IAMC Weekly News Digest, 4th June 2021

June 4, 2021

IAMC Weekly News Digest, 4th June 2021

Indian Americans condemn Modi Government for excluding Muslim migrants from citizenship process

Photo: HEINRICH-BÖLL-STIFTUNG

The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC – www.iamc.com), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos, today condemned the Indian Government’s move to press ahead with its plan for inviting applications for citizenship from non-Muslim foreigners despite there being a challenge to the law pending before the courts. The order from India’s Ministry of Home Affairs last week directing officials in five states to accept applications for citizenship from non-Muslim migrants from the neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan violates the ethos of India’s Constitution which guarantees equality before law regardless of religion, IAMC said. The federal government’s order is nothing but a deceitful means to bring in from the backdoor the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the infamous law that Parliament enacted in 2019 that convulsed Indian society and that has been challenged in India’s Supreme Court, the IAMC said.

Hindu right-wing organisations in the U.S avail themselves of low-interest loans offered by the Small Business Administration – By Divya Trivedi

Photo: Frontline

The…. COVID relief funds came under scrutiny within India, a case in the United States attracted unsavoury attention. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) set up a slew of measures to help tide small businesses and non-profit organisations over the economic crisis due to COVID-19…. In an article that Al Jazeera published on its website on April 2, the journalist Raqib Hameed Naik, citing SBA data, said that five Hindu American organisations – the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA, Infinity Foundation, Sewa International and the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) – had together availed themselves of loans worth $8,33,000 under the EIDL programme and the PPP and from the SBA’s Disaster Loan Assistance. The article stated that these organisations “allegedly” had ties to Hindu religious and supremacist groups. That the VHP, Sewa organisations, Ekal Vidyalaya schools and others are affiliates of the Sangh Parivar in India are publicly known facts and a moot question….

Photo: AFP

BeyondHeadlines has combined media reports of deaths caused by alleged police brutality. These figures show that 31 citizens of this country have lost their lives due to alleged police brutality during the COVID-induced lockdown. Please note that these are all those incidents that are covered by the media. It should be noted that these death toll figures have not been released by the government. Therefore, there is a possibility that these figures are much lower than the actual figures. There might be many more cases that are not known to any journalist, or journalists may not have access to them yet. Earlier, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) had also released a report stating that 12 people had died during the lockdown in the country from March 25, 2020, to April 30, 2020. Those 12 names are also included in this report….