-The Indian Express A voice in the dark: Agnes Kharshiing remains undeterred as she awaits a response to her latest RTI application with the Urban Affairs department about land acquired for an upcoming medical college in Shillong. New Delhi: I didn’t know of Madalyn Murray O’ Hair until a feature film on her life, The Most Hated Woman in America dropped on Netflix. She was irreverent; she had a mind of...
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Jean Dreze contests Amit Shah with Gujarat data -Pheroze L Vincent
-The Telegraph Dreze showed how Jammu and Kashmir outscored Gujarat on the basis of a raft of development indices New Delhi: Economist Jean Dreze held up a placard at a protest rally here on Wednesday, displaying stats to contest home minister Amit Shah’s claim that Jammu and Kashmir was less developed than the rest of India. Dreze showed how Jammu and Kashmir outscored Gujarat on the basis of a raft of development indices. “I...
More »Social activist Aruna Roy speaks to Anindo Dey (The Times of India)
-The Times of India blog Last week, NDA government succeeded in getting contentious amendments to RTI Act passed by Parliament. Social activist Aruna Roy, who was at the forefront of the movement to persuade Parliament to enact the original law, speaks to Anindo Dey about the development: * The government said the RTI Act amendments set right the anomaly of the Information Commissions, which are statutory bodies, being treated on a par...
More »Political sidelining of Muslims holds ominous signs -Afroz Alam
-The Economic Times At a little over 14%, India has the third-largest Muslim population in the world. Are Indian Muslims confronting the void? Political parties are no longer engaging with Muslims like they used to. This process of withdrawal and fracturing began with the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and carries on in 2019. Globally, the pathologisation of Muslims began after 9/11, which entrenched Islamophobia, and moved the discourse around minorities entirely towards terror,...
More »Are you Arya Samaji, Bohra, Marthomite or Kuka? - Dinesh Narayanan
-The Economic Times For next census, proposal being debated on adding separate heads for sects/branches of 6 major faiths. NEW DELHI: Are you a Kabir Panthi or a Marthomite or a follower of the Hinayana sect or an Ahmadia or a Kuka? Confused? These are sub-faiths under the rubrics of, respectively, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism. Census 2021 may ask Indians to identify not just whether they belong to one of the...
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