Supporters of religious leaders Ram Rahim have gone on rampage in Panchkula in Haryana after a court there convicted him of rape. At least eight people have been confirmed dead in Panchkula and over a hundred injured. According to various media outlets, the supporters have unleashed violence at police and local establishments. “I have taken […]
Supporters of religious leaders Ram Rahim have gone on rampage in Panchkula in Haryana after a court there convicted him of rape. At least three supporters of the guru have been shot dead by the police so far. UPDATE – The number of dead has reached eight and injuries are in their hundreds. According to […]
A group of 39 Islamic missionaries have been arrested for door-to-door distribution of religious pamphlets that said, among other things, that people who worship multiple Gods will burn in hell. The volunteers of ‘Mujahid Wisdom Global Islamic Mission’, who were distributing the material in villages near Kochi, were arrested on complaints by local RSS activists. […]
Kerala’s snaking long queues in front of its liquor shops — the state’s only source of alcohol after bars were banned in 2014 — are almost as famous as the backwaters and beaches, but some relief may be on the horizon for hapless liquor buyers. As there are only about 340 liquor shops in a […]
TP Senkumar, who stepped down as the head of Kerala’s police force a week ago, has stirred a hornet’s nest in the southern states by expressing alarm over the relatively higher fertility rate of Kerala’s Muslim community compared to others. Quoting government of Kerala’s statistics, Senkumar pointed out that 41.5% of the children born in […]
A photo of a young Muslim girl working with the Students Federation of India, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has reopened questions around whether the Left movement in Kerala is straying from its ideological roots and commitments. Ameera Khan from Haripad in Kerala has shot into prominence after a photo […]
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 […]
Prominent activists such as Kanhaiya Kumar, Jignesh Mavani, Tehseen Poonawalla and Shehla Rashid have formed an anti-lynching front in the background of vigilante attacks in the name of religious symbols like the cow. Under the banner of the National Campaign Against Mob Lynching, the platform will fight against what it calls “cultural terrorism” that it […]
Comments by a High Court judge on the odd mating habits of peacocks has given rise to a frenzy of searches on Google from citizens curious to know more about the subject. From practically nothing, the number of searches on the topic ‘peacock mating’ has exploded since Wednesday evening, reaching a crescendo at 7:30 AM […]
The Kerala High Court has annulled the marriage of a Hindu girl who converted to Islam pointing out that she did not take permission from her parents. According to Sunni Islamic law, it is compulsory for the woman to get the permission of her wali or guardian — usually her parents — to get married. In this […]
When Hussain Rasheed started talking about his son, a sob choked his voice. His feeble reply wasn’t even audible to the small gathering for sometime. When he regained his composure the first question he asked: Why was my son killed? What was his crime? The only crime of Yameen Rasheed,an independent blogger, was that he […]
Sri Sri Ravishankar, a propagator of Yoga and ancient Indian wisdom, criticized the tendency to oppose any particular community in the name of patriotism. In an interview with WION TV channel, the spiritual leader also asked vigilantism related to cow to be treated and dealt with as criminal instances. On Triple Talaq, he said human […]
Facebook has restored ‘Atheist Republic’, by far the biggest page operated by the Atheist community on any social media network, after it was shut down using ‘mass reporting’ by religious people. The move followed a big outcry among atheists and free-speech advocates online. The page was taken down about 24 hours ago, and remained inaccessible […]
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah said the state governments run by the party will bring people who commit violence in the name of the cow under control. “Trust us, we will bring this under control very soon,” Shah said in an interview with India Today television. “We are not taking this lightly. It is […]
After making the National Anthem mandatory in movie halls, the Supreme Court has moved on to the question of whether or not to make Vande Mataram, the national song of India, mandatory in schools. Taking up a petition on the matter, the Supreme Court today issued notice to the central government asking it for its […]
Home Minister Rajnath Singh said India will go to any extent to save Kulbhushan Jadhav. “We will go to whatever extent we need to, but we will save Kulbhushan Jadav,” the minister said, while attending an event in Mumbai. The minister maintained that Kulbhushan Jadhav was not a spy, but a businessman who happens to […]
The Reserve Bank of India has told the management of Tirumala Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh that the money deposited in the temple’s hundis cannot be exchanged for new notes. The move was in response to a letter by the temple management asking if it was possible to convert the old notes into valid cash. “We […]
A government doctor in Kerala has come under criticism on social media for taking a Polio vaccination awareness class for women from behind a veil. According to local media reports, nearly 100 women participated in the thinly veiled awareness drive conducted by a medical superintendent of the government hospital at Nileswaram in Kasargode district in North Kerala. The […]
Sreeja Neyyattinkara, one of the state secretaries of Welfare Party in Kerala, has set off a storm among Dalit and Minority activist circles in Kerala by heavily criticizing some orthodox practices among the Muslims of the state. The criticism has come as a surprise as the Welfare Party is largely comprised of Muslim supporters and activists, and […]
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and reportedly the fifth richest person in the world, no longer wants to be identified as an ‘atheist’, he said on the social network he created. “No,” he said, when asked if he was (still) an atheist. “I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where […]
