Modi lookalike switches over to Congress

Chandigarh, April 2: A 59-year-old woman and her 10-month-old granddaughter have tested positive for novel coronavirus in Chandigarh on Thursday.

According to the Chandigarh Health Department, they are family contacts of the NRI couple that tested positive for COVID-19 earlier.
With this, the total cases in the Union Territory rose to 18.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country climbed to 1,965 on Thursday, after as many as 328 new cases were reported, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. So far, at least 50 people have lost their lives due to the virus.

Mumbai, Feb 18: A group of citizens on Tuesday demanded a thorough inquiry into the death of special CBI judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya in 2014.

The group has written a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, seeking a time-bound probe into the death of Loya.

Loya, who was hearing the high-profile Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case of Gujarat, died of a cardiac arrest in Nagpur on December 1, 2014, when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague's daughter.

Social activist Ashok Pai, addressing a press conference on behalf of the group, also demanded proper compensation for the judge's family, saying he was on an "official" tour.

Pai said on Tuesday he met NCP president Sharad Pawar, whose party is a key constituent of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra, and raised these demands with him.

Pawar assured to look into the demands, he said at the press conference at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh.

"We have handed over a letter to Maharashtra Assembly speaker Nana Patole and dispatched a copy of the letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray (seeking a probe into Loya's death)," Pai said.

As the matter relates to "mysterious" death of a sitting judge of the CBI, all facts about it must be made public after a detailed and time-bound probe, Pai said.

The Loya death case had reached the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had held that Loya had died of "natural causes" and had rejected PILs seeking an SIT probe into the death, questioning their motive.

The SC had held that petitions were moved by political rivals to settle scores which was a serious attempt to scandalise the judiciary and obstruct the course of justice through a "frontal attack" on its independence.

New Delhi, Jan 4: "Sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic" is how India is referred to in the preamble of the Constitution. However, J Nandakumar, a key RSS leader and All India Convenor Prajna Pravah, a Sangh offshoot, wants India to reconsider the inclusion of the word "secular", claiming secularism is a "western, Semitic concept".

In an exclusive interview to news agency, Nandakumar said: "Secularism is a western, Semitic concept. It came into existence in the West. It was actually against Papal dominance."

He argued that India does not need a secular ethos as the nation has moved "way beyond secularism" since it believes in universal acceptance as against the western concept of tolerance.

The RSS functionary on Thursday released a book here named "Hindutva in the changing times". The book launch event was also attended by senior RSS functionary Krishna Gopal.

Nandakumar, who has attacked the Mamata Banerjee government in his book for alleged "Islamisation of West Bengal", told IANS: "We have to see whether we need to put up a board of being secular, or that whether we should prove this through our behaviour, actions and roles."

It is for society to take a call on this, rather than by any political class, on whether the preamble to the Indian Constitution should continue to have the word "secular" in it or not, he added.

In between signing his books and obliging wannabe Hindutva cadres with selfies, Nandakumar said that the very existence of the word "secular" in the preamble was not necessary and how the constitution founders too were against it.

"Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Ladi Krishnaswamy Aiyaar -- all debated against it and said it (secular) wasn't necessary to be included in the preamble. That time it was demanded, discussed and decided not to include it," he said.

Ambedkar's opinion was, however, disregarded when Indira Gandhi "bulldozed" the word "secular", in 1976, said the head of the Prajna Pravah, an umbrella body of several right-wing think-tanks

As Nandakumar prepared to return to his base in Kerala, where, he emphasises, the RSS has its work cut out in the "fight against the Kunnor model", he said that the inclusion of "secular" was done with the intent to damage the concept of Hindutva.

"It was to demolish, destroy the overarching principle of Hindutva that binds us together", he said.

Asked whether the Sangh would pressurise the BJP, which has 303 seats in the Lok Sabha, to omit "secular" from the Constitution preamble, Nandakumar smilingly refused to reply.