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Remembering Bhai Taru Singh on his Jayanti: The Sikh martyr who had his head scalped for refusing to convert to Islam

OpIndia Staff
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Remembering Bhai Taru Singh on his Jayanti: The Sikh martyr who had his head scalped for refusing to convert to Islam

October 9, 2021, marks the 301st birth anniversary of Bhai Taru Singh, a prominent Sikh martyr who gave up his life to protect Sikh values by having had his head scalped rather than cutting his hair and converting to Islam.

PM Modi took to Twitter to pay his tributes to the Sikh martyr on his birth anniversary. “Remembering Bhai Taru Singh Ji on his Jayanti. Generations to come will never forget his bravery. His unwavering commitment to truth and justice are deeply inspiring,” he tweeted.

Who was Bhai Taru Singh?

Bhai Taru Singh was born around 1720 in the Amritsar region during the rule of the Mughal empire. Right from his childhood days, Singh was deeply inspired by the Sikh ethos and attached to his religion. When he saw Sikh rebels rescuing a poor girl from the clutches of Mughal oppressors, he decided to become initiated into the Khalsa.

Singh has one sister, Tar Kaur. Both the siblings started serving food and aid to gurusikhs(devout Sikhs of the Guru). At that time, Sikh rebels were planning to topple the Mughal governor of Punjab, Zakaria Khan. According to historical accounts, an informant reported the siblings to Khan. The two were arrested on charges of treason.

It is said that villagers were able to secure the release of his sister by bribing the Mughal governor, but Bhai Taru Singh resolutely refused to seek a pardon. For his refusal to bow down before Khan, Singh was sent to imprisonment. He was reportedly tortured during his incarceration, but Singh did not grumble and stoically endured the agony.

Mughal governor Zakaria Khan had Bhai Taru Singh’s head scalped for refusing to convert to Islam

Later, when he was brought before Khan and asked about what gave him the strength to continue patiently suffer torture meted out to him, he said he drew his powers to endure torture through his keshas (‘unshorn hair’) blessed by Guru Gobind Singh. Rattled by his unwavering faith in Sikhism, Zakaria Khan gave Singh an ultimatum of either embracing Islam and have his hair cut off as an offering or face execution.

When he refused to abandon his religion, Khan had Bhai Taru Singh’s scalp cut away from his skull with a sharp weapon to prevent his hair from growing further. As per Sikh historian Ratan Singh Bhangu, after his scalp was torn off, Singh cursed Zakaria Khan, saying he would be killed by his shoes.

Sikh sources say after cutting Singh’s scalp, Khan was afflicted by unbearable pain and the inability to urinate. Realising his mistake, Khan sent an apology to the Khalsa Panth for his atrocities against the Sikhs and asked for their forgiveness. They reportedly suggested to him that if he wanted his pain to subside, he will have to hit himself with Singh’s shoes. Though it cured Khan of his condition, he died 22 days after having hit himself with the shoes, just like Singh had predicted. Upon learning that he had outlived his tormentor, Bhai Taru Singh died on 1 July 1745.

Mosques present in vicinity of Gurudwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh demolished after dispute over ownership of the site

As a mark of remembrance, Gurudwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh was built at the spot where Bhai Taru Singh was executed, which is in present-day Pakistan. The gurdwara was built after 1762 when the Sikh rule began in Punjab. The shrine was built on the grounds of the Shaheed Ganj Mosque in Naulakha Bazar of Lahore and was commissioned in 1722 during the reign of Mughal Emperor Alamgir II, with its construction completed by Abdullah Khan in 1753.

But in the 1880s, the dispute between Sikhs and Muslims started over the ownership of the place. The Sikh community started protesting and objecting over the existence of a mosque near the spot where Bhai Taru Singh was martyred and soon the matter reached the court. In July 1935, when British authorities were hatching out a settlement between the two communities, a group of Sikhs demolished the mosque, touching off a deadly wave of communal riots.

However, as per Pakistani historian Shahid Shabbir, the mosque was demolished in presence of British officials after a court ruled in the favor of the Sikh community. Shabbir says the photographs of British officials and Sikh protesters standing at the site when walls and dome of the mosque were brought down were published in leading dailies.

Nevertheless, the site became a thorn in the side of Muslims and Sikhs since then. Even today, there are claims and counterclaims over the ownership of the land. Sikhs claim the land belongs to them while Muslims say they are the rightful heir to the site. It is said that the site is associated with four historical shrines. These include the Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj Bhai Taru Singh (Shaheedi Asthan), Shaheed Ganj mosque (now non-existent), Darbar Hazrat Shah Kaku Chisti (dargah) and Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj Singh Singhnian.

Pakistan had recently sealed Gurudwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh after a Muslim group claimed they won’t allow the Sikh shrine to exist

Recently, in July 2021, Pakistan had sealed the historical Gurdwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh after a land dispute between local Sikhs and a group of activists of Dawat-e-Islami (Barelvi). According to reports published then, Dawat-e-Islami claimed that the Gurdwara was located on the burial site of Muslims Pir Kaku Shah and they wouldn’t allow a Gurdwara to exist in the same premises. As communal tensions escalated, the Pakistani government intervened and sealed the premises which house a Gurdwara as well as a Mazar to avoid any untoward incident.

Here’s how much Ranbir Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan will be paid to play Rama-Ravana in Nitesh Tiwari’s web series

OpIndia Staff
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Here’s how much Ranbir Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan will be paid to play Rama-Ravana in Nitesh Tiwari’s web series

Nitesh Tiwari is set to make a trilogy of movies on the Hindu Epic Ramayana. Ranbir Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan are expected to play the roles of Rama and Ravana respectively. For their roles, they are expected to receive Rs. 75 crores each.

The estimated budget of the trilogy is set at Rs. 750 crores. “The rest of the budget will go into making the kind of staggering epic that the Ramayan has never been treated to before,” a source informed Subhash K. Jha.

The Ramayan trilogy will be directed by Nitesh Tiwari and produced by Madhu Mantena.

The report published on Bollywood Hungama also says that the news of Kareena Kapoor Khan being approached to play the role of Sita is completely false. “They were planted by her marketing team. Kareena for all her talent, doesn’t suit the part at all,” the source is reported to have said. The filmmakers are yet to decide who will play the role of Sita.

Earlier, it was reported that Kareena Kappor Khan had demanded Rs. 12 crores for the role of Sita in a retelling of the Ramayana from Sita’s point of view. The movie was tentatively titled ‘Sita: The Incarnation’.

Meanwhile, Kareena’s husband Saif Ali Khan has portrayed the role of Lankesh in another Ramayana based movie titled Adipurush. The movie has been directed by Om Raut and features Prabhas of Baahubali fame as Shri Ram. The shooting for that was completed on Saturday.

Nitesh Tiwari is an accomplished director who has won the National Film Award for the movies ‘Chillar Party’ and Chhichhore. The latter featured Sushant Singh Rajput in the lead. He has also directed the movie Dangal featuring Aamir Khan.

‘After JNU, left plans to grab DU using Mark Jihad’, professor questions high number of students getting 100% marks in Kerala board exams

OpIndia Staff
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‘After JNU, left plans to grab DU using Mark Jihad’, professor questions high number of students getting 100% marks in Kerala board exams

In the ongoing admission process in Delhi University (DU) with students of Kerala Board of Higher Secondary Education dominating the admission process, a teacher of DU Rakesh Kumar Pandey has said that he can sniff ‘Mark Jihad’ in this.

Pandey, professor of Physics at Kirori Mal College, said that since the past few years, under a Leftist-jihadi conspiracy, students from Kerala are being infiltrated in DU. He said that the Kerala Board awards 100 percent marks to its students which makes their entry in DU easy.“A college had to admit 26 students in a course having 20 seats only because they all had 100 per cent marks from Kerala board. For last few years, Kerala board is implementing #Marksjihad.” he said in a Facebook post on October 5.

Rakseh Pandey who is a former president of the National Democratic Teachers Front warned that in the coming days this premier university will meet the fate of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). They captured JNU now they will capture DU also, he said. “Leftists are known for manipulating admission process to pack a university with their volunteers. They did that in JNU successfully for decades,” he said in another Facebook post yesterday.

Pandey has courted the ire of the Left-Liberal gang for his ‘Mark Jihad’ comment but he insists that what he has said about this organized missionary kind of development to spread Jihadi and Leftist agenda will ruin DU. Kerala HRD minister V Sivankutty has sought action against him and Left students outfit demonstrating against him. The ABVP has also jumped into the debate and demanded rationalization of the marking system.

The professor said that he has been watching a trend of the growing dominance of Kerala students for the last three years, and there is an increase in the number of students from Kerala Board of Higher Secondary Education with 100 per cent marks. He said if any board wants to dominate admission it can easily be done by giving 100 per cent marks. “I feel there is a motive behind this. There are some people who want to send their volunteers into DU,” he said.

Rakesh Pandey, who has no intention to withdraw or apologize for his remarks, said that he just pointed out improper paper evaluation and his reference of Mark Jihad is quite contextual. He said that the like love done with the intention to spread religion is Love Jihad, marks allocation guided by reasons to spread leftist ideology is ‘Marks Jihad’.

He added that ‘the conspiracy behind the inexplicable surge in marks of students and the unnatural surge in the number of applications from Kerala Board is ideologically-driven and not religion-driven.’

He said that Communists are the greater danger and harmful, and ‘ricebag’ students from Kerala will inject toxic ideologies and jihad on DU’s campuses. While he fears frequent hartals and campus violence he wondered why Kerala youth coming to DU despite Kerala having a wonderful, 100% literate state with Harvard-beating education.

“Or have they just realised they have turned Kerala into another Bengal, a post communist dystopian nightmare?” he asked. As English and Hindi are the modes of teaching in DU, he claimed that most of these students from Kerala are also poor at English and Hindi.

A news website tfipost has analyzed certain admission data indicating a higher intake of students of Kerala State Board in DU. The report says that in spite of strict 100 percent cut-offs for some courses this year, students from Kerala are dominating the admission process. As per the report, 3 out of 10 courses with a 100 per cent cut-off, closed their admission processes on October 6, 2021. Out of 206 students admitted under the unreserved category, more than 95 per cent of them have studied from the Kerala state board of education. The report doubts that out of 28 states and 8 union territories, if Kerala captures 95 per cent of seats in admissions, it is an indication that the state has an extremely efficient system or something corrosive. 

The Kerala state board uses the average of both class 11th and class 12th marks, to award final results to its students. On the other hand, DU offers admission on the basis of the cut-off marks of class 12th. Besides, Kerala Board for the reasons best known to Kerala HRD minister V Sivankutty has been liberal in awarding marks in class 12th.

Media reports suggest that DU officials too have come across discrepancies in the marks of class 11th and class 12th of the applicants from Kerala.

Lakhimpur Kheri violence: As Ashish Mishra appears for interrogation, here is how Congress-friendly media claimed he had ‘fled’ to Nepal

OpIndia Staff
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Lakhimpur Kheri violence: As Ashish Mishra appears for interrogation, here is how Congress-friendly media claimed he had ‘fled’ to Nepal

On Saturday (October 9), accused Ashish Mishra appeared before the UP Police Crime Branch over his alleged involvement in the violence that took place at Lakhimpur Kheri on October 3. Ashish Mishra is the son of BJP leader and Minister of State (Home) Ajay Mishra Teni. He was summoned by the police in connection to the attack on BJP workers by the frenzied mob of farmer protestors.

Congress-friendly journalists peddle conspiracy theories about the whereabouts of Ashish Mishra

Although Ashish Mishra has been co-operating with the law enforcement authorities, Congress-friendly journalists, media persons and influencers took to Twitter to cast aspersions about his whereabouts. In a coordinated fashion, they cited unknown sources to claim that Mishra had fled to the neighbouring country of Nepal to evade investigation and arrest.

Journalist ‘Rana Ayyub’ alleged, “Picture this. The son of the junior minister of Home Affairs in India is allegedly absconding for murder and could possibly have escaped to Nepal.” While taking potshots at the Hindu community, she shared a picture with the caption, ‘Yeh kya ho raha hai Duryodhan??? (What is happening, Duryodhan? )’

Screengrab of the tweet by Rana Ayyub

Journalist-cum-Congress loyalist Nikhil Wagle also cast aspersions about the whereabouts of Mishra. “Minister’ son didn’t honour police summons. If he has fled to Nepal, Modi-Shah Adityanath should be held responsible,” he went about his rant on Friday.

Screengrab of the tweet by Nikhil Wagle

‘Journalist’ Ajit Anjum referred to Ashish Mishra as ‘Lakhimpur villain’ and alleged that he ran away to Nepal. “Modi hai toh Mumkin hai (Everything is possible under the Modi era),” he wrote.

Screengrab of the tweet by Ajit Anjum

‘Janta Ka Reporter’ founder and supposed journalist, Rifat Jawaid, called Ashish Mishra ‘farmers’ killer’ and went on to claim that he had fled to Nepal. While ensuring that he sympathizes with his co-religionists, Jawaid wrote, “Farmers’ killer Ashish Mishra reportedly fled to Nepal, but #AryanKhan continues to remain in custody. This is the story of India for you! Meanwhile, Supreme Court waits for a response from the UP government. This is the story of India’s justice system for you.”

Screengrab of the tweet by Rifat Jawaid

The official social media handle of Congress Sevadal (Manipur) tweeted, “Ashish Mishra s/o Union Minister Ajay Mishra has been reportedly seen in Nepal and the BJP Govt has helped him in every way by making Monu be #RunMonuRun.”

Screengrab of the tweet by Manipur Pradesh Congress Sevadal

Youth Congress leader Srivatsa attempted to draw a false equivalence between Siddique Kappan and Ashish Mishra. He claimed, “SIDDIQUE KAPPAN is in jail for the last one yr for doing his journalistic duty & trying to go to Hathras to report a gang-rape & murder. ASHISH MISHRA is free, protected by his father & relaxing in Nepal after getting caught on camera murdering Farmers with his car.”

Screengrab of the tweet by Srivatsa

West Bengal Trinamool Congress Committee Secretary, Becharam Manna, asserted that Ashish Mishra had skipped summons by Special Investigation Team (SIT) and had fled to Nepal. He went on to demand the ‘extradition’ of Mishra from the neighbouring country. “If he was not guilty why did he have to run? Requesting Narendra Modi to seek extradition of the accused. #TMCWithFarmers”

Screengrab of the tweet by Becharam Manna

Lakhimpur Kheri violence

On October 3, a ‘farmer’ mob attacked a BJP convoy with stones and sticks. The windshield of one of the cars broke and the driver seemingly lost control, thereby running over the crowd. Two protestors are believed to have lost their lives. Subsequently, the mob took to violence and beat up the men from the convoy and killed BJP workers. A total of 8 people, including a journalist, had lost his life.

Shah Faesal will not be appointed advisor to Jammu and Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor, govt sources confirm

OpIndia Staff
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Shah Faesal will not be appointed advisor to Jammu and Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor, govt sources confirm

Bureaucrat-turned politician Shah Faesal was reportedly set to be appointed as an advisor to Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir Manoj Sinha, according to initial media reports. The news of the proposed appointment came after Shah Faesal converted from being a virulent anti-BJP critic to a vocal advocate for Narendra Modi’s brand of governance.

However, sources within the Government have confirmed to OpIndia that Faesal will not be appointed an advisor to Manoj Sinha. Various news organisations such as Republic, CNN News18 and journalists associated with India Today had made the claim. However, OpIndia reached out to government sources who confirmed to us that the news is untrue.

After the initial media reports, journalists had also said that it was fake news.

According to journalist Aditya Raj Kaul, Shah Faesal has himself denied it.

Shah Faesal had in 2020 stepped down as the president of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement (JKPM), a political party he had founded with comrade Shehla Rashid. Since then, his future has been the subject of much speculation, with many believing that he could return to the administrative services.

More recently, he has been trolled by Islamists for praising Narendra Modi. Applauding the Prime Minister’s ‘Mann ki Baat’ in January, Faesal had said, “It is like 1.3 Billion people coming together as a family on a Sunday morning and each one being heard and spoken to, each one feeling counted.” He further added, “My take away from this program: Communication can build solidarities and make a nation ‘sound’ like a family.”

A week earlier, Shah Faesal had praised the Prime Minister’s vaccine diplomacy. He had said, “This is more than just a vaccination program. It’s good governance + human capital formation + nation-building + India assuming global leadership as a Jagat Guru (The Guru of the World).”

Islamists had accused him of backstabbing Kashmiris and accused him of ‘bootlicking’. They had also call him ‘Sanghi’ and showered him with a torrent of other abuses.

Note: The report has been updated with relevant information.

Online store Nykaa advertises condoms for Navratri, insults Hindu sentiments, sparks outrage: Details

OpIndia Staff
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Online store Nykaa advertises condoms for Navratri, insults Hindu sentiments, sparks outrage: Details

An attempt by online store company Nykaa to promote the sale of condoms in the name of Navratri has attracted sharp criticism online. In its recent marketing strategy on the eve of Navratri, Nykaa put the sale of condoms dedicated to the Hindu festival Durga Puja. In the advert, Nykaa put a tag of sale and 40% off in the offer.

The screenshots of the offer was taken by activist Sunaina Holey and was shared on the social media platform. Nykaa was tagged and Sunaina asked what was the logic of Navratri and sex. She said that Hindus celebrate this holy festival and 9 goddesses are worshiped for 9 days. Durga Puja is synonymous with Navratri, where Goddess Durga fights against Mahishasura and wins and restores dharma, she said.

The user also added, “Stop insulating Hindu Gods, Goddesses and festivals. Enough is enough @MyNykaa. You better stop advertising this condom ad under the name of Navratri. @LegalLro Pls look into the matter.” The Legal Rights Observatory was also tagged to look into the matter.

Similar reactions of dissatisfaction from netizens followed after the tweet.

Another user called for a boycott of Nykaa and said, “@MyNykaa you don’t have any right to disrespect our festivals , beliefs and feelings, hoping that you would take down this type of malicious act and gather basic code of conduct and mannerism!”

One user asked, “When will you take action for all these online websites who are making fun of hindus?”

Santosh Kumar said “We need to completely boycott @MyNykaa . This is really ridiculous and highly offensive I mean how can you make such a derogatory add in such a holy week. Really disgusting and a legal action should be taken by Gov. Too much freedom is dangerous”.

It is important to note that this is not a first incident where a company or organization tried to hurt the sentiments of Hindus in the name of selling products. Be it Diwali or Holi or any other festivals, big companies often resort to advertisements bound to hurt any Hindu. The Manyavar ad also did the same thing in the past in the name of giving a new definition to the ‘Kanyadaan’ ritual.

Video game on Israel-Palestine conflict that glorifies Jihad, rewards headshot and killing of Israeli soldiers stirs controversy: Details

OpIndia Staff
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Video game on Israel-Palestine conflict that glorifies Jihad, rewards headshot and killing of Israeli soldiers stirs controversy: Details

A new video game has stirred a controversy with its focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The game titled, ‘Fursan al-Aqsa: Knights of al-Aqsa Mosque’, was developed by Nidal Nijm Games and is set to be released in December 2021.

The ‘indie video game’ addressed the Israel-Palestine conflict from the Palestinian perspective. Indie games are those that are generally developed without the financial backing of major game publishers and are published due to the efforts of small teams.

The website describes the game as “a Third Person Action Game on which you play as Ahmad al-Falastini, a young Palestinian Student who was unjustly tortured and jailed by Israeli Soldiers for 5 years, had all his family killed by an Israeli Airstrike and now, after getting out from the prison, seeks revenge against those who wronged him, killed his family and stolen his homeland, by joining a new Palestinian Resistance Movement called Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

The game was inspired by others such as Metal gear Solid and Call of Duty Modern Warfare. According to the website, the game breaks “the cliché of portraying Muslim and Arabs as Terrorists, Bandits, Villains and the Americans/Israelis as the “Good Guys” and “Heroes” of History. This is the first game in the games industry which addresses such a sensitive topic, in a realistic way, showing the other side of history, which is very unknown by people, mostly here on west.”

The game can be played on a computer with a Windows Operating System, a 2.0+ GHz Processor, 2 GB system RAM and a compatible Video Card. It can also be played on Playstation and Xbox 360.

Source: Fursan al-Aqsa

The explicit objective of the game is to present the Palestinian Jihad in good light. It has the tagline, “With bullets and blood we will free Palestine.”

The developer of the game says, “I am a brazilian muslim, son of a Palestinian Resistance Fighter, and I always wanted to tell the history of my father, and the history of my people, the palestinian people and their resistance against oppression. Through this game I want to show to the whole World that Fighting for Freedom is NOT Terrorism, Fighting for Life is NOT Terrorism, Fighting for Protecting the Homeland is NOT Terrorism, Fighting against the Oppressor and its Savagery, which kills innocent children and civilians, is NOT Terrorism, that Palestinian Resistance is NOT Terrorism!”

The videos of the gameplay that has been made available prior to release shows the protagonist chanting Allahu-Akbar and killing enemy soldiers. The gameplay has a great deal of violence, which is par for the course for such games.

The game involves eliminating enemy combatants, rescuing Palestinians, hijacking vehicles and taking down planes among other things. Sabotaging Israeli plots and planting bomb also form a core aspect of the gameplay.

The game will be released by Steam, the world’s largest game distributor. International Legal Forum (ILF), an advocacy group that combats anti-Semitism, has written to Valve, Steam’s parent company, demanding that the game be removed from its store, alleging that it violates US anti-terror laws.

“This game, with its unhinged glorification of violence and incitement to terror, may place Valve in direct violation of United States anti-terror laws and subject to potential civil litigation,” the letter to Valve says, as per a copy of it accessed by Washington Free Beacon.

The group claimed, “In allowing the use of your platform for the glorification and incitement of terror, your company may be in breach of a number of U.S. anti-terrorism laws, including, but not limited to, Section 2339 of the United States Code, which prohibits the providing of ‘material support or resources’ in the ‘preparation for, or in carrying out’ a violation of certain offenses, including terrorism.”

Valve did not respond to a request for comment from Free Beacon. While depiction of violence in video games is not a new phenomenon, there are concerns that it could be used as a recruitment tool by Jihadists.

Source: Fursan al-Aqsa

Arsen Ostrovsky, chairman and CEO of ILF, said that “although for some in the gaming world, this might be mere virtual reality, for Israelis, this is depiction of real life, having sustained decades of Palestinian terror, intifadas, and ongoing sprees of stabbings, vehicular ramming, and shooting attacks.”

He said that Americans “have also been killed during such attacks. In the event further attacks and loss of life arise out of this display in pure barbarism masquerading as a ‘virtual game,’ not only blood, but legal liability, will be on the hands of Valve.”

A disclaimer states that the art and storylines depicted in the game are a work of fiction and that the protagonist does not shoot Israeli civilians, women, children and the elderly. It says that only Israeli soldiers are shot. Nevertheless, a game that rewards “headshot” and “killing streaks” is bound to be seen as problematic.

Craftsmen struggle to sell Ravana effigies after Rajasthan government bans the use of firecrackers, line the streets to protest: Details

OpIndia Staff
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Craftsmen struggle to sell Ravana effigies after Rajasthan government bans the use of firecrackers, line the streets to protest: Details

Months after the second wave of coronavirus outbreak, India is still reeling from the economic and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the disruption has disproportionately affected the poorer sections of society. The crisis is also compounded by harebrained decisions made by the government.

The Rajasthan state’s decision to ban crackers ahead of the festival season is one such decision that has spelt doom for the poor craftsmen who were already buckling under the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

These artisans, who barely survived on subsistence, were into the business of selling effigies of Ravana for Dussehra celebrations. But now, after the state government placed a ban on the crackers, craftsmen are hard-pressed to find customers to sell their creations. The demand for the figurines of Ravana dropped dramatically after the Congress-ruled state government has enforced a strict law to proscribe bursting crackers.

With tears in their eyes and concerns about an uncertain future, the artisans have lined up on prominent streets in Jaipur, in an effort to sell the Ravana effigies created by them. The concerns are also amplified by the fact that last year too, the artisans had a rough season on account of lockdown imposed in the state in the wake of coronavirus outbreak.

This year, they had expected to make up for the losses endured during the last year and stabilise their financial condition, but the government’s order to ban firecrackers has served as a body blow to the craftsmen’s efforts to ward off the possibility of slipping into the state of grinding poverty.

With the COVID-19 cases receding, the artisans had anticipated a healthy demand of Ravana effigies to celebrate Dussehra this year. They bought raw materials in advance and started preparing for Ravana effigies. However, little did they know that the meagre savings that they had invested in buying raw materials for Ravana effigies would also be destroyed following the ban on firecrackers by the Ashok Gehlot-led Rajasthan government.

Vinod Gujrati, an artisan who came to Jaipur from Gujarat to make effigies of Ravana, says making profits is now secondary for him. All he is concerned with is recovering the investment he had made for preparing Ravana effigies.

Before the ban was imposed, Vinod had already bought raw materials like wooden bamboo, paper, cloth etc. So far, he has managed to sell only 10-15 effigies of Ravana, a far cry from what he used to sell in the past. According to him, he still needs to sell a lot many Ravana effigies to recover his investment in raw materials.

Another craftsman Kailash Gujrathi says the cost of raw material has increased but the price for which Ravana effigies are sold have come down, owing to weak demand. In 2019, he sold effigies for Rs 1000 per piece but now he says customers want the effigies at a lower cost. He is also consumed by the concern that people would no longer have interest in Ravana effigies if they are stuffed with firecrackers. “Children are interested in watching Ravana-Dahan because firecrackers are used in them. I’m afraid they would no longer be interested in attending Ravana-Dahan now,” he said.

Kerala govt admits Covid-19 deaths in the state were under-reported till mid-June, decides to add 7,000 deaths to total death toll

OpIndia Staff
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Kerala govt admits Covid-19 deaths in the state were under-reported till mid-June, decides to add 7,000 deaths to total death toll

While Kerala remains the state with the highest number of active Covid-19 cases in India, the state’s death tally is set to go up by 7000 due to ‘correction’ of under-reporting done earlier. The Communist government in the state has decided to add 7,000 death to the state’s Covid-19 death tally after allegations of under-reporting of deaths emerged.

Following the revision, the total Covid-19 death tally of Kerala will go up to over 33,000 from the current death toll of over 26,000. Announcing the decision to add more deaths in the state assembly on Friday, Kerala health minister Veena George said that these deaths were not included in official data for Covid-19 deaths due to the absence of relevant records. “If complaints exist about omissions in the list, the Health Department is open to look into them,” the minister added.

Reportedly, 7000 additional deaths will be added to the death toll till the second week of June. Till that time, a state medical board used to review deaths and announce the final list. This practice was criticised by health experts and opposition parties because the board allegedly didn’t include a large number where the patients had tested negative for Covid-19 after being infected, but died later due to complications caused by the Chinese virus infection.

From June second week, the practice of review of deaths by the board was stopped, and the hospitals started directly uploading death numbers.

While the state govt has admitted that the state’s Covid-19 deaths were being under-reported, health minister Veena George denied the opposition’s allegation that it was deliberate. “There was no deliberate attempt to exclude deaths of so many from the tally. We have been following ICMR guideline regarding Covid-19 deaths, but due to some technical glitches these deaths were left out. We will revise the list again,” the minister said in the assembly on Friday.

Uttar Pradesh: Temple priest found brutally murdered, Etah police arrests one Razzak, recovers an axe used for the crime

OpIndia Staff
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Uttar Pradesh: Temple priest found brutally murdered, Etah police arrests one Razzak, recovers an axe used for the crime

Etah police in Uttar Pradesh have posted a video byte on its official Twitter handle, informing that on the intervening night of October 8th (Friday) and October 9th (Saturday), a 52-year-old priest was brutally hacked to death in cold blood inside the temple premises, where he reportedly lived. The police confirmed that they have arrested the accused named Razzak and recovered the axe he used to hack the priest to death.

As per a report by Hindi Daily Amar Ujala, the residents of the village discovered the priest’s body lying in cold blood inside the temple premises on Saturday (October 9) morning when they immediately alerted the police.

The temple where the incident happened is located in the Nagla Jagroop village, which falls under the limits of Thana Kotwali Dehat, in Etah Tehsil of Etah district in Uttar Pradesh.

The police said that preliminary investigations have revealed that the accused Razzak lived with priest Kirpal, popularly referred to as ‘Baba Sadhu’ by the villagers and shared an extremely cordial relationship with him. They use to spend a lot of time together and also ate their meals with each other.

On the night of the incident also, Razzak and the priest were having dinner together, when the two got into an argument. The altercation enraged the youth, who then took an axe and brutally killed the priest.

The Kotwali Dehat police confirmed to OpIndia that Razzak was an addict and use to always be under the influence of Ganja (marijuana). According to the police officer, who did not disclose his identity, Razzak was likely under the influence of the drug on that day too and killed the priest in a fit of rage.

The police said that the matter is being investigated thoroughly and assured that appropriate action will be taken against the accused.

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