Home Blog Page 7294

SC in a landmark judgement legalises passive euthanasia, Catholic group condemns it

OpIndia Staff
-
0
SC in a landmark judgement legalises passive euthanasia, Catholic group condemns it

The Supreme Court in a landmark judgement on Friday legalised passive euthanasia and allowed ‘living will’. Under ‘living will’, a person is allowed to voluntarily refuse medical treatment, even if it means embracing a natural death. Passive euthanasia, on the other hand, is a process where medical treatment is withdrawn from a terminally ill patient to hasten his/her death.

In an event of the patients not being in a condition to specify their wishes, instructions are written as an “advanced medical directive” can be carried out. In this directive, the person in question can detail his/her choice regarding medical treatment in the event when he/she no longer retains the capacity to take a decision.

The instructions in the “advanced medical directive” needs to be voluntarily executed without any coercion after attaining complete knowledge of the situation. The written directive also needs to specifically mention terms and the circumstances under which medical treatment can be withheld or withdrawn. The instructions provided need to be absolutely clear and unambiguous.

The document also needs to mention the name of a close relative or guardian who would take the call if the executioner (the patient in question) is incapable of making the decision. This document needs to be signed by the executioner in presence of witnesses and countersigned by jurisdictional Judicial Magistrate of First Class (JMFC). A copy of the directive needs to be stored in both the digital and paper format, with the JMFC, a registry of the jurisdictional District Court, local government officer and the family physician (if any).

This judgement was delivered by a constitutional bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan. The bench unanimously gave the verdict that “right to die with dignity is an intrinsic facet of right to life guaranteed under Article 21”.

This landmark judgement though has angered the Kerala Catholic Bishop’s Council, which proceeded to condemn it. The President of this council Soosai Pakiam called the judgement painful and objectionable. As per the President, god is the only custodian of life. Thus he claimed, humanitarians couldn’t approve the “killing” of a fellow human, even if it involves kindness and pity towards the patient.

In a sharp contrast, Jain monk Tarun Sagar welcomed this judgement and claimed that coincided with the tenets of Jainism. While thanking the Supreme Court for the verdict, the monk talked about how Mahavira taught them to die laughing.

SP MLA accused of kidnapping Dalit woman to ‘celebrate Holi’, Mulayam’s nephew visits him in prison

Abhishek Banerjee
-
0
SP MLA accused of kidnapping Dalit woman to ‘celebrate Holi’, Mulayam’s nephew visits him in prison

This year, our ever vigilant “Indian civil society” has played a leading role in raising awareness about how Holi has become a “festival of fear” for women.

Untitled.png

This is always a good thing. Although I do not know how productive it is for civil society members to approach random men on social media and accuse them of throwing “semen filled balloons.”

Untitled.png

This kind of outrage would perhaps be more productive if the same civil society could use its media empire to direct public outrage against so-called secular leaders of this country who actually commit crimes against women.

Like Samajwadi Party leader Hariom Yadav, an MLA of his party from Sirsaganj and his son Vijay. According to a report in the Times of India:

“In an FIR filed by the woman’s uncle, it has been alleged that Hariom, Vijay Pratap and 10 unidentified people took the woman with them in an SUV to celebrate Holi, but she never returned. When her father went to the MLA’s house to find his daughter’s whereabouts, he too didn’t return.

Pachokhara police booked Hariom and Vijay Pratap on Thursday under Sections 342 (wrongful confinement) and 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) of IPC and sections of the SC/ST Act.”

Abducting a Dalit woman in order to “celebrate Holi”? In fact, this particular Samajwadi Leader has been in trouble before. In December 2013, Hariom Yadav was accused of kidnapping and raping a minor girl from Agra. The minor was rescued from his house on Dec 26, 2013, more than after a month after she went missing on Nov 13.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVaYIHURwMI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent]

Perhaps this is the kind of secular leader that our civil society should be raising awareness against, instead of throwing out accusations at absolutely random people on Twitter. It is bad enough to have people like this serving as elected MLAs, but what happens when such elements receive tacit support directly from well-known leaders?

According to a report in Amar Ujala:

Untitled.png

Indeed, while in jail, MLA Hariom Yadav received a visit from none other than Akshay Yadav, who is a nephew of Mulayam Singh Yadav himself and a Samajwadi Party MP from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

According to Amar Ujala, Akshay Yadav announced that the party was backing Hariom Yadav to the hilt and that BJP government is engaged in vendetta politics. He also reminded us that the Samajwadi Party supposedly never practices such vendetta politics and possibly also wanted to remind us that “boys will be boys.”

After all, Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav said it himself. I suppose he will now say that boys should be allowed to “celebrate Holi” and if that means kidnapping a Dalit woman, so be it.

UPA govt insider reveals shocking details of how ‘Hindu terror’ bogey was maliciously manufactured

OpIndia Staff
-
0
UPA govt insider reveals shocking details of how ‘Hindu terror’ bogey was maliciously manufactured

An explosive interview by Times Now has revealed how the then UPA government went to great lengths to create the false narrative of Hindu terror and falsely blame Lt Col Shrikant Purohit for the Malegaon blasts. The interview aired on Friday night with the former undersecretary in the Ministry of External affairs RVS Mani revealed details about how the narrative was created around the Malegaon blasts case, the Samjhauta Express blast case and the Batla House encounter case to paint a picture of saffron terror.

RVS Mani, who served as undersecretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs from February 2006 to August 2010 has revealed several details and stated that Col Purohit was framed by the UPA government because he was breaking the back of the groups involved in Islamic radicalisation.


RVS Mani stated that the Malegaon blast case was registered with the local police. He has raised the following points on how Col Purohit was arrested and tortured and the whole narrative has a number of glaring loopholes.


The points raised by the former undersecretary are:

  1. Col Purohit was deliberately framed by the Congress government
  2. Within barely a month of the Malegaon blast, a serving Army Officers (Col Purohit) was arrested. Also, how did the case get transferred from the local police to the ATS within 4-5 day? The blasts happened at the end of September and Col Purohit was arrested on 4th November.
  3. Col Purohit was deliberately hounded and tortured because he was breaking the back of groups like SIMI. He was exposing the links between the terror groups involved with radicalisation and politicians and powerful individuals.

RVS Mani also raised questions on the manner of Col Purohit’s arrest. Stating that protocols were violated and norms were not followed at that time and it was a pre-planned framing.


RVS Mani also discussed the Samjhauta Blast case. He stated that a Pakistani national named Arf Kasmani from a Karachi based group claimed the responsibility for the blasts. Also, later links to SIMI and other such organisations were exposed. He states in all the years of his service he has never come across a single actionable input regarding Hindu Terror and the term was deliberately coined.


He also went on to discuss the Batla house encounter and stated that it was Digvijay Singh who used to barge into meetings of the Home Ministry and dictate terms on how the investigations should take place.


He added that though the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil was present at the police headquarters on the day of the Batla House encounters and was receiving regular updates. However, he never countered the UPA’a narrative of a ‘fake encounter’. A detailed enquiry by the then Joint Commissioner Amulya Pattnaik was conducted on the encounter, the Home Ministry officials were pressurised by Digvijay Singh to review the inquiry. He added that he and his colleague reviewed the inquiry reports and found no discrepancies but still the Batla House encounter was deliberately called a fake encounter by the UPA. He added that Digvijay Singh used to barge into meetings and made several attempts to dictate the terms of the inquiry.


Times now has raised certain startling points after the interview. They are :

  1. Was the consent of the Central government taken before arresting a serving Army officer like Col Purohit?
  2. Was there a proper court of inquiry or court marshal done by the Army as per norms? If not, why?
  3. Why did the Army reinstate Col Purohit with full honours after he was granted bail? If he was really involved, why would the Army grant him his full honour?
  4. Was Col Purohit targetted because he was exposing the nexus between politicians and terror groups?
  5. Did Col Purohit pay the price for his honesty and service to the nation?
  6. Was the false bogey of Hindu Terror was coined to counter the narrative of Islamic Terror?

The Congress party needs to answer these questions.

Agra residents allege getting drugged by missionaries who were luring them to convert to Christianity

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Agra residents allege getting drugged by missionaries who were luring them to convert to Christianity

Slum dwellers in Agra have alleged that they were approached by missionaries who tried to lure them to convert to Christianity by offering a house, better lifestyle and education for their children. They also alleged that the said people even tried to drug them by offering a “Samosa”, after eating which they started feeling dizzy. The residents reside at Sector-4 Awas Vikas Colony, in the city’s Jagdish Pura area.

While this episode was playing out, a bystander noticed this exercise and decided to intervene. During the resulting chaos, the “Father” in question quickly changed his clothes to possibly go incognito.

Later the police were called in and as per the SP of Agra City, they have received a complaint and the matter is being probed. While on one hand it is being alleged that the missionaries were carrying out religious conversions, the accused in the matter have claimed that they were carrying out awareness about Women’s day. An official complaint though hasn’t yet been filed.

Even though via many accounts, religious conversions by missionaries has been flourishing since long, the cases as such have started to find popular mention in recent days.

It was reported in December that the Madhya Pradesh police had arrested a Catholic priest and detained 40 others, over accusations of them forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity. The man who made the complaint alleged that he was converted to Christianity by being offered money. It was also alleged that one of the fathers present in the group also asked villagers to take holy dips in the pond and embrace Christianity.

It was also reported how the Mathura police had arrested 7 Christian preachers after they were accused of carrying out forced conversions in a UP village. These preachers were alleged to have distributed Bibles among the citizens and even allegedly started insulting other deities while praying at one of the villager’s house.

An Andhra couple too was arrested for attempting to convert Tribals to Christianity. Back then the police rescued nine kids aged below 14 years of age from the couple, who allegedly were teaching the kids about the Christian faith, under the guise of running an orphanage and old age home.

Divide in Church: Kerala priests vociferously demand removal of cardinal for shady land deals

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Divide in Church: Kerala priests vociferously demand removal of cardinal for shady land deals

Around 200 priests in Kerala’s Kochi staged a protest outside Cardinal George Alencherry’s house on Friday, to demand his resignation over his alleged involvement in shady land deals. This resignation was demanded by the Ankamaly Archdiocese of the Syro-Malabar Church during the priests’ council.

As per Father Paul Thelakat, the Cardinal has lost the moral dignity to continue as the church’s head. Priests have especially demanded his removal in order to try and save the image of the church.

Another report has claimed that an emergency meeting of the priests was to be held today, following the archdiocese in-charge receiving the official High Court copy directing the police to file a criminal complaint against the Cardinal and three others. Majority of the priests were expected to attend the meeting.

Incidentally, in what might further signify an open divide in the church, it was also claimed that Cardinal’s supporters have threatened the priests who were protesting against him.

The tussle between the Cardinal’s supporters and the priests might be somewhat understandable considering it was just reported yesterday how the Cardinal had found support from four bishops who are part of his Church’s permanent Synod.

This case pertains to the Cardinal been accused of favouring a middleman who sold Church land worth 27 crores for a price of 13 crores. In spite of selling below its market value, the Church had received only 9.3 crores. In his defence, the Cardinal had claimed that the balance had remained unpaid due to demonetisation. In total, reports have speculated that the church has lost about 93 crores.

Earlier while the Kerala High Court was hearing the matter, the Cardinal had decided to brazen things out by claiming that only the Pope could punish him under Canon law. The High Court promptly retorted that the Pope had no jurisdiction in India.

NIA raids UP madrasa in connection with a terror suspect who used to study there

OpIndia Staff
-
0
NIA raids UP madrasa in connection with a terror suspect who used to study there

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided a famous Madrasa in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda, pertaining to its investigation regarding a terror suspect who used to be a student there. During the course of the raid, they confiscated records of the student. The raid on Thursday lasted for about eight hours, and involved questioning the students, faculty besides carrying out a search of the premises.

As per images of the raid tweeted out by ANI, one can see a huge crowd of madrasa inhabitants crowding the courtyard of the property:

NIA raids UP madrasa in connection with a terror suspect who used to study there
Arabia Madrasa in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda

As per reports, the NIA carried out the raid on Jamia Arbia Madrasa in Banda’s Hathaura village with the help of the local police. Reports have claimed that the terror suspect in question is a student named Taufeef, who was arrested in Kashmir about three months back. The raid involved questioning about seven Kashmiri students and a warden. The NIA team went to the Darul Talim hostel and questioned students living in room 23 of the building.

The NIA authorities had arrived at the institution accompanied with a dossier which contained a few names and numbers linked to the madrasa, which were obtained from the terror suspect’s diary. The suspect who had come to the madrasa for studying, had written names of his co-students in his diary.

One local report has claimed that after the NIA team arrived at the Madrasa, the students present there created fortifications in fear of being arrested. Thus at one moment it looked as if a scuffle might break out between the authorities and the students. As per the Madrasa’s director, thousands of students from around the country study at this madrasa.

The madrasa was established in 1933 and currently houses about 2,500 students if reports are to be believed. The current director of the madrasa is Habib Ahmed who is the eldest son of Maulana Siddhiqi who founded the institute.

Media reports have claimed that the NIA team failed to find anything substantial during its raid. This though might not be the end of the matter as local reports have claimed that the NIA team has kept the madrasa on its watch for a few months now, which includes making clandestine investigations.

Jayant Sinha busts the ‘no jobs creation’ rhetoric, gives it back to Rajdeep in style

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Jayant Sinha busts the ‘no jobs creation’ rhetoric, gives it back to Rajdeep in style

The India Today Conclave 2018 began with a keynote address by the former Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Mrs Gandhi, in her address, accused the government of failing in the job creation front. She said that the claim that 7.5 million jobs were created was also a lie.


In a panel discussion after the opening address of Sonia Gandhi, Rajdeep Sardesai began by asking Jayant Sinha if the poll promise to create 1 crore jobs per year made by Narendra Modi were just ‘jumlas’.

In his answer, Jayant Sinha highlighted that he had entered the profession of politics quite late in life and he had spent much of his life in engineering and business. As a result of that, he said that he was driven more by facts and not jumlas. He went on to remark that the title of the discussion had to be ‘missing data’ rather than ‘missing jobs’.

He also referred to Arvind Panagariya’s remarks on lack of accurate jobs data when he was at the NITI Aayog. Mr Sinha added that NITI Aayog was currently doing an in-depth analysis of the matter. In addition to this he referred to the EPFO study done by an IIM professor and SBI economist. The jobs created from MUDRA Yojana’s support were also not captured by the jobs data as per the minister. He said that the 1 million jobs in Ola and Uber drivers were not taken into account.


To this response, Rajdeep made a taunting remark saying that he was glad that Jayant Sinha had not used the pakoda wallah response like the Prime Minister when asked about job creation. Jayant Sinha retorted with the example of Satyanarayan ji who sold pakodas in Jhanda Chowk of his hometown Hazaribagh. Sinha said that if Rajdeep got to know about the income of this pakoda seller, he would resign from his anchor’s job and become a pakoda seller. This stinging comeback stunned the ‘journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai.

Mr Panagariya also added that the growth of 7.3% could not happen without the creation of jobs and this theory was stupid.


The job creation debate doesn’t seem to be coming to an end anytime soon, but it is evident that in the course of the discussion, often times the naysayers resort to rhetoric rather than facts.

Top BJP leaders present as Biplab Deb is sworn in as new Chief Minister of Tripura

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Top BJP leaders present as Biplab Deb is sworn in as new Chief Minister of Tripura

BJP stalwarts like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah, and veteran leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi and L.K. Advani were among the plethora of leaders who landed in Agartala for the swearing-in ceremony of the new saffron government in Tripura after 25 years of communists rule.

The BJP-IPFT alliance secured 43 out of the 60 seats in the North Eastern state where the BJP had failed to win even a single seat in 2013 and lost deposits in 49 of the seats it contested.


Biplab Kumar Deb took oath as the new Chief Minister of Tripura and Jishnu Dev Burman was sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister of the state. Fulfilling his pre-poll promise, Narendra Modi registered his presence in Agartala for the ceremony.


Narendra Modi, in his speech, remarked that the Tripura Assembly elections of 2018 was one such election that will spoken of for years and years to come. For the BJP, the victory in the erstwhile Left bastion signified a huge ideological victory over their nemesis.

He called it a historic day and heartily congratulated the members of the new government that was sworn in. “Today is a historic day for Tripura. It feels like the state is celebrating Diwali. We are lighting the lamp of progress and prosperity. There is new vigour and enthusiasm here. I congratulate all those who have taken oath and wish them the very best as they begin their work,” said the Prime Minister.

Among other present at the swearing in ceremony were BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and Chief Ministers of many BJP ruled states.

Dawood aide Takla’s passport renewed by UPA govt in 2011 within 24 hours despite Red Corner Notice : ABP News

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Dawood aide Takla’s passport renewed by UPA govt in 2011 within 24 hours despite Red Corner Notice : ABP News

According to ABP News, the Congress government renewed the passport of Farooq Takla, an aide of Dawood, in 2011 within 24 hours of receiving the application for renewal despite a Red Corner Notice against him. P Chidambaram was the Union Home Minister at the time and SM Krishna was the Minister for External Affairs.

Accusing the then External Affairs Ministry of a major lapse, BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi attacked the Congress and demanded a probe into the matter. “How come his passport was renewed within a day without conducting a proper investigation. It’s a serious issue and should be probed thoroughly,” said the BJP MP.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s17JqVIXEOU]

Mohammad Farooq alias Farooq Takla, accused in the 1993 Mumbai Blasts case, was extradited from the UAE on Wednesday in a major diplomatic win for India. According to the Interpol, he faces charges of criminal conspiracy, murder, attempt to murder, voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means and several other charges.

Meanwhile, the Congress has also demanded a probe but asserted that its ministers had no role in the renewal of passport.

Abusive AAP supporter Raghu Ram shocked at language used by BJP

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Abusive AAP supporter Raghu Ram shocked at language used by BJP

With the elections fast approaching in the state of Karnataka, the political atmosphere is heating up in the state. While the Congress is resorting to desperate measures to try and stay in power, the BJP, on the other hand, is upping the heat on the Siddaramaiah government.

One of the recent social media strategies employed by the BJP to attack the Congress government was trending the hashtag #JihadiMuktKarnataka, to allege the infiltration of Islamic radicals in the state, and the alleged support they receive from the state establishment.

Some of the allegations include Hindus being the main victims of communal clashes, which supposedly coincided with the withdrawing of cases against radical Islamist group, Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political arm SDPI.

As per the BJP, this alleged atmosphere of fear has resulted in terror seeping among Hindu households in the state’s Karavali:


For any observer, such allegations might result in them trying to find out more about the issue or even an attempt to verify the claims but not former MTV Roadies host Raghu Ram. Raghu Ram who is a vocal AAP supporter had supposedly got ousted from Roadies in 2014 over his anger management issues and mood swings. He as per the report troubled everyone on the set by blurring the lines between his reel and real life.

In response to the tweet by BJP Karnataka, Raghu proceeded to abuse BJP Karnataka and called it a “hate message”:


People might have felt that being an official account, BJP Karnataka may not respond to Raghu’s abuses but it proved everyone wrong by coming up with a tweet, which has since then sent the microblogging platform n a frenzy:


After calling Raghu an “on camera bully and off camera sissy”, while referring to his role on Roadies, it asked him to engage in the pain of 24 Karyakartas who reportedly have lost their lives.

This demolishing response wowed many Twitter users:


Since the response went viral, Raghu Ram has responded by making hateful allegations against the BJP Karnataka before claiming that he has muted their account. In this whole episode, was interesting to note that Raghu Ram who has been openly caught abusing people online, has been riled for being called a hothead abuser, that too in an indirect manner. It is indeed amusing that an abusive person like Raghu Ram is today sermonising about the language used to raise real issues by BJP.

1...7,2937,2947,295...7,677Page 7,294 of 7,677