"We strongly condemn the allegation levelled by Shyam Manav... Hypnotism does not possess the power to make a person do violent act," said the spokesperson of the Sanstha, Abhay Vartak, at a press conference in Mumbai.
The Maharashtra government will examine if the controversial outfit Hindu Rashtra Sena could be banned in the wake of Pune techie Mohsin Shaikh's murder, Home Minister R R Patil said in Mumbai.
'A message was sent to society that those who question dogmas and believe in scientific methods will be silenced.' Hamid Dabholkar tells Neeta Kolhatkar why he is disappointed that his father Narendra Dabholkar's killers have not been arrested yet.
'There are many serious crimes in which powerful and fake babas have been involved in... The states where this is prevalent are Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and even Delhi,' CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat tells Neeta Kolhatkar.
The Shiv Sena attacked BJP-led government over failure to arrest the killers of communist leader Govind Pansare.
The Maharashtra government has further beefed up the 'Z' security cover of social activist Anna Hazare in view of letters threatening him with dire consequences.
Rushikesh Devdikar alias Murali, 44, who was absconding was arrested on Thursday from his hideout at Katras in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, the SIT said in a statement. According to the probe team, Devdikar was part of the conspiracy to kill Lankesh. He is accused number 18 in the case.
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Sunday that the Centre cannot interfere in the sexual assault case against Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal.
Facing heat over a long list of writers who have returned Sahitya Akademi awards or resigned from their posts in the literary body, Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday denied that it was being soft on the issue of "intolerance" and said the ideological inclinations of the writers should be looked into.
Teams of Maharashtra ATS and Mumbai police have been roped in to assist the Kolhapur police in the probe on the attack on the veteran communist leader Govind Pansare and his wife.
Voicing displeasure over the Dadri lynching incident and a string of killings of rationalists, he also questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's continued silence on these.
On the day the Maharashtra legislature passed the much-awaited anti-superstition bill, Thane district police arrested six men for murdering a 50-year-old woman in a ritual human sacrifice.
The train of writers returning government-conferred honours has now been joined by Vadodara-based author and poet Anil Joshi who announced that he will give up his Sahitya Akademi award over the recent killing of rationalist MM Kalburgi and a few others.
'It is worrisome that religion, politics and strong regional biases have pervaded our police force.'
'RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was on the Hindu extremists' hit-list. In June 2008, this information was made public. Prior to that, you should hear Bhagwat's speeches and listen to his 'liberal' statements.' 'After he was informed that he was on their hit-list, he became a hardliner. He was not like that before.'
Terming the BJP-led Maharashtra government a "total failure", Congress accused Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of giving clean chits to several tainted ministers.
'Why she was killed? Because she believed in a certain ideology, she wrote and spoke on that'
According to experts, religious and spiritual influences can affect life decisions beyond the normal.
'Now, it feels like the darkness has descended again.'
"The other Hindu organisations have some or the other backing. They have not been taking the hard stance on certain issues like we do," he added.
'If the Sanatan Sanstha is a threat to peaceful co-existence and Goa's culture, then I must stand up against such threats.'
'Neither the Congress nor the BJP has the political will to take on the Sanatan Sanstha.'
'They killed one Gauri, but now there will be lakhs of people who will continue to do Gauri's work.'
Among very few woman editors in Kannada journalism, she was a fierce activist, who openly expressed her pro-Naxal and Leftist views.
A group of academics and scholars on Friday expressed their outrage and anger against the "assault on academic and constitutional freedom", joining the recent protests by writers, artistes, filmmakers, historians and scientists over "rising intolerance".
The Bharatiya Janata Party's carping ally said the police assertion about security threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Maoists was just a 'conspiracy theory'.
Sameer Gaikwad, in his early 30s, was arrested from Sangli in a joint operation by the Kolhapur and the local police.
The police didn't confirm if the weapons used in murder of writer M.M. Kalburgi and Lankesh were similar.
Veteran Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare, who was shot at earlier this week, died at a hospital in Mumbai late Friday night after he was airlifted for treatment to the city this evening from Kolhapur. He was 82.
The author was flooded with a barrage of hate messages following his tweet in support of writers who returned their Sahitya Akademi awards.
In another twist in the Sheena Bora murder case, bone samples of her charred body collected in 2012 were found by forensic experts to be not matching those obtained from the remains which were exhumed recently.
Close on the heels of the arrest of a man allegedly having links with right-wing outfit Sanatan Sansthan in connection with the murder of Communist leader and rationalist Govind Pansare, a 32-year-old woman has been picked up by police for questioning from Kanjurmarg in Mumbai suburb.
Over 200 noted authors, including Salman Rushdie and Neel Mukherjee, have asked British Prime Minister David Cameron to raise the issue of "rising climate of fear" and "growing intolerance" in India during his talks with his counterpart Narendra Modi.
Rise up for the right to offend. Let there be no holy cow, person, religion, ideology that cannot be criticised, ridiculed, parodied, lampooned. That's what differentiates you from the bigots who entered Charlie Hebdo, says Mango Indian.
Eminent Punjabi writer and Padma Shri winner Dalip Kaur Tiwana decided to return her award protesting "recurrent atrocities" on Muslims in the country, as another Kannada writer joined authors giving up their Sahitya Akademi Awards against "growing intolerance".
'It isn't likely that he would have observed a 'strategic silence' on a sensitive and controversial issue, as is done today by the powers-that-be lest an observation lets the cat out of the bag about the ruling dispensation's mindset,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Kalburgi's wife, in her plea, said that the investigation in Dabholkar and Pansare murder cases was in a "sorry state" and no progress has been made in bringing the killers to book.
The writers, artistes, thinkers and academics had gathered for a "resistance" meet (Pratirodh) against what they described as "attack on reason, democracy and composite culture".
Though the list of superstitious beliefs is long, often dissolving distinctions of class, caste, religion and education, Karnataka's anti-superstition bill is seen as a big step ahead.
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