and those educated up to the school-level (56%), across social groups, according to the study.

For example, while upper castes in general expressed the “lowest trust in leaders from outside their own”, according to the study, this was more so among non-literates (68%) compared to those with schooling (56%) and with college-level education (46%).

Among those educated at the college-level, adivasis or scheduled tribes (as they are constitutionally called), displayed a higher preference for a leader from their own social group (60%). This is six percentage-points lower–lowest among all social groups–than the preference expressed by non-literate adivasis (66%).

Source: Politics And Society Between Elections, 2018, by Azim Premji University and Lokniti (CSDS)

While college-educated Hindus and Muslims were less likely–by 14 and 15 percentage points, respectively–to want a leader from their religion, this preference did not change for Christians: 56% wanted a Christian leader regardless of their education.

College-educated Christians were the least-likely (3%) among all religious groups to prefer a leader from a different religion.

Source: Politics And Society Between Elections, 2018, by Azim Premji University and Lokniti (CSDS)

Caste and religion bias for political leaders highest in Madhya Pradesh, lowest in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana

While 55% of all respondents expressed a bias for a political leader from the same caste and religion, these results varied between states.

More than two-thirds of those surveyed in Madhya Pradesh revealed a desire for a leader from the same caste (65%) and religion (64%)–highest among all states included in the study; states expressing the lowest such desire were Andhra Pradesh (43% for caste, 38% for religion), and Telangana (48% for caste, 46% for religion).

“This suggests some obvious homogeneity between these two contiguous states, only reinforced by the information that they constituted a single territorial entity till mid-2014,” the report said.

Jharkhand and Rajasthan had the most respondents (10%) who said they would actively choose a leader from a different caste or religion.

(Saldanha is an assistant editor with IndiaSpend.)

Dissent essential in open society: Hamid Ansari

July 18, 2018

New Delhi, July 17:Dissent is of critical importance in an open society and its suppression could metamorphose it into an illiberal and ethnic democracy, former Vice President Hamid Ansari said on Tuesday.

He was speaking here at the formal release of his latest book “Dare I Question: Reflections on Contemporary Challenges”.

A compilation of his speeches and writings, the book (Haranand Publications/Rs 795/239 pages), examines the question: What is it to be an Indian?

He said that the pre-launch media publicity tends to suggest that the book may contain “some version of a kiss-and-tell tale but it is not true”.

“What is it to be an Indian is the question that I have raised in the preface… there is apprehension that India’s democracy could metamorphose into an illiberal, ethnic democracy based on principles of a social-political philosophy called Hindutva,” Ansari said.

He stressed that the meaning of nationalism in the context of India’s plural society and composite culture needed to be “inclusive” and move beyond mere “tolerance” to “acceptance” of diversity as a civic virtue.

The former Vice President said that secularism in the Indian context means symmetrical treatment of the different religious communities, defense of minority rights, and prevention of bigotry.

“There is an evident decline in adherence to the rule of law norms and in the efficacy of institutions — legislature, executive and judiciary. This is resulting in public disenchantment and is a matter of concern,” Ansari added.

The book contains speeches of the two-time Vice President delivered during the last year of his second term, and some during the subsequent months.

In the book’s preface, Ansari commented on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks made during his farewell event.

“Dare I Question” was launched by former Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, Indian academic Pratap Bhanu Mehta, political journalist Aditi Phadnis and Haranand Publications Founder-Chairman Narendra Kumar.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was present on the occasion.

Courtesy: Two Circles

Jharkhand: Justice a Distant Dream for Latehar Lynching Victims

July 18, 2018

All the accused are now out on bail and the case against them is moving at a snail’s pace. A Newsclick team met the family of the Mazloom Ansari.

Two cattle traders, Mazloom Ansari (35) and Imtiaz Khan (11), were abducted in Latehar in March 2016, beaten mercilessly and strung from a tree after they fell unconscious. The victims were waylaid while they were walking eight oxen to sell at a cattle fair. All the accused are now out on bail and the case against them is moving at a snail’s pace. A Newsclick team met the family of the Mazloom Ansari. A report by Tarique Anwar and Kushal.

1...1,7651,7661,767...2,697 Page 1,766 of 2,697

Mandatory attendance row: Delhi HC directs JNU not to resort to ‘coercive action’ against students

Ex-GOI Secretary criticises gov’t’s move over DNA profiling bill

Writes to PM Modi asking gov’t to “reset its priorities”

Nobody is safe when the mob rules the country

Can We Promote Peace in India, Today?

We also need to actively ensure that the misconceptions and hate which is ruling our society and streets is countered with messages of love. We need the truth to be propagated and the message of peace should be more effective.

The many moods, shades, and sides of harassment

Treat others as you would have them treat you

Majority Of Indians Prefer Leaders From Own Caste, Religion, Tribe

Dissent essential in open society: Hamid Ansari

Jharkhand: Justice a Distant Dream for Latehar Lynching Victims

All the accused are now out on bail and the case against them is moving at a snail’s pace. A Newsclick team met the family of the Mazloom Ansari.

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Important Links

Other Links

CONNECT