On Alimuddin street, where the CPI (M) headquarters in Kolkata is located, comrades have a love-hate relationship with the party’s general secretary Prakash Karat. While many deem his various miscalculations during the last 10 years as the principle reason behind the party’s loss of clout, they are also deeply respectful of Karat’s understanding of Left politics. So the party central committee’s rejection of Karat’s official draft resolution on tactical consensus is hailed as a victory, but nobody is celebrating. The dominant feeling is the sense of uncertainty with a glimmer of hope for course correction. In the last decade, the CPI (M) has gone from being one of the fulcrums of Delhi’s power equations to an almost marginal force, reduced to just a perfunctory sound-bite presence. Gone are the days when EMS Namboodiripad, Harkishan Singh Surjeet or Jyoti Basu played a critical role in framing India's polity. For Karat, this entire fall in fortune has directly coincided with his tenure as the general secretary.
What defines rape? Do injuries around the woman's private parts count as evidence that there was perhaps forced intercourse? In most cases, medical evidence which indicates forced sexual intercourse is often seen as good enough proof for conviction. But in a recent judgement the Delhi High Court acquitted an accused Achey Lal in the 2010 rape and murder of a 65-year-old woman, because it was not convinced of the proof and instead termed the intercourse as "forceful". A report says, "The judgement, by Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Mukta Gupta has let off the accused, 49-year-old Achey Lal, who was convicted by the lower court to 10 years RI, on the grounds that even if the intercourse 'has been forceful, it was not forcible'.
In old city of Hyderabad the historic Bibi Ka Alam procession is being taken out to pay tributes to the martyrs of Karbala with hundreds of mourners participating in it. Many are fasting and poor are being fed at houses and various places on Ashura day. The tenth day of Muharramm, Yaume Ashura is being observed to commemorate the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Husain. On this day, in 680 AD, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad and son of Hazrat Ali, Imam Husain lost his life along with his seventy two companions but did not deviate from the path of truthfulness and honesty. The day is being observed with grief and mournfulness all over the country.
A Yezidi slave girl with blue eyes can fetch the jihadists a good price, while a girl who is over 15 years of age needs to undergo a thorough check up of her teeth. These and some other chilling details have emerged in a newly released video in which ISIS jihadists are seen negotiating the price for Yazidi girls, who are sold as sex slaves. This comes as thousands of women and young girls from the Iraqi tribe have been abducted and forced into sex market and slavery by the deadly jihadist group after they stormed into villages in northern Sinjar region.
A local NGO has revealed that gaming parlours located near city colleges and slums attract youngsters between the age of 12 and 17 by offering them cash, pornography and soft drinks laced with drugs. In a shocking exposure of the truth behind the closed doors of video game parlours and cyber cafes in the city, local NGO Dnyandevi Childline has revealed that several such gaming centres use drugs, gambling and pornography to lure children. The revelation was made during a recent meeting between the NGO and the Pune Police Commissionerate, and both will now join hands to crack down on the racket that has mushroomed across the city.
The Delhi High Court left everyone bemused with its recent judgment in which it said that sex with a menopausal woman cannot be considered as rape. Setting aside the verdict of a trail court, a division bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Mukta Gupta, acquitted a man on the grounds that 'even if the sexual intercourse was forceful, it was not forcible and contrary to the wishes and consent of the deceased'. 49-year-old Achey Lal was accused of raping and killing a 60-year-old woman who died after the sexual encounter. A trial court had convicted him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment (RI).
An old joke about his father, Syed Abdullah Bukhari, likened him to a megalomaniac clown who wouldn't stop playing to the gallery even after the music had stopped and the audience had gone home. Ahmad Bukhari is proving very much to be a chip off the old block: besides inheriting the Imamat of Delhi's historic Jama Masjid from his father, he also appears to have inherited his megalomania. His farcical bid to "snub" Narendra Modi (excluding the Indian PM from his son's comical dastarbandi while pointedly inviting Nawaz Sharif to this non-event) in the name of advancing the Muslim cause is straight from his old man's fatwa spewing playbook that kept him in the headlines.
If Prime Minister Modi is serious about Swachh Bharat, he must provide leadership in converting the slogan into a viable multi-faceted programme. Who does not want, or hasn’t wanted, a clean India the public places of which are today probably the dirtiest and the most polluted in the world? The question one must ask is: why it has been so, and what has not been done to change the situation for the better? Otherwise, Swachh Bharat will only remain a slogan, like Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao.’ She was very upset when I once asked her in all humility what exactly she wanted to hatao (eradicate), what she wanted to replace it with, and how.
