'People are beaten at the slightest provocation, paraded completely naked and then tortured. Did you know the number of prison deaths is the highest in Maharashtra? The one year I was in jail, 98 prisoners died.' 'The judges did warn the jail authorities, but they didn't care. They even violated the high court's order regarding my treatment. One judge asked my lawyer: "Can I go and implement my orders there?"' Professor G N Saibaba, who is 90 per cent handicapped, speaks of his ordeal in a Nagpur jail after being arrested for protesting against the Centre's anti-Naxal and anti-Adivasi campaign.
Rahul Gandhi also attacks Modi and RSS in Bastar.
'People accused of mass murder and worse are let out on medical grounds.' 'Saibaba is now 100% handicapped, and has committed no murder, yet he is not allowed to come out.'
When Hadiya Standing her ground In the courtroom was compelled to beg: 'I want freedom' I ceased to breathe in my prison cell
Reverend Filipe Neri Ferrao, has urged the central government to "immediately and unconditionally revoke the Citizenship Amendment Act" and stop quashing the "right to dissent".
The Assam government had received prior intelligence report of an attack by terrorists of National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Songbijit but it did not know about the target and spots, said a senior official on Saturday.
Making a veiled attack on Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said Congress would not resort to abuse of its rivals notwithstanding any amount of provocation.
'When you have a village which is controlled by the BJP, who are the people likely to perpetrate the attack?'
'As long as you are talking about Adivasis in Bastar or the brutalisation of the State nobody raises an eyebrow. But the moment you talk about Kashmiri Pandits -- after all, we were a religious minority in Kashmir -- and how they being in a minority were targeted it doesn't go down well and no one speaks about it.' 'That is the saddest and most ironical aspect of this whole tragedy,' Rahul Pandita, a Kashmiri Pandit and author of Our Moon Has Blood Clots, a book that chronicles the plight of his community in the strife-torn Kashmir Valley, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com
'It is a concocted letter and we suspect the IB (Intelligence Bureau) to be behind this game.' 'All the investigation agencies should have quietly gone about finding more about this alleged plot to kill the prime minister.' 'Why are you leaking such a letter that reveals the plot to the press as well as to BJP spokespersons?'
'The home minister of India has given his assurance to the MP of Lakshadweep.'
Development and smart policing must go hand in hand in Chhattisgarh, says Sanjeev Nayyar who travelled through several Naxal affected regions of the state.
"Today, I want to tell you that before the 2024 polls the NRC will be conducted across the country and each and every infiltrator identified and expelled."
'This was long expected because Mahendra Karma was on the Maoists's hit list... I don't think the Maoists cared as much about the consequences as they cared about the fact that they had to get rid of Mahendra Karma. Whatever else they do or don't do now, they can say they have revenged Salwa Judum.' Sociologist Nandini Sundar on the Maoist massacre and its aftermath.
From carrying portraits of their sons and husbands who have committed suicide due to agrarian distress to picketing to doing sewa 24x7 at langars, women have shown a rare determination not to capitulate before the government.
The selection of Satiuse Kujur, a leader from the tea workers (Adivasi) community in Assam, as the second candidate of the ruling Congress for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha election has not gone down well with a section of senior party MLAs. PM Dr Manmohan Singh is the party's first candidate for the RS poll that will be held for two seats.
Spells of communal as well as ethnic violence, that have become the bane of life in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas of Assam, which have claimed 731 lives since 1993 in the area.
The Congress chief alleged that in the 2016 demonetisation exercise, black money became white, nobody went to jail and contrary to the BJP's promise, no one received Rs 15 lakh in their bank account.
The death toll on Wednesday climbed to 68 in the series of attacks by suspected Bodo militants belonging to the National Democratic Front of Bodoland faction in Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts of Assam while the Centre was rushing additional forces to the state.
'The message has gone loud and clear (among the people of Assam) that the BJP is only interested in polarising (the country) and they are basically interested in (capturing votes in) the Hindi heartland and they don't bother much about rest of India.'
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday appealed to different communities in Assam to live together. Referring to recent clashes between Bodos and minority immigrant settlers in the state, he said Assam is a typical example of a pluralistic society where communities like Bodos, minorities, Bengali Hindus, Adivasis, Rajbongshis and others live.
Mamata said the saffron party could not build even a small Ram temple in the last five years.
A villager suspected of indulging in sorcery was lynched in a remote Adivasi-inhabited Kalabasi hamlet of Narayanpur tea estate in South Assam's Lakhipur sub-division by fellow villagers.
Hours after the Chhattisgarh government offered to hold talks to secure the release Sukma district collector Alex Paul Menon, Maoists on Monday night named three mediators, including lawyer Prashant Bhushan, for negotiations.
Biju Janata Dal member of Legislative Assembly Jhina Hikaka was kidnapped as his party did not honour a "secret deal" struck with the Maoist-backed Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha during the recent Zilla Parishad elections, opposition Congress Chief Whip Prasad Harichandan alleged on Tuesday.
Seeking to allay citizenship concerns of a large number of people, government sources said on Thursday that one can prove Indian nationality by submitting any document related to his date of birth and its place, and there will be "absolutely no compulsion" to submit any document by his parents during any such exercise. An explainer shared by official sources said no document will be required for anybody's pre-1971 genealogy as such a condition was specific to the NRC exercise in Assam and asserted that it will be sufficient to provide one's details of birth like date and place in any future nationwide NRC.
Dr Sen, 62, who is currently facing charges of sedition in India, came to England, with his wife Illina, to receive the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award 2011. Naomi Canton caught up with him in London during his trip.
Asma Khatoon said it is not biryani that has attracted women to the protest at Shaheen Bagh, while holding that such vilification campaigns will have no effect on the agitation.
'Adivasis are a critical national treasure, so we need to protect them.' 'The fight for the tribals of Chhattisgarh needs people from all political parties. It cannot be about any single political group.'
The development is being seen as a blow to the opposition Congress which was planning to forge a grand alliance in Chhattisgrah to unseat the ruling BJP.
The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday struck down a public interest litigation seeking directions for covering of statues of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in various parts of Uttar Pradesh as they may help Congress "derive" political mileage during the assembly polls.
A bench of Supreme Court judges, Justices Altamas Kabir and Jasti Chalameshwar, has directed the Chhattisgarh government to produce the Adivasi teacher, Soni Sori, in All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi within one week.
Congratulating Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for the massive surrender, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram assured those who surrendered that they would be treated with honour and dignity. K Anurag reports.
With the Maoists dropping the name of a hardcore ultra from the list of their 30 jailed associates and extending the deadline, the Odisha government on Monday expressed hope that Biju Janata Dal MLA Jhina Hikaka could be released on April 18.
'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
Bowing to Maoists' demands, for securing the release of a Biju Janata Dal MLA and an Italian from the captivity of ultra-Left activists' captivity, Odisha government on Wednesday said it would facilitate the release of 27 persons, including 8 Naxals, from jails.
Adivasi teacher and alleged Naxal sympathiser Soni Sori was admitted to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Thursday afternoon. AIIMS had refused to admit Soni Sori on Tuesday, in spite of directions to do so by the Supreme Court.
Pegasus, which is capable of attacking both Android and iOS, has been around for three years and is considered one of the most sophisticated spyware in the market.
Two youths on Saturday raised black flags and shouted slogans against corruption when Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was addressing a poll rally in tribal-dominated Duddhi in Sonbhadra on Saturday.
Three days after the Odisha government invited it for talks for the release of abducted Biju Janata Dal Member of Legislative Assembly Jhina Hikaka, Maoist-backed Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh on Monday said it was willing to do so if certain conditions were fulfilled.
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