View Articles

It is unfortunate that Triple Talaq Bill has again caught up in petty politics. It has a smooth passage in the Lok Sabha but got stuck up in the Rajya Sabha as BJP does not have majority in the Upper House. What is wrong if the punishable clause in the bill is retained? In that event, the question is asked who will look after the family of an offender if he is sent to three years’ imprisonment? Opposition has been demanding that the draft law be first send to a Select Committee for legislative scrutiny. One way out could be if the government takes up the responsibility of financially supporting all such Muslim women whose husbands are in jail for pronouncing triple talaq. Government did not agree to the proposal.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A ‘Left-Right combination’ has left Kerala staggering, and turned the state into a political battleground.

“Dear Jeff,

“We are troubled by the recent report from the American Civil Liberties union (ACLU) exposing our company’s practice of selling Amazon Web Service (AWS) Rekognition, a powerful facial recognition technology, to police departments and government agencies. …This will be another powerful tool for the surveillance state, and ultimately serve to harm the most marginalized. …

Incongruities have appeared on the mahagathbandhan horizon over seat sharing among partners and new entrants to the alliance. These are likely to hurt the opposition unity and could even help BJP. The ‘rebellion’ of BSP chief Mayawati with SP chief Akhilesh extending oral support could have serious implications.

Perhaps never have the common people waited for the advent of the New Year as this year as they expected it to be a year of change. It is the change that they expect from the general elections due in 2019. Actually, people took time to realise the real nature of the change that occurred as a result of BJP winning the majority in the Lok Sabha on its own. It was not the ordinary change of power in a bourgeois democracy. It was not replacement of one bourgeois set up with another.

After menstrual age women Kanaka Durga and Bindu Ammini’s wee-hour intrusion into the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple, there’s need for a reckoning. One leading newspaper termed the accomplishment, “red-letter day” and “emancipation of women”. The two women broke a “long-standing taboo”, the paper declared. Hardly. The taboo was broken time and again in the years before 1991. Then, too, they were dismissed with “purification” rites. And even after Kanaka Durga and Bindu, women of 10-50 age continue to be barred by cop and devotee.

BHOPAL: A decision to suspend singing of Vande Matram at the state Secretariat and stop pension of MISA detainees have plunged Madhya Pradesh into a serious controversy. Both the decisions have given an opportunity to the BJP to train the guns on the newly formed Congress government.

LUCKNOW: Fed up with sustained pressure from the allies in UP, the BJP may look for other alliance partners for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

It was another 'hartal’ in hartal-country Kerala on Thursday, the fourth since September 28, 2018, and the first of 2019. Petrified public transport buses are stranded in transport hubs across the state and even if shops and other commercial establishments are presenting a strong face, lack of effective police backing is palpable fear. The only public transport buses on the road are those plying the Sabarimala route. That said, normal life is hit and it begs answer to the question what use putting at risk shops if customers cannot step out to shop!

Rafale is not the issue in Kerala. Swami Ayyappa is. Unrest is on the move everywhere in the state after two child-bearing age women entered the Sabarimala temple Wednesday morning. Clashes between agitating Sangh Parivaar cadre and CPM workers claimed one life Wednesday evening. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Thursday claimed stone-hit Chandran Unnithan died of “cardiac arrest.” He also said Ayyappa devotees “helped” Kanaka Durga and Bindu enter the shrine, a claim not supported with evidence. He probably did not find the time in the moment to watch CCTV footage the rest of Kerala saw.