Politics

Rawat’s book emerges from a unique perspective that argues –among other things – that Bose and Nehru must be understood through their competing strategies, and historical circumstances— not recruited retrospectively into opposing political camps; neither does the book place Bose beyond criticism, affirming however his intrinsic secular outlook while stressing on diverse networks that helped sustain the struggle for independence’ not a biography of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose but a chronicle of Indian National Army as well as India’s freedom Movement.

Communities resisting the proposed 11,200 MW project fear the loss of ancestral land, livelihoods and cultural heritage, with activists detained under the APUAPA

In Karnataka, during the pandemic and lockdown, mid-day meals in government schools and anganwadis under the National Food Security Act (2013) [1], shut down indefinitely [2,3] amidst growing concerns about how this would affect vulnerable communities. In spite of demands, the state government has not yet undertaken a detailed post pandemic and lockdown survey to identify the immediate and long-term interventions to address and prevent malnutrition. Several visits have been made by civil society organisations, students, nutritionists and academics to different districts of Karnataka, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic and this commentary gives a broad overview of the observations made. There is a need for an in-depth quantitative and qualitative study.

A four-day door-to-door audit in Trilokpuri found voters marked absent, shifted or dead who were still living at their registered addresses, with 47.57 lakh names missing from Delhi’s draft roll, affected voters have until October 30 to file claims

Barely 771 “foreign nationals” identified in Karnataka and a miniscule 1,600 in six other Indian states; yet the hysterical bogey of the “ghuspetiya” (illegal immigrant) has been used to render 130 million plus Indian without the right to vote?

Separate Supreme Court proceedings concern the failure to issue rejection slips to nearly 19.07 lakh excluded people and identity cards to more than 3.11 crore people included in the final register

After discrepancies in Uttar Pradesh’s electoral rolls prompted AAP leaders to question the Election Commission, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer posted a remark invoking caste and religion, following criticism, the handle apologised for its language, who was responsible for the post, what action has been taken, and why is it still online?

Karnataka’s final SIR roll published on October 27, lists 4.55 crore voters, down from 5.54 crore before the SIR, the draft roll deleted 1.08 crore names, while the final net deletion stands at 99.32 lakh, Bengaluru alone saw over 43 lakh names removed

HARHAR campaign launch becomes a platform for religious segregation, with Rane urging Hindus to buy only from Hindus and issuing a chilling threat against Muslims attending the Kumbh Mela

The author argues that for six cogent reasons, the final, post-SIR electoral roll has ensured the deletion of not just 99.3 lakh voters as has been admitted; this includes 75 lakhs of voters in the “shifted” and “absent” category; hence 99.3 lakhs plus another possible 27 lakhs by a gross under-representation of the elector-population ratio (EPR); roughly this means that the deletions swell to an approximate 1.26 crore voter deletions in total that is a staggering 18 per cent of the state’s electorate