'You know the factors against you and those in favour, and you use the weapons you have in accordance with the strategy you've developed.'
From playing to the Sikh vote bank because Punjab elections are round the corner, to ensuring that a discordant 'us versus them' note was struck, whatever could be done to exploit every last drop of communal appeal, was done, observes Jyoti Punwani.
Unlike other top police officers, A A Khan spoke boldly --- be it while defending 'encounters' in many of which he was involved, or in tracing the cause of the ghastly Radhabai Chawl incident, recalls Jyoti Punwani. Encounters were useful, he said, because hardened criminals who were targeted were beyond reform and no good for society.
Such was the terror created by the ATS, that all their relatives stayed away.
The BJP has 165 first-time MPs. Are we to expect such utterances from all 165 of them? Or only those from a rural background? Because that is the explanation given by the PM, says Jyoti Punwani.
Over the last decade, individual Muslims have started breaking from the tradition of sacrificing animals on Bakra Eid, motivated by the thought that the considerable amount spent on buying and sacrificing animals would be put to better use for the community's welfare, specially education.
Saturday will be the last time the Mumbai Mirror will hit newsstands as a daily. Two Saturdays ago, its owners, the Times of India group, shocked the city by deciding to convert the Mirror into a weekly newspaper. Jyoti Punwani salutes the Mirror and its editor, Meenal Baghel, for its pathbreaking journalism.
'We are known political activists, so the police put our names in.'
'Muslims and Dalits must erase the way they remember their past, or carry out their their performances in private,' says Jyoti Punwani, as Maharashtra's Censor Board denies permission to a play Jai Bhim, Jai Bharat.
The one thing holding back the plucky youngster who has never hesitated to plunge into unknown territory, is funds
'Father Stan was concerned about other innocents who may be implicated and put inside without the slightest proof, the way he was.'
While those who attended 'Livelihoods in Lockdown' learnt a lot, was anyone from the government listening?
'He won't be able to migrate; he must survive in that environment.' 'He will go back after the election to becoming invisible.'
'This minority government will be for only 15 days.' 'By that time, its motion of confidence will be defeated, and it will have to resign.' 'Therefore, the swearing-in is a waste of money, energy and time.'
'If you persist in opposing the government, they set the ED or the NIA on you. And the courts have not given us much hope.'
Not just in the hostel, but in college too, they would block his way in the corridor; snatch his mobile; make him get up from where he was sitting; crowd around him in the mess; drag him into their room and threaten to hit him with a belt.
Tensions continue to rise at IIT Indore over apology letters and quality of food.
The police were aware of the bandh since the gram panchayats had informed them about it. Yet, they did nothing to prevent it.
'There is a contradiction between what the then CM said in the assembly and the legislative council, and the direction taken by the police investigation.'
'It's like the BJP is mocking people: Do what you want, we'll still win.'
He may have been in the news for all the wrong reasons but the greater irony is that Muslim stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui's best jokes ridicule Muslims, and are wolfed down by Muslims, who form the majority of his 177,000 Instagram followers, notes Jyoti Punwani.
'Seems more than half of the 'desh' remained untouched by his 'samajik ekta ka andolan',' points out Jyoti Punwani.
The superintendent of Taloja jail has just been transferred. Does that signal a more human phase in prison for the Bhima Koregaon accused? asks Jyoti Punwani.
Fed up with the treatment at the Nagpur central jail, his advocate has decided he will no longer deliver anything for Professor Saibaba, leaving it to the jail authorities to fulfill their legal responsibility to look after the professor.
'I was living in a fools' paradise, thinking I could win over anyone with my good intentions.'
Today, hour-long, high-pitched 'debates' at prime time, replete with inflammatory visuals and captions, using half-truths, insinuations and lies, pour venom against Muslims and seek to divide Hindus and Muslims, notes Jyoti Punwani.
Where does one find a man who shows no bitterness or animosity towards Hindus, even after a frenzied Hindu mob burnt his house down?, Jyoti Punwani asks in this tribute to a truly extraordinary Indian.
BJP CMs promote a lawless culture, one where groups backed by the State are encouraged to attack fellow citizens, where being trigger-happy is the official police policy, notes Jyoti Punwani.
Vanraj Bhatia, the creator of unforgettable music, hated the fact that the 'New Wave' directors did not respect Hindi cinema's multi-song format.
Sonal lived the feminist slogan: The personal is political, in a way few feminists have been able to. She will be remembered and missed for doing this not with a dour self-righteousness, but with humour and a rare joie de vivre, remembers Jyoti Punwani.
'If Modiji likes his pakodas fresh from the pakodewala, why does his government keep making things difficult for us?'
According to the petition, Shyam Singh, who joined IIT Indore in 2015 as a PhD student, has been repeatedly asked to resign by his guide.
'It was a reaffirmation of his party's unrelenting defiance of its erstwhile ally, the BJP; an attempt to forge a new relationship with the community the Shiv Sena had always targeted; and a pointer towards the political imperative of taking everyone along if the fight against the ruling party had to succeed,' notes Jyoti Punwani.
The callousness with which these political dissidents are being treated goes against the Supreme Court's directive, given right at the beginning of the lockdown. The apex court had directed states to release prisoners to decongest jails, which had become hotspots of the coronavirus.
'We told the victims this was the only opportunity for them to get their story recorded.' 'If they did not recount their version the other side would concoct their own theory about what happened at Bhima-Koregaon.'
'Those who attacked me, punish them.'
Six Kashmiri Muslim students belonging to Sarhad, an organisation which brings semi-orphans from strife-torn regions to live and study at their school and college in Pune, share their hopes for their state and their experiences outside it. Jyoti Punwani reports.
Anyone with such experiences could have been expected to turn fundamentalist. But Shaheen Kadri is anything but that.
Will the latest development see a marked break from the way the case has been going?
