UN CHIEF CONCERNED ABOUT INDIA’S PLANS TO DEPORT ROHINGYA REFUGEES
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres is concerned about India’s plans to deport Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, his spokesperson has said, underlining that refugees should not be returned to countries where they fear persecution once they are registered, said a report on 15 August. Minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju had told parliament last week that the central government had directed state authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants, including Rohingyas, who face persecution in the Buddhist- majority Myanmar.
“Obviously, we have our concerns about the treatment of refugees. Once refugees are registered, they are not to be returned back to countries where they fear persecution,” Guterres’ deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters here yesterday. Haq was responding to a question on India’s plans to deport Rohingyas from Myanmar regardless of whether they are registered as UN refugees or not.
RSS CHIEF HOISTS INDIAN FLAG IN KERALA SCHOOL, DEFIES COLLECTOR’S ORDER
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat unfurled the tricolour at a school in Kerala’s Palakkad district on Independence Day, flouting an order of the district administration banning him from doing it. Palakkad district collector Mary Kutty has directed the police to register a case against the head master of Karnakiamman Higher Secondary School, who flouted the district administration’s warning. It was not immediately known whether the district administration will book the RSS chief also.
Kutty had on Monday night restrained the school from allowing Bhagwat to hoist the flag, saying it was not proper for a political leader to hoist the national flag in a government-aided school. The collector said the head teacher or a students’ representative of the school can unfurl the flag. The order was delivered to the school by a tehsildar and deputy superintendent of police, hours before the 9 am function. Slamming the RSS chief for “insulting the national flag”, Kerala’s culture Minister A K Balan said the government will explore legal options against the school and the saffron outfit.
VANDE MATARAM ROW: ‘REJECT PROPOSAL,’ MUSLIM CORPORATORS TELL BMC CHIEF
The proposal to make singing of ‘Vande Mataram’ mandatory at all BMC-run schools has hit a sour note with Muslim corporators. Across party lines, the corporators have written to the municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta, asking him to reject the demand, a report said on 15 August. Last week, BJP corporator Sandip Patel had moved a proposal to make the singing of Vande Mataram in civic run schools mandatory. It was cleared in the civic house and sent to Mehta for his approval.
Among the complaining corporators, Samajwadi Party group leader Rais Shaikh has written to the BMC chief. Shaikh claims the proposal is a clear violation of Article 28 (1) of the Constitution, which states that no religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds. Speaking to mid-day, Shaikh said, “In our religion, we can only worship Allah. Vande Mataram means worship to mother, which is not allowed, as Allah is almighty. The Constitution also makes it clear that no religious instruction shall be provided in the educational institution.”
SHIA WAQF BOARD PLEA MADE ‘UNDER PRESSURE’
Prominent Shia scholar Maulana Kalbe Jawab has dismissed as a statement made under duress the Shia Waqf Board’s affidavit to the Supreme Court claiming ownership of the disputed site where the Babri Masjid stood and its offer to “build a mosque a little distance away from the disputed site”. He said the statement of Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, vice-president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, that Muslims should agree to the construction of a Ram temple on the disputed site was meant to curry favour with the government.
The Maulana Kalbe Jawad, who heads the Anjuman-e-Haidari, said: “The current government in Uttar Pradesh has recommended a CBI probe into some scams in the working of the Shia Waqf Board, and we feel [Board chairman] Waseem Rizvi’s affidavit is related to it.” The State government has recommended a probe into allegations of misappropriation on a report from a member of the Central Waqf Board council.
DREZE FORCED TO CUT SHORT SPEECH ON ‘GROWING COMMUNALISM’ AFTER FURORE BY JHARKHAND LEADER
Renowned economist and social activist Jean Dreze was made to cut short his speech on “growing communalism” in Jharkhand after the state’s agriculture minister Randhir Kumar Singh created furore over his remarks on 14 August. Dreze was speaking at an event organised by a Hindi daily, where he commented on the functioning of saffron organisations like Rashtriya Swayansewak Sangh (RSS) and Bajrang Dal.
EC CALLS ‘WINNING AT ALL COSTS’ THE ‘NEW NORMAL’ IN POLITICS
Election Commissioner OP Rawat on 17 August criticised the “creeping ‘new normal’ of political morality” and said all sides must take “exemplary action” to ensure “faith in democratic polity”. He made the statement during his address at the “Consultation on Electoral and Political Reforms” organised by the Association of Democratic Reforms. “It appears to a cynical common man that we have been scripting a narrative that places maximum premium on winning at all costs – to the exclusion of ethical considerations,” Rawat said. “In this narrative, poaching of legislators is extolled as smart political management, and strategic introduction of money for allurement, tough-minded use of state machinery for intimidation, etc, are all commended as resourcefulness.”
He urged all political parties, politicians, media, civil society organisations and constitutional authorities to take action against the belief that the “winner can commit no sin”, that “a defector crossing over to the ruling camp stands cleansed of all the guilt”.
UP FLOODS: DEAD 253 AND COUNTING; 20 LAKH PEOPLE HIT IN 24 DISTRICTS
With fresh flood-related deaths reported from across Uttar Pradesh, the death toll in the current wave of floods has risen to 253 and it is still counting. Over 20 lakh people have been hit by the floods in 24 districts of the state. “The death toll in the floods has reached 69 in the state, where 2,523 villages in 24 districts are flooded affecting a population of over 20 lakh,” the relief commissioner’s office said here citing a flood report compiled till Saturday.
It said 39,783 persons have taken shelter in relief camps in the affected districts of eastern UP where there was no let up in flood fury as raging waters of the rivers emanating from Nepal caused havoc in vast swathes of human habitation. Reports reaching here said Army choppers, NDRF and PAC (flood) jawans continued relief and rescue operations in the badly hit areas. Release of water in the rivers emanating from Nepal and incessant rains impeded rescue work and evacuation of people to safer areas, they said.
ICHR DELAYING MY BOOK ON FREEDOM STRUGGLE OVER HINDU MAHASABHA ROLE, SAYS AUTHOR
It has been two years since the final manuscript was submitted. And yet there are no signs on whether the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) will publish anytime soon one of its most contentious and oldest special research projects dealing with the role of Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League in pre-partition India, said a report on 19 August.
The second part of the Towards Freedom volume, dealing with developments in 1941, has been authored by historian Arjun Dev who alleges that the delay and disinterest in its publication “may be because it documents the communal politics of the BJP’s ancestor – The Hindu Mahasabha”. In his letter to the then ICHR chairman Y Sudershan Rao on June 23, 2017, Dev had sought an explanation on the council’s failure to forward the manuscript to the Oxford University Press for publication. The volume enumerates the sources and documents regarding the politics of the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha and quotes the speeches and writings of SP Mukerjee, VD Savarkar and BS Moonje.