by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
M. Venkaiah Naidu
New Delhi : Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Monday cautioned against practising intolerance in the name of cow protection, Love Jihad and eating habits, saying such actions spoil the name of the country and people can’t take law into their hands.
“… We need to guard against intolerance on the part of certain misguided citizens. We have been occasionally witnessing such words and deeds of intolerance by some citizens in the name of so-called cow protection, Love Jihad, eating habits, watching films.
“Such incidents lead us to the point that individual freedoms can be in full play only when every citizen respects such freedoms of fellow citizens. Post-Emergency, the State apparatus would think twice before riding roughshod over the liberties and freedoms of citizens. But it is enlightened citizens who would enable fuller manifestation of such liberties and freedoms,” Naidu said.
He was speaking at a function organised by Vivekananda International Foundation to release the Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Gujarati editions of the book `The Emergency – Indian Democracy’s Darkest Hour’ authored by A. Surya Prakash, Chairman of Prasar Bharti and a veteran journalist.
The Vice President said such actions of individual intolerance spoil the name of the country. “You cannot take the right to hang anyone. One has to be tolerant of the views of others while one must also be tolerant of the verdict of the people. Dissent also has a place. Freedom must be valued and rights of citizen should be guarded.”
He also referred to the debate over nationalism and patriotism and wondered why some people had problem with even saying “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. The expression is not merely geographical and love for the land but it is love for all opinions, religions, communities and people.
Naidu said India was secular not because of political parties but it was in the DNA of people and added that democracy and secularism were there in the Indian civilization through ages.
Referring to the infamous Emergency of 1975, he said no sensible government would dare to resort to Emergency after the resounding pro-democracy verdict of people in 1977. “Now the threat to individual freedoms is from some misguided citizens. The Emergency was clearly a state-sponsored intolerance to democracy and individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.”
He asserted that the core Indian values and ethos have no place for intolerance due to which all major religions of the world flourish in India.
“On the 43rd anniversary of Emergency, I would like the message to go out that any citizen who violates the freedoms of fellow citizens would have no right to be called an Indian. It is because he is hurting the Constitution of India and all that India stood for.”
Naidu said it was time the “dark age of Emergency” became a part of the curriculum so that the young learnt to value the democratic freedoms they enjoy.
“It is time the dark age of Emergency becomes a part of the curriculum so that present generations are sensitised to the dreaded events of 1975-77 and they learn to value the democratic and personal freedoms they enjoy today.
“While our history books and textbooks talk of medieval dark days and the British Raj, the fallacious causes and consequences of Emergency is not made a part of the learning of the young,” he added.
He stressed that a crucial lesson of Emergency was that it was the responsibility of each citizen to uphold liberties and freedom of fellow citizens and that “intolerance” should not be accepted.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Lucknow : A Hindu woman married to a Muslim got her passport on Thursday, following External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s intervention, barely 24 hours after a passport officer rejected her application on the grounds that she had not changed her surname.
Regional Passport Official Piyush Verma on Thursday gave the passport to Tanvi Sethi while the passport of her husband Mohammad Anas Siddiqui was renewed and also handed over.
Sethi alleged misbehaviour by passport officer Vikas Mishra on Wednesday when she had gone to the passport office here. She said her passport application was rejected on the grounds that she had not changed her surname even after 12 years of marriage to a Muslim man.
She later tweeted to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Sushma Swaraj with her complaint. Both responded to her plea.
Passport officer Mishra has since been transferred to Gorakhpur and an explanation has been sought from him, an official told IANS.
Sethi and her husband said they were very happy at the alacrity with which the PMO and the MEA responded.
The officer accused of misbehaviour, however, denied the charges and said he had only told Sethi of the rules laid down in such cases.
Senior officials said that old rules mandated that a marriage certificate be produced in cases of inter-religious marriages during the passport application procedure, though adding that the officer was not right in ill-treating the woman and shouting at her.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) on Friday protested against the screening of a documentary based on ‘Love Jihad’ on the campus by another group of students.
The screening of the movie, ‘In the name of love’, was organised on Friday evening by ‘Vivekanand Vichar Manch’, a student group affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
“We have a political understanding of issue of ‘Love Jihad’. This movie is an agenda to propagate communalisation and we are protesting its screening,” JNUSU Secretary Shubhanshu Singh told IANS.
The organisers said that they had due permission for the screening of the movie and it was anybody’s right to protest.
“The movie is based on the issue of ‘conversion’ in Kerala, of any community whether Hindu or Muslim or Christian, where people are being forcefully converted… JNUSU is protesting against the screening but it is their right to protest,” Srikant Kumar, a member of the organising group, told IANS.
The film, subtitled ‘melancholy of God’s own country’, is directed by Sudipto Sen.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday denied before the Supreme Court the allegation of Kerala woman Hadiya, who is in the midst of a “love jihad” controversy, that the agency behaved with her with a prejudice as if she is a criminal or a terrorist.
The NIA, in an affidavit, filed in the apex court said it has conducted the investigation in a “fair, objective and impartial manner” based upon evidence and material collected so far.
Denying the allegations of Hadiya that she was misled to portray her husband Shafin Jahan as a terrorist and that she was treated as a criminal, the agency said the allegations are “misconceived, entirely baseless, incorrect”.
The NIA denied Hadiya’s allegation that some personnel of the agency behaved with her with a prejudice as if she is a criminal or a terrorist, saying the entire probe has been undertaken by it in accordance with the order passed by the apex court.
“The NIA has conducted the investigation in a fair, objective and impartial manner based upon the evidence/ material collected so far. There is no question of any personnel, who was entrusted with the investigation of the case, acting in a prejudicial manner, much less treating Hadiya as a criminal or a terrorist,” stated the affidavit filed by the NIA.
The agency also rejected Hadiya’s charge that it had created a story (of love jihad and forced conversions to Islam) and were trying to establish it without any proof. The NIA asked the court to take into consideration the outcome of the status report filed by it before passing any order.
Hadiya, in her affidavit before the top court, had earlier said that she converted to Islam and married Jahan on her own and wanted to remain like that.
She had levelled allegations against her father and some NIA officials for being prejudiced.
The court had asked the NIA, which is investigating the matter, to probe into any criminality in the marriage, but not to intrude into it.
On investigation aspect, the NIA in its affidavit said that it has almost completed the investigation except examination of two individuals, Fasal Musthafa and Shirin Shahand, who are material and crucial witnesses in the case.
The agency said it has been learnt that these two individuals left India before the NIA took over the investigation, as directed by the court, and they are currently in Yemen.
“The NIA got look-out circulars issued through competent authority. Barring these two crucial witnesses, the investigation by the NIA is almost complete,” it stated.
“The NIA will complete the investigation at the earliest and will proceed in accordance with the law based on the outcome of the investigation of the case,” affidavit added.
The top court by its November 27, 2017 order had set Hadiya free from the custody of her parents and directed that she be allowed to complete her studies at a Salem homeopathy college.
The apex court will hear the case next on March 9.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Kerala woman Akhila Asokan, alias Hadiya who is in the midst of a ‘love jihad’ controversy, has told the Supreme Court that she is a Muslim now and wants to live with her husband Shafin Jahan — with whom her marriage was annulled by the Kerala High Court.
In an affidavit before the top court, Hadiya said after converting to Islam “I am a Muslim and I want to continue to live as a Muslim”.
“I want to continue to live as wife of my beloved husband Shafin Jahan and I embraced Islam and married him on my own free will.”
Seeking the restoration of her liberty as she has been under confinement and continues to be under police surveillance, Hadiya urged the court to appoint Jahan as her guardian and asked that they be allowed to live together as husband and wife.
She also sought the setting side of the Kerala High Court order of May 24, 2017, annulling her marriage.
The matter is coming up for hearing on Thursday.
Claiming that her father Asokan K.M. is under the influence of “certain section” of people, Hadiya said that it was these people who “played and are still playing behind my father”.
All those errant personnel, both official and non-official, who subjected or caused to subject me to the “horrendous torture and torments” are liable to be brought to justice, she said.
“The baseless and malicious propaganda being made by the investigating agency and by the evil forces behind my father that I am mentally not sound, that I have connection with the IS and the media trial on these allegations would detrimentally affect my future and career as a doctor, causing irreparable heavy injuries and loss to me,” she said in her affidavit.
The top court had on January 23 impleaded Hadiya as a party to the case being heard by it.
The court had told the NIA, which is investigating the matter, to continue with its probe into any criminality in the marriage, but not to intrude into it.
The top court by its November 27, 2017 order had set Hadiya free from the custody of her parents and directed that she be allowed to complete her studies at a Salem homeopathy college.
—IANS
