Imagine that a taxpayer-funded college bans its students from wearing shorts on campus and a student approaches the court seeking to overturn the ban. If this happens in India, the first question the courts may ask the student is: Why do you want to wear shorts, is it part of your religious belief? If the […]
An order by the district police chief of Wayanad, a hill district of Kerala known for its sports enthusiasts and academies, has riled sports lovers across the state. The order issued by District Police Chief Aravind Sukumar two days ago has made it illegal to operate flood-lit football turfs — scores of which have sprung […]
Home Minister Amit Shah today said that he was opposed to the idea of the judiciary donning the mantle of ecclesiastical courts and telling people how to worship their gods and interfering in their religious practices. He was answering a question about his “dual stand” on the issues of Sabarimala temple and Ram Janmabhoomi temple, […]
An Indian cultural organization was forced to take ‘beef curry and parota’ — a popular food item in the South Indian state of Kerala — from its menu at an exhibition organized by the Indian consulate in Frankfurt. The incident took place over the weekend at ‘Indien Fest’, an event aimed at giving local Germans […]
The Supreme Court has ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to immediately release jailed journalist Prashant Kanojia. The state will be free to carry on a case against the journalist. Hearing a plea by wife Jagisha Arora to protect the journalist’s fundamental rights, a two-judge vacation bench comprising Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Ajay Rastogi did […]
The Supreme Court has struck down the 160-year-old law that sought to punish men for having sex with the wife of another man. Section 497 of the IPC has been held to be unconstitutional. It also said thinking of adultery as a crime is a retrograde step. “This means that in a matrimonial dispute, no […]
Facebook has emerged as the social media platform that has the highest degree of compliance with Government of India’s blocking requests, while Twitter and Instagram have the least. In all, the government issued blocking requests for 2,205 posts in 2017 and 2018 (up to June), out of which 74% were taken down by the concerned […]
The Union of India has submitted its affidavit before the Supreme Court on the controversial ‘unnatural sex’ law or Section 377. In the affidavit, the government has refused to either oppose or recommend the scrapping of the section that criminalizes all kinds of ‘unnatural’ sexual acts. It said it is leaving it ‘to the wisdom […]
One of the results of Narendra Modi coming to power at the center has been that ‘right wing’ has gained considerable acceptability as a descriptor of someone’s political ideology. In the last few years, many intellectuals, journalists and artists have openly started describing themselves as belonging to the right wing, or at least as ‘right […]
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said no case has been registered against reporter Rachna Khaira or The Tribune newspaper in relation to the January 3 story on how Aadhaar details were available for sale at Rs 500. The report had claimed that ‘agents’ were providing Aadhaar verification solutions for as little as Rs […]
Going by indications from the Unique ID Authority of India, Aadhaar numbers could soon be linked to people’s images, allowing the government and corporations to identify people from their photographs and videos. “UIDAI introduces yet another landmark technology for authentication – Face Authentication,” tweeted @ceo_uidai, the official handle of the CEO of UID Authority of […]
The Government of India has assured the Supreme Court that it will issue a notification to extend the deadline to link essential services, except mobile connections, to Aadhaar to March 31 from December 31. The assurance was given by the Attorney General in the Supreme Court today. The notification is likely to be issued as […]
Radio Jockey Sooraj of 98.6 FM, a Malayalam Radio station in Qatar, has announced that he is stepping down from his role at the station following a social media outcry over his comments supporting three Muslim girls who danced publicly at an AIDS awareness function in Kerala. Following the usual style of his Facebook videos, […]
With the central government breathing down the necks of telecom operators to link all connections with Aadhaar numbers, Vodafone has launched Aadhaar verification vans in Rajasthan to ease the process. The vans were initially launched with the purpose of easing the 4G SIM upgrade process. Over the past 10 months, mobile vans have helped thousands […]
The administration of the Jawaharlal Nehru University has fined its students Rs 6,000 for cooking and eating biryani in the administrative block during an overnight protest in June. The move, however, has taken a political turn as the action follows a campaign by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad — the student wing of the BJP […]
Ashokan Mani, who has accused the Popular Front of India of trying to kidnap his daughter into Syria, today said he had no problems with his daughter converting to Islam or marrying a Muslim. Ashokan, who has been asked by the Supreme Court to produce the girl Fadiya by Nov 27, said his problem was […]
The Supreme Court today asked the government to produce Fadiya, previously known as Akhila Ashokan, before Nov 27 in the controversial ‘Love Jihad’ case from Kerala. In the petition filed by Fadiya’s ex-husband Shafeen Jahan, the court came to the conclusion that it would need to speak to the girl after conflicting allegations were leveled […]
Tensions are on the rise between the ruling CPI-M and the Social Democratic Party of India in Ambalapuzha in Kerala after Left activists were attacked, allegedly for arranging the wedding of a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl. The SDPI is second only to the Indian Union Muslim League in terms of its vote-share and […]
Both individual freedom and privacy are very important but it cannot be unqualified as everything overrides when it comes to the national interest and security, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju said today. “When it comes to national security, I personally feel that national interest overrides everything,” said Rijiju while inaugurating an […]
A Muslim girl who got married to a Hindu boy has come under heavy fire on social media for causing distress to her parents. Many of her former co-religionists found her decision unpalatable. “You have sacrificed the eternal for the fleeting, not because you lack education, but because you have lost discrimination. Let us hope […]
