Price for protest: Dalit woman stripped and beaten by politicians henchmen

Agencies
December 20, 2017

Hyderabad, Dec 20: A Dalit woman was stripped and beaten by the henchmen of politicians in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, for opposing encroachment in the name of housing under the NTR Griha Kalpa scheme.

The incident occurred in survey number 77, Jerripotulapalem, under Pendurthi police station limits.

The incident, which took place on Tuesday evening, came to light on Wednesday morning, with local Dalit organisations and Left party leaders lodging a complaint with the Pendurthi police and staging a demonstration demanding action against the accused.

The Pendurthi police have taken six people into custody. All the accused, including two women, are said to be from the ruling Telugu Desam Party. The victim has been shifted to the King George Hospital.

According to locals, the land was initially allocated to a few Dalit families, who had been cultivating the land and where some of them had houses.

However, in later years, the local revenue officers reallocated a part of the land to AP Beverages Bottling plant, leaving only 88 cents of land for 14 Dalit families.

These 88 cents were then allegedly allocated to workers of the local Telugu Desam Party. The Dalits have filed a case in the high court, which is pending.

On Tuesday, TDP leaders Madaka Parvathi, Madaka Appalaraju, Vadisela Srinivas, Salapu Jogarao, Raparthi Gangamma and Madaka Ramu Naidu reportedly embarked on dismantling the structures with the help of bulldozers.

When the Dalit woman objected to this, they verbally abused her, stripped and punched her, even as she cried for help.

Former Congress MP and Dalit leader Harsha Kumar, who visited the area on Wednesday, said ruling party MLA Bandaru Satyanarayana is behind the attempt to encroach upon land assigned for the Dalits.

"This is the methodology of the ruling party. Intimidating Dalits has become a regular practice for the Chandrababu Naidu government," Harsha Kumar said.

On Wednesday, the land-grabbers made yet another attempt to drive away the Dalit families, leading to clashes between the two groups.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

Kochi, Jul 30: The Kerala High Court on Thursday refused to grant the extension for the stay of a 74-year-old US citizen, Johnny Paul Pierce, who had earlier said that he felt safer to remain in India than in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The single-judge bench of Justice CS Dias, which considered the writ petition, observed that the grant or extension of visa to foreign nationals fall exclusively within the domain of the Government of India (GoI) and that judicial review in such matters is minimal.

The power of the GoI to expel foreigners is absolute and unlimited, the bench said.

"In view of the categoric declaration of law by the Supreme Court, the plea of the petitioner to permit him to stay back in India cannot be accepted, as it falls within the purview of the guidelines and the discretion of the Government of India," the order said.

"The petitioner cannot be heard that the guidelines/policies/regulations formulated by the Government of India, that an American national though has been granted a visa having validity of five years has to leave India within 180 days, is irrational or unreasonable," it added.

The High Court, which was hearing a plea to permit the US citizen to stay in India for a further period of six months, said that the petitioner does not have a case that there is an infraction of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

"The petitioner was well aware of the visa conditions when he arrived in India, and it is too late in the day for him to raise a grievance on the visa conditions," the bench said noting that the petitioner's love for India was heartening.

The High Court also directed the Foreigners Registration Officer to consider the petitioner's representation within a period of two weeks in accordance with the applicable guidelines and policies.

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News Network
June 25,2020

Ottawa, Jun 25: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took his son out for ice cream on Wednesday in his first family outing since Canada started easing out of its pandemic lockdown.

It was also Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec province.

Wearing masks, the Canadian leader and his six-year-old son Hadrien were cheered at Chocolats Favoris in Gatineau, Quebec.

According to a pool report, Trudeau said the shop tapped into a federal emergency wage subsidy and business loan in order to weather the pandemic, and "avoid being frozen out of the frozen treat market."

Hadrien is said to have bounced with excitement, settling on a vanilla cone with a cookie topping while dad bought a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate for himself.

Father and son then headed out to the patio, where they doffed their masks to eat their cones.

Canada's provinces and territories declared states of emergency mid-March, closing schools and non-essential businesses in response to the pandemic.

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News Network
March 5,2020

New Delhi, Mar 5: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan assuring that the government has the coronavirus crisis under control, is like the Titanic captain telling passengers not to panic as his ship was unsinkable, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday.

Gandhi's remarks came after Vardhan's assurance in Parliament that the government is taking all necessary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) in India.

“The health minister saying that the Indian government has the coronavirus crisis under control, is like the Captain of the Titanic telling passengers not to panic as his ship was unsinkable,” Gandhi said in a tweet.

“It's time the government made public an action plan backed by solid resources to tackle this crisis,” he said.

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

Gandhi has been raising concerns over the coronavirus infection since long. In a February 12 tweet, he had said coronavirus is an extremely serious threat to “our people and our economy”.

“My sense is the government is not taking this threat seriously. Timely action is critical,” he had said.

Earlier this week, Gandhi had hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the detection of fresh coronavirus cases in the country, saying he should quit wasting India's time “playing the clown” with his social media accounts when India is facing an emergency.

With the message of “Here's how it's done”, Gandhi had also tweeted a video of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressing Singaporeans on how to deal with the coronavirus.

The number of coronavirus cases in India is 29, including 16 Italians, the government had said on Wednesday, adding all international passengers will now be screened at airports, amid growing concern over the spread of the respiratory infection.

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