An AIMIM corporator allegedly harboured Nida Khan, an accused in the alleged sexual harassment and religious coercion case at TCS, and her family in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, the police said on Friday.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala also issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on the appeal filed by Mathew Samuel and others challenging an order of the Allahabad high court which refused to quash the proceedings in the FIR filed against them by the state police.
A court in Nashik has declined to grant interim protection from arrest to Nida Khan, a key accused in the sexual harassment and religious coercion probe at a Tata Consultancy Services unit. The court has directed the Nashik Police and the complainant to file their formal responses to her anticipatory bail application.
The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation demolished alleged illegal constructions at the residence and other properties of AIMIM corporator Matin Patel, who is accused of harbouring Nida Khan, wanted in connection with a TCS case.
A prominent Islamic shrine in Bareilly has issued a decree banning religious conversion by force or allurement, endorsing Uttar Pradesh's recent ordinance aimed at curbing inter-faith marriages as an alleged ploy for conversion.
Two Union Ministers visited the family of a 23-year-old woman in Kothamangalam who allegedly took her own life due to harassment by her lover. The family is demanding an NIA probe into the incident, alleging forced religious conversion.
Madhya Pradesh Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Inder Singh Parmar has sparked controversy by saying that social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a 'British agent' who started a 'vicious cycle of religious conversion', prompting the Trinamool Congress to call the remarks an insult to Bengal.
A special NIA court in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district has reserved its order on a bail application filed by three persons, including two nuns from Kerala, arrested on charges of human trafficking and forced religious conversion.
'This is a major rupture in Tamil Nadu's political order.' 'For the Dravidian parties, the message is clear: The old DMK-AIADMK binary is no longer guaranteed a future.'
The Maharashtra government has directed strict implementation of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act to protect women in the workplace, following a serious incident at a TCS unit in Nashik. Establishments with 10 or more employees must set up Internal Complaints Committees (ICCs) and register on the Centre's She-Box portal, with failure to comply resulting in penalties.
Similar bills in the recent past have been passed in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
From Manavalan to Kannan Srank, a tribute to the unforgettable Salim Kumar who made generations of Malayalis laugh with his signature humour.
A US Congressman has introduced a resolution urging the US government to recognise the 1971 atrocities committed against Bengali Hindus in Bangladesh by the Pakistani Army as a genocide, seeking justice and historical acknowledgement.
FCRA registration will also be cancelled if any NGO is not utilising foreign funding as per the aims and objectives of the NGO or if it has not uploaded the annual returns, the ministry said.
What is missing in the BJP's armour is dominance over 50 percent of the electorate: Women. And this is a gamble Modi-Shah have indicated that they are willing to take, explains Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
India has previously rejected the US state department's annual human rights report on the country, saying they continue to be based on "misinformation and flawed understanding".
'The real fault line in Assam is not Hindu versus Muslim. It is Assamese versus Bengali -- and within that, the specific anxiety about undocumented Bangladeshi settlers claiming land and altering the demographic balance of the state.'
All along, we were told SIR was an essential exercise carried out as part of the Election Commission's regular duties. But now that the ideological mentor of the ruling party has declared that SIR is a means of detecting infiltrators, one understands the unseemly haste with which it is being carried out, notes Jyoti Punwani.
The Chhattisgarh State Women Commission has directed the Director General of Police to file FIRs based on complaints from three women who allege assault and molestation by Bajrang Dal workers. The women were initially involved in a human trafficking and forced conversion case.
A victim of alleged human trafficking and forceful conversion in Chhattisgarh claims she was coerced by Bajrang Dal activists to give a false statement. She also alleges police did not record her statement properly and that the arrested nuns are innocent.
India has slammed Pakistan at a UN debate by drawing attention to the heinous crimes of gross sexual violence against women in erstwhile East Pakistan in 1971, adding the pattern continues with impunity to this day.
The state cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier this week approved the draft ordinance to curb forcible or "dishonest" religious conversions including those for the sake of marriage, which could land violators in jail for up to 10 years.
'The nuns were subjected to abusive language and all types of mental torture.'
The arrest of two Catholic nuns from Kerala in Chhattisgarh on charges of human trafficking and forced religious conversion has ignited a political controversy, with opposition parties criticizing the arrest and the Chief Minister defending the police action.
The Kerala BJP has contradicted the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister's justification of the arrest of two Keralite Catholic nuns, stating they were not involved in human trafficking or forced conversion attempts and promising to help them.
'I cannot imagine that any NSA before Ajit Doval would have given us this kind of time and this kind of engagement. They would have offered slogans, or nothing at all. That, too, tells you something.'
Justice Renu Agarwal made the observation while rejecting a Hindu-Muslim couple's plea for police protection.
An additional chief judicial magistrate sent the accused to nine days of police remand on Monday.
Two more people have been arrested in connection with the alleged rape and forced religious conversion of a young woman in Meerut taking to five the total number of arrests in the incident even as the situation in the Uttar Pradesh district is tense but under control.
The core issues to be settled -- access to Hormuz, Israel's aggression in Lebanon, the question of Iran's nuclear programme, sanctions relief and compensation -- are thorny enough to require weeks of patient negotiation. The most likely outcome of the opening sessions is that both sides take the measure of each other, establish what is and is not negotiable, and return home without having broken anything. That would count as progress.
"Bhagwat has done national service by speaking the truth on what missionaries do," the Sena said.
Alleging that the NGO allows its name to be used "at the behest of some selected political interest", the Union of India told the top court that it is guilty of collecting huge funds by exploiting the agonies of riot-affected people.
'They should be given a strong message that they are not the ones who decide the rule of the land, and they are not the ones who decide what justice is.'
The 'Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill' was passed by the Legislative Assembly in December last.
A 30-year-old woman with three children converted to Hinduism and married a 12th-grade student in a temple ceremony in Uttar Pradesh's Amroha district. The woman, previously known as Shabnam, has been married twice before and has no living parents. Police are reviewing the circumstances surrounding the marriage, but no legal complaints have been filed so far. The woman's previous husband was left disabled after a road accident and she obtained a divorce last week. Her new husband's father supports the marriage and wishes the couple happiness.
'The BJP is keeping its options open and that the final decision is still tightly held.' 'That is consistent with the party's tendency to preserve suspense, avoid premature factional conflict, and use leadership selection as a way of resetting internal hierarchies.'
Gujarat police have registered the first FIR in the state under the newly-notified law against forcible or fraudulent religious conversion through marriage, and arrested a 26-year-old man in Vadodara city, a senior official said on Friday.
The Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday that religious freedom does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion and that it certainly does not embrace the right to convert an individual through fraud, deception, coercion or allurement.
Three years ago, the accused started exerting pressure on her to undergo religious conversion and perform 'nikaah' (marriage). But when the woman opposed, he threatened to kidnap her, Tikaram alleged.
The Chhattisgarh high court has disposed of two petitions seeking the removal of hoardings prohibiting entry to pastors and 'converted Christians' in eight villages, holding that they were installed to prevent forced conversions through allurement or fraudulent means and cannot be termed as unconstitutional.