IAMC Weekly News Digest, Aug 28, 2020
For Facebook, weakening India’s democracy is just the cost of business – By Rana Ayyub
On Aug. 14, the Wall Street Journal published a damning story about Facebook’s complicity in aiding and abetting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hate-filled nationalism in India,… The exhaustive report examines the role of Ankhi Das, Facebook’s public-policy executive in India, and the social media giant’s refusal to take down the page of T. Raja Singh, a member of Modi’s BJP party who has asked for Rohingya Muslim immigrants to be shot, labeled Muslims as traitors and threatened to destroy mosques.… Modi’s campaign leading up to his 2014 victory brazenly relied on fake news and propaganda attacking India’s 200 million Muslims.…Read more
Truck Driver Ferrying Bovines Attacked by Cow Vigilantes in Presence of Police in Telangana Village
A mob thrashed a Muslim truck driver ferrying bovine animals at a cow ranch in a village in Adilabad district of Telangana in South India in the presence of the police on Tuesday night, local media reports said. A video clip available on YouTube shows the driver recalling the attack. “They beat me a lot. They were 10-12 people,” says the victim driver who has been identified as Ahmad, a resident of Jainoor. “I can identify them. They beat me in the presence of the police.”… Mohammad Farooq Ahmad, a local Muslim politician, said… that the attackers are affiliated with right-wing groups like the BJP and the RSS.…Read more
Bombay High Court: Tablighi participants were made scapegoats
Bombay High Court has said the government made scapegoats of the foreign nationals who attended the Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi in March by accusing them of spreading Covid-19, and that there was a “smell of malice” in the action taken against them. “A political government tries to find a scapegoat when there is a pandemic or a calamity and the circumstances show that there is probability that these foreigners were chosen to make them a scapegoat,” the court’s Aurangabad bench said on Friday, quashing FIRs against 29 foreigners.… A division bench of Justices T.V. Nalawade and M.G. Sewlikar noted that while Maharashtra police had acted mechanically in the case, the state government had taken steps under “political compulsion”.…Read more
Communal Harmony
Hyderabad mosque turns clinic, treats 5 lakh slum dwellers for free
Telangana: Muslim volunteers cremate Hindu man after family refuses to perform last rites
Muslim Man Who Adopted His Hindu Sisters As Orphans Gets Them Married In A Hindu Ceremony
News
Truck Driver Ferrying Bovines Attacked by Cow Vigilantes in Presence of Police in Telangana Village
Bombay High Court: Tablighi participants were made scapegoats
Court Dismisses Plea Seeking FIR Against Anurag Thakur For ‘Goli Maro’ Slogan
IPS Association Condemns Sudarshan News Video Targeting Muslims In UPSC
Yogi Government Seeks Cancellation of Bail of Anti-CAA Protesters
UP Journalist Shot Dead, Family Denies Property Dispute Claim By Cops
‘Artists in Kashmir Are Unable to Express Freely’
Priest arrested for his attempt to sexually assault American woman
Oprah Winfrey sent a book on caste to 100 US CEOs but Indians still won’t talk about it
Opinion
For Facebook, weakening India’s democracy is just the cost of business – By Rana Ayyub
Deep Fault lines In The Indian Judiciary – By Prashant Bhushan and Anjali Bhardwaj
YouTube Hatemongers Are India’s New Stars – By Kunal Purohit
The World Is Watching, India – By Chandan Reddy
Book Review
‘I Could Not Be Hindu: The Story of a Dalit in the RSS’ review: The scourge of casteism
