News and Views

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s letter to television channels to refrain from using the word ‘Dalit’ (and use ‘Scheduled Caste’ instead) is silly and legally indefensible. The ostensible basis for this is the order of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court in Pankaj v Joint Secretary which is partially extracted in the letter.

Nearly seventy-one years after adopting one of the world’s most liberal constitutions, India can finally celebrate the expunging of a nasty colonial-era provision in its penal code, Section 377, which criminalised ‘whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman, or animal.’

There’s a word in Gujarati that one of Hardik Patel’s detractors used to describe his politics. Sagvadiyo dharam. The kind of politics where anything goes, where everything and its opposite is used at the same time as long as it serves a purpose. It’s like everything else in Gujarat – full of contradictions. Like the food truck in the park opposite Ahmedabad’s Karnavati Club run by a sardar who was raised in Gujarat. That offers the ‘Group Paratha’ - a new age masala mix of ingredients that seem to contradict each other but in Gujarat turn into a perfect marriage – onion, paneer bhurji, paan and cheese. Sagvadiyo.

It would be safe to say that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s term has so far been inconsequential. It’s been a year since Prime Minister Modi appointed her to one of the top positions in the Union Cabinet. Considering her indifferent record as Commerce Minister, the appointment was a surprise.

The Defence portfolio is, along with External Affairs, Home and Finance, the most important in the Union Cabinet. Not only does it confer a membership in the Cabinet Committee on Security, but it also comes with a membership in the Political Council of the National Nuclear Command Authority.

In their philosophy, ethics and behavior, the RSS and the Muslim Brotherhood are the same. RSS talks about the place of Hindus, while the Brotherhood talks about Muslims. The Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928, while the RSS was founded three years prior, in 1925\. While one wants to create a Hindu nation, the other hopes for an Islamic one. The Brotherhood also advocated religion-based politics.

In a landmark judgment a bench of five judges comprising The Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices RF Nariman, DY Chandrachud Indu Malhotra and AN Khanwilkar unanimously partially struck down a British-era law which criminalised consensual homosexual sex in India.

One word that everybody repeated over and over again “dignity” - this historic judgment.

To quote a line from the judgment, “Dignity speaks, it has its

sound, it is natural and human. It is a combination of thought and

feeling.”

So we caught up with Gautam Bhan, a well know LGBTQ activist outside the SC after the verdict. Hear him talk about how this judgement means so much more beyond the LGBTQ movement.

From the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement decriminalising homosexuality and slamming the Maharashtra police over activists’ arrest to the strategic 2+2 dialogue between US and India – listen to The Quint’s podcast for a quick round-up of the day’s top stories.

In the first episode of Geek Speak, we talk about how the camera has evolved on mobile phones. From a VGA camera to three cameras in the back, we talk about different phones and technologies that made the smartphones of today.

From Gauri Lankesh’s death anniversary to the political slugfest over Majerhat Bridge collapse in Kolkata, and Ahaana Kumra playing Priyanka Gandhi in “The Accidental Prime Minister”– listen to The Quint’s podcast for a quick round-up of the day’s top stories.

Civilised nations prosecute their criminals. But in India, prosecution can be deeply political. Five years since the Muzaffarnagar and Shamli riots in which 62 people were murdered and over 50,000 rendered homeless, no one has been convicted.

According to this report, over 500 first information reports (FIRs) were filed by police against the alleged culprits; of this, 335 were expunged or closed due to duplication or other errors. Of the 175 cases, forty were decided by courts without any conviction.