Former JNUSU president files complaint over VC’s alleged remarks on Dalits
Dhananjay, former President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) for 2023-24, has lodged a complaint with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) against JNU Vice Chancellor Santishree D. Pandit regarding allegedly hateful statements made on a public platform. The complaint asserts that the Vice Chancellor’s remarks fostered feelings of enmity, hatred, and ill will towards the Dalit community. The complaint contends that these remarks violate the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which was enacted to prevent atrocities and hate crimes against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Act criminalises acts that insult, humiliate, or engender social hostility against these communities and includes provisions for immediate investigation and legal recourse to protect their rights and dignity. The petition seeks the NCSC’s immediate intervention for the registration of a case under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, the initiation of an investigation by an independent committee, and disciplinary and legal action against the Vice Chancellor, including her removal from office. The complainant stressed that the Vice Chancellor has not issued an apology, reinforcing the view that the remarks were intentional and designed to encourage discrimination. On Sunday, Vice Chancellor Santishree D. Pandit defended her comments concerning Dalits and Blacks, stating that her remarks were taken out of context and misrepresented for “political purposes” by certain groups. Her statement followed protests by student organisations, including the JNUSU, demanding her resignation over comments made during a podcast published on February 16. In a written statement shared with ANI, the Vice Chancellor noted that “a large number of faculty” members expressed their “unwavering support” for her, accusing the JNUSU and the JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) of undermining deliberative discourse on campus through selective framing. The controversy arose from Pandit’s remarks on the podcast while discussing the University Grants Commission’s proposed 2026 Equity (Anti-Discrimination) Regulations aimed at addressing caste-based discrimination in higher education. A clip circulating online records her stating that Dalits and Blacks “cannot progress by being permanently a victim or playing the victim card,” which sparked strong reactions from student groups. Courtesy : The News Mill Note: This news is originally published on https:/thenewsmill.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights
Karnataka: Dalit couple worships at temple after Tehsildar’s intervention
The Tehsildar warned that strict action will be taken if such atrocities occur in the taluk in the future. Tumakuru: A peace meeting was held regarding the incident of a newly married couple from the Dalit community being thrown out of a temple. Following the meeting, Turuvekere Tehsildar M.N. Kum E. Ahmed allowed the abused couple to enter the temple. A peace meeting was held in the village on Tuesday regarding the incident that occurred on February 19th in Goni Tumakuru village of Turuvekere taluk. The peace meeting was successful. Furthermore, Tehsildar Ahmed held the newly married couple’s hand and led them inside the Arasamma Devi temple, putting an end to the conflict between upper castes and Dalits. A Dalit newly married couple visited the village deity amidst police cordon. The Tehsildar warned that strict action will be taken if such atrocities occur in the taluk in the future. The Tehsildar stated that the government temple is not anyone’s property and everyone is allowed to enter the temple without restriction, which belongs to the Muzrai Department. He advised the villagers to maintain harmony among themselves. An awareness program is underway. Strict legal action will be taken against anyone found engaging in foolish rituals or illegal activities. Any kind of untouchability or caste-based abuse is a crime under the law. Everyone should be allowed to enter and exit the temple without restriction. If such incidents occur again in the future, strict action will be taken. We will set up a camp here. As part of the awareness campaign, the district administration will also perform a drama. Several officials, including the District Magistrate, will be present. Please cooperate with the villagers. Tehsildar Ahmed stated that some people have been arrested in connection with the incident, and the police are conducting further investigations. Taluk Panchayat Executive Officer Anantharaju, Conservation Sub-Inspector T. Murthy, Assistant Director of the Social Welfare Department Shivalingaiah, Assistant Engineer of the Public Works Department Kanmani, Panchayat Development Officer Suresh, Revenue Inspector Rangaswamy, Kasaba Hobli Revenue Inspector Jagadeesh, State Intelligence Department Rajkumar, Priest Nanje Gowda, Social Welfare Department employees Dhananjay and Kiran Kumar, Village Administrative Officer Mallick, and other villagers were present on the occasion. What was the matter: A newly married couple from the Dalit community in Goni Tumkur village alleged that they were not only prevented from entering the temple but also subjected to caste-based abuse. Based on a complaint from a person, a case has been registered at the Turuvekere police station under the SC/ST Atrocities Act. The victims stated in their complaint that as soon as they entered the temple, some people insulted them and threw them out. Courtesy: Hindi News
Social stigma and data gaps limit transgender enumeration in India, complicating the State’s policy design
In January 2026, the Karnataka government announced findings from a statewide survey on transgender persons. This is undeniably significant because the National Family Health Survey (2019-21) and the Periodic Labour Force Survey do not even enumerate transgender persons as a distinct demographic category, despite their recognition as a separate gender category by the Supreme Court of India. The recent Karnataka survey identified 10,365 transgender persons in the state, which is, however, only about half the population recorded in the 2011 National Census. It also significantly diverges from estimates produced by other datasets. Electoral data from the Karnataka assembly elections (2023) listed 4,927 registered transgender voters, while Election Commission figures from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls recorded 5,012 transgender electors. In contrast, community activists’ macro-estimates for 2024-25 place their population at over 200,000. A recent ethnographic study conducted as part of an ongoing project at the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, finds an approximate estimate of more than 300,000 transgender people in Karnataka. Inconsistencies are visible in other state datasets as well. The statewide transgender survey conducted in Kerala (2014-15) estimated their population at over 25,000, which is an exponential divergence from the mere 3,902 persons recorded in the 2011 Census. These inconsistencies across surveys signal layered processes of undercounting, which deepens the statistical opacity surrounding transgender population in India. Thus, what is at stake is not merely demographic precision but persistent data inconsistency that shadows transgender realities in India. The questions that arise are: why do transgender populations appear differently across datasets? And why do the State and its enumeration regimes continue to find transgender populations difficult to count? Why do the numbers differ? The first explanation lies in methodology. Typically, population surveys rely on door-to-door enumeration, simultaneously mapping spatial coverage and demographic triangulation across documentation systems. In contrast, relying on community outreach and voluntary disclosure makes surveys contingent on network reach and willingness to self-identify. This introduces data distortions: those outside welfare databases, facing bureaucratic barriers in updating certificates, or geographically dispersed beyond outreach clusters risk exclusion. The dataset thus becomes vulnerable to network reach and assumptions of homogeneous identity assertion, rather than ground realities. The second explanation lies in definitional rigidity. Due to the Euro-American origin of the term ‘transgender’, many local non-binary identities do not neatly fit into this category. Therefore, who is counted as transgender varies across categories, welfare eligibility criteria, medical certification regimes, and community self-identification practices. Moreover, there are significant variations in terms of individuals who currently identify as transgender; those who transition into binary male or female identities after medical or social transition; andthose who occupy a liminal space within ritual and cultural frameworks. Thus, rigid definitional categories struggle to resolve who counts. In turn, it becomes a regulatory act to compress the very population into homogeneity, which it claims to represent. Third, stigma shapes participation. Uneven response rates, due to a wariness of being included in state databases, are widely acknowledged as a structural challenge in surveys that involve gender minorities. Disclosure can carry perceived risks, ranging from employment precarity and housing discrimination to heightened institutional scrutiny. For transgender community, where historical interactions with the State have been marked by surveillance, exclusion, or bureaucratic friction, willingness to self-identify within official data systems remains understandably uneven. Fourth, in states like Karnataka that experience a high rate of migration and mobility, demographic capture is bound to be complex, especially for transgender communities who often have limited access to structured labour markets. Consequently, they often inhabit circulatory geographies, moving between districts, informal economies, and seasonal labour networks. Thus, typical survey methods struggle to capture populations that are spatially fluid and temporally mobile. Finally, household rejection produces statistical erasure. A significant proportion of the transgender population lacks family acceptance. Expulsion from natal homes pushes them into alternative kinship structures unrecognised by typical survey methods, rendering them demographically invisible. These discrepancies are not technical errors. They emerge from structural conditions that make transgender lives difficult to enumerate within conventional demographic frameworks. It is also precisely what makes enumeration consequential to frameworks of recognition, resource allocation, and policy design. Beyond the statistics Counting matters because numbers produce policy legitimacy. Welfare boards require demographic baselines, reservations depend on quantification, and budget allocation follows population scale. Therefore, any survey of the socially and historically marginalised transgender communities must move beyond extraction towards collaboration. Such an enumeration requires partnership with community networks, involving experts, and most importantly, recognising the dynamic forms of transgender identity and a method that is informed by their realities. Without such shifts, surveys risk becoming instruments of symbolic inclusion rather than structural transformation. While the Karnataka survey signals administrative willingness to map the welfare needs of the marginalised and produce targeted interventions, which is welcome, it also reveals the epistemic limits of demographic knowledge itself in other Indian states. Transgender lives exceed the statistical frames designed to contain them. They move across everyday experiences of precarities, kinship reconfigurations, and identity transitions that resist bureaucratic fixity. Enumeration, in this context, becomes necessary, but often insufficient. There is already a lot of work in trans scholarship which argues that AI’s facial recognition software is a regulatory regime for trans people and how it perpetuates biases. The noted inadequacies in transgender enumeration undermine the sustainable formulation of economic, housing, and social policies for them, which are missing in most Indian states. But Karnataka and Kerala provide examples for other Indian states to follow, not only to make these populations inclusive but also to contain inconsistencies in their counting, as most states move to present their budgets. Swarupa Deb Kala S Sridhar (The writers are, respectively, a post-doctoral scholar and a professor at the Institute for Social and Economic Change) Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH. Courtesy : DH Note: This news is originally published on https:/deccanherald.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights
Proud of ‘babbar shers’ of Youth Congress: Rahul on AI meet stir
NEW DELHI: Breaking his silence on the protest at the AI Summit venue that has resulted in a police crackdown on members of Indian Youth Congress, Congress’ Rahul Gandhi Tuesday said he is proud of the “babbar shers” of Youth Congress who protested against the “compromised PM” in national interest. The remark came as Delhi Police arrested IYC members. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge condemned the arrests, while Rahul called them evidence of a dictatorial attitude and cowardice. “Congress strongly stands by the lion-hearted members of Youth Congress. Showing the mirror of truth to power is not a crime but a patriotic act,” he posted on X. Rahul said the IYC members were arrested for exposing truth about the deal with US. Kharge remarked, “Congress is never scared, Congress workers are not cowards. Modi is a coward. He is so paralysed by fear that he is unable to come to parliament to defend his govt’s policies.” Rahul has turned Cong into a joke: BJP Rahul Gandhi has reduced himself and Congress to a “running joke”, BJP said Tuesday, alleging that he exemplifies anarchic conduct, even as it rejected his reiteration of the “surrender” allegation against PM Modi over the trade agreement with the US. “The way he was spewing venom against PM Modi in MP today was not just indignified and undemocratic but also anarchic,” BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj told reporters and wondered if Rahul has become a “mouthpiece of anti-India forces”. “His statements reflect nothing but ignorance. He is behaving like an uninformed, immature and stubborn child,” she said. Courtesy : YOI Note: This news is originally published on https:/timesofindia.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights
Rahul dares PM to scrap Indo-US trade deal
Bhopal: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the India-US interim trade deal was sealed under “pressure” and dared PM Narendra Modi to cancel the “anti-farmer” agreement in the wake of the US Supreme Court invalidating global tariffs. “This is not a deal, this is like an arrow struck right in the heart of the farmer,” he said. The PM is “acting under the pressure of President Donald Trump because of the Epstein files and to save industrialist Gautam adani against whom there is a criminal case pending in the US”, Rahul said in his address at Congress’s first ‘Kisan Maha Chaupal’ in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh — India’s leading soyabean producing state. The chaupal is part of the party’s national outreach against the deal. Through the trade deal, the PM has compromised the interests of India’s agriculture, textile, data and import sectors, he alleged. The roadmap on the outreach was announced last week by Congress at a meeting where party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul met leaders from J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Congress has claimed that these states will be the “most adversely” affected by the trade deal. The next chaupal will be held in Yavatmal on March 7 before Parliament reconvenes on March 9 for the second part of the budget session. The third congregation is planned in Rajasthan’s Sriganganagar. Building on Rahul’s attack on the govt, Kharge accused Modi of being a “cowardly PM” and the trade deal as a “surrender” by the govt. In the backdrop of the arrests of Youth Congress members over their shirtless protests at the global AI summit in Delhi last week, Kharge went all all out to “congratulate” them “for standing firm and confronting Modi, and drawing attention to the situation of the youth in the face of challenges such as unemployment”. “When you (PM) pledged our pride at Trump’s feet (through the deal), that very day our honour was lost,” Kharge alleged. Courtesy : TOI Note: This news is originally published on https:/timesofindia.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights
Farmers, workers bring their worries, expectations at Rahul-Kharge event
Bhopal: The loudest sounds at the Congress’s ‘Kisan Maha Chaupal’ at Jawahar Chowk on Tuesday were from slogans and loudspeakers, but the stories, almost drowned out by the shrill chants and public announcements, were conveyed through hushed conversations reflecting the many challenges faced by farmers, workers and labourers who enable city lives everyday. From an elderly woman, who came all the way from her village in a nearby district to not just to hear about the impact of the India-US trade deal but also share how badly she needed a pension for survival, to a single mother facing the challenge of eviction from the piece of land where her humble accommodation exists as the area is set for redevelopment under the smart city project, these were some of the stories shared by women as they joined thousands of others at the Congress event. For many, the event, headlined by Congress heavyweights Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, was yet another way to make themselves heard by those in places of authority for the varied concerns that affected them. Along the footpath, near a small table set up with drinking water arrangements, farmers gathered in small circles, talking about land, prices and survival — conversations shaped less by ideology and more by everyday uncertainty. Seventy-year-old GL Gour from Koudiya village in Phanda tehsil did not push his way forward. He stood patiently, listening, occasionally nodding. For him, the present is best understood by remembering the past. “Back in the day when HD Deve Gowda was prime minister, I used to sell soybean at Rs 8,000 per quintal. Now it is below Rs 4,000,” he said, in an almost matter-of-fact manner. Gour has 20 acres of land, and a family of 10 entirely dependent on agriculture. He identifies himself as an educated farmer — he passed higher secondary in 1968. “I did not come here with any political leader. I came on my own with a belief that when we fight, something will surely happen,” he told TOI. Nearby, 75-year-old Chain Singh Patel from Biccholi village in Sehore district spoke of a different kind of insecurity. His village lies in a forest area, and ownership of land remains a dream. “My grandfather was born there. We have been cultivating this land for generations, but we still don’t have patta,” he said. Asked why he made the journey to Bhopal, Patel paused before replying, “I hope something will happen”, in a voice betraying lack of conviction. Not all the journeys were short. Acche Lal Saket, 60, travelled more than 500 km from Naigarhi in Rewa district, spending the night in a general class train compartment with two friends. “I have only five acres. Earlier,it was enough to raise my family. Now, things are getting more difficult day by day,” he said, adding, “We are here in the hope of our betterment.” For 28-year-old Bhola Singh Lodhi, a small tribal farmer from Bargi in Jabalpur, the expectation was simpler. “We should get better prices for our crops,” he said, watching the crowds swell as Rahul and Kharge spoke at the Kishan Maha Choupal. Arun Patel and Sewak Ram Patel, both farmers, sat in the front row at the rally listening cautiously to every speech. When this correspondent asked them what brought them here, they said they were Soybean farmers from nearby districts. “We have come with a memorandum that we want to share with the Congress leaders about our challenges in getting compensation when crops are damaged due to rain. We also want to hear about what this trade deal is about and how it will impact us,” Patel said. As the rally continued at Jawahar Chowk, many farmers stayed back even after the speeches ended. Some folded banners carefully, others sat quietly on the pavement. They did not speak of victories or assurances — only of hope. Courtesy : TOI Note: This news is originally published on https:/timesofindia.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights
Dalit Couple Faces Humiliation Inside Karnataka Temple, Forced To Leave Premises
A Dalit couple was humiliated at Arasamma Temple in Tumakuru. An FIR was filed under SC/ST Act. A newly married Dalit couple was allegedly humiliated inside a temple in Karnataka and forced to leave the premises in an apparent case of caste discrimination. The incident took place at Goni village in Tumakuru district on February 19 when the Dalit couple visited the Arasamma Temple. It is learnt that a man belonging to an upper caste, identified as Narayanappa, allegedly pretended to be possessed by a deity and told the couple that they were not allowed inside the temple. Footage from the temple shows Narayanappa blocking the pathway to the deity while kneeling, before standing and shouting at the family, forcing them to get out of the temple. The couple reportedly faced humiliation before leaving the temple. He reportedly shouted, “Dalits cannot enter temple. Leave immediately.” Speaking to news agency ANI, SP Ashok KV said, “…One aged person started shouting at the couple in the name of God. He told them things like ‘you should not enter into the temple’. We received a complaint at the Turuvekere police station in which they mentioned seven people, six named and one unknown person.” Following the incident, the victim, Jagadish, filed a complaint with the Turuvekere Police Station. Authorities have registered a First Information Report (FIR) under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against Narayanappa and several others present at the temple, including Prabha, Kantanna, Amulya, Puttegowda, and Padma. “We received the complaint and filed an FIR under the SC/ST Act and BNS 190 and 352…. Immediately, we nabbed the person who appeared to be shouting in the video. A peace meeting has been conducted in that village under the joint leadership of the police and the revenue department. We also ensured the temple entry and other rituals of the newlywed couple…,” he added. Narayanappa has been taken into custody and police were working to trace the remaining accused. The investigation into the matter was underway. Courtesy : News18 Note: This news is originally published on https:/news18.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights
Dismissing Dalit Assertion as Victimhood Is an Insult to the Constitution
Calling Dalit assertion ‘victimhood’ is not a philosophical position. It is the oldest reflex of every dominant order: discredit the claim before examining its truth. There is a particular kind of violence that never raises its hand. It arrives, instead, in the language of wellness and self-improvement. It does not deny history, it pathologises the act of remembering it. Nowhere is this violence more precisely deployed than in the recurring accusation that Dalits – one-sixth of India’s population, constitutionally recognised as the subjects of the country’s most urgent social justice provisions – ‘play the victim card.’ When that accusation comes from a person occupying a position of institutional authority, it does not merely insult the community, it also rejects the constitutional philosophy of the Republic of India. The ‘victim card’ Let us be precise about what the ‘victim card’ accusation actually claims. It claims that Dalit assertion is not a legitimate constitutional exercise but a psychological performance – that the demand for the implementation of Articles 15, 16, and 17 of the Constitution is not citizens asking for their rights but dependency; that the invocation of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on caste discrimination is not law but theatre. It is, in short, a demand that Dalits stop using the Constitution of India in the manner that the Constitution of India was specifically and explicitly designed to be used. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar – the man who designed that Constitution, warned in his closing address that ‘political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy’. He did not write Articles 17 and 46 as aspirational poetry, but as tools to help dismantle the unequal social order. He knew that a formal constitution in fundamentally unequal society could not produce justice. The reservation system, the anti-atrocity law, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes – these were not gifts from the state to a disadvantaged community. They were constitutional rights, extracted by democratic assertion from a state that would, without them, have perpetuated the very order the Constitution claimed to abolish. Calling Dalit assertion ‘victimhood’ is not a philosophical position. It is the oldest reflex of every dominant order: discredit the claim before examining its truth. What the data shows In 2022, the National Crime Records Bureau recorded 57,582 cases of atrocities against people from Scheduled Caste (SC) communities. That is roughly 157 cases every single day. These were not mere reports of discrimination or allegations of social slights, but registered cases of violence, humiliation, and abuse — everything from murder and rape to the forced drinking of urine, the destruction of homes, and the prevention of access to public water sources. According to the fifth National Family Health Survey, women from SC communities face significantly higher rates of violence than caste Hindu women. According to the 2011 Census, 79.8% of India’s manual scavengers – those who clean human excrement by hand because no one with a choice would do so – belong to SC communities. A landmark 2007 study by economists Sukhdeo Thorat and Paul Attewell found that identical job applications sent to employers with only the applicant’s name changed resulted in 67% fewer callbacks for Dalit names compared to upper-caste ones. Oxfam India’s 2022 Discrimination Report found that SC households earn, on average, 21% less than upper-caste and dominant caste households even in formal, regulated employment, where the law theoretically guarantees equal treatment. CASTE OPPRESSION IN NUMBERS ■ 57,582 registered SC atrocity cases in 2022 alone (NCRB) — 157 every single day ■ 79.8% of manual scavengers belong to Scheduled Caste communities (Census 2011) ■ 67% fewer job callbacks for identical CVs with Dalit names (Thorat & Attewell, 2007) ■ 21% income gap between SC and upper-caste workers in formal employment (Oxfam 2022) ■ 3.6% SC literacy rate at Independence — the direct product of millennia of educational prohibition ■ 20 Dalit student suicides at elite central institutions between 2014 and 2023 These are not the numbers of a community suffering from a psychological addiction to grievance. They are the numbers of a community living inside a system so comprehensively hostile to their existence that the real question is not why they assert their rights, but why they are required, in the face of this evidence, to justify the assertion to anyone at all. The American lesson The comparison to the Black community in the US is frequently used in this debate – usually to suggest that India, like the US, should move beyond race or caste-conscious remediation toward a colour-blind meritocracy. This selective reading of American history is a reversal of what that history actually demonstrates. Martin Luther King Jr., writing from a Birmingham jail cell in 1963, described the greatest obstacle to Black freedom as not the violent racist but the ‘white moderate’ – the liberal who was ‘more devoted to order than to justice,’ who told Black Americans their demands were badly timed, their demonstrations extreme, their sense of urgency unreasonable. King wrote that this moderate preferred a ‘negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.’ The counsel to stop playing the victim card is, in every era and in every country where it has been deployed, the voice of King’s white moderate. The Kerner Commission, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson after the 1967 urban uprisings, concluded with the full authority of the American federal government that the United States was moving toward ‘two societies, one Black, one white – separate and unequal’ and that passive non-discrimination was woefully inadequate to address centuries of structural racism. The US responded with affirmative action. When the US Supreme Court struck down race-conscious university admissions in 2023, Black and Latino enrolment at elite institutions dropped within a single admissions cycle. Evidently, its removal immediately reconstituted the exclusion it had been designed to address. India, with thirty centuries of caste oppression and a SC literacy rate of 3.6% at independence, is in a far more severe position
JNU Student Bodies Clash Amid VC’s ‘Dalit Victimhood’ Remark, Demand Resignation
More than 10 students were injured in the clashes that broke out at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday night. Some of them reportedly suffered serious head injuries. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) witnessed another bloody clash at midnight on Sunday night, a fierce clash broke out between the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Left student organisations on the campus. Students affiliated with Left organisations took out a torchlight procession demanding the resignation of VC Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit. The protesters alleged that ABVP students attacked them, while the ABVP claimed that Left-wing students targeted students studying in the library. Several students were seriously injured amid the lathi-charge and stone-pelting, rekindling the debate on campus about security and freedom of expression. The main root of this entire fight is the recent interview of Vice Chancellor Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit, in which she made some comments about Dalits and blacks, which the students are considering ‘casteist’ and ‘insulting’. As JNU VC Shanti Shri Dhulipudi Pandit dismisses UGC regulations as “irrational” and “unnecessary,” student union has demand her resignation. The VC, known for her RSS association, labelled Dalits as under “permanent victimhood,” All India Students’ Association (AISA) said in a press release. “AISA extends its solidarity to the students of JNU as well as the rusticated JNUSU Office Bearers and ex-JNUSU President in their fight against the Brahmanical forces in their campus as well against their unjust rustication in an attempt to deprive JNU students of their right to democratic representation,” the students’ union stated. What Happened At The Protest? The Left claimed that while the march was going on peacefully, ABVP members pelted stones at them and attacked them with sticks. While the ABVP said that under the guise of ‘resignation’, Left students entered the library and beat up students who were studying peacefully. More than 10 students were injured in the clashes that broke out at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday night. Some of them reportedly suffered serious head injuries. The injured have been admitted to the AIIMS Trauma Center. Delhi Police remained on alert outside the campus, but due to JNU’s autonomy rules, efforts to control the situation inside were only made after obtaining permission from the police administration. Delhi Police could not enter without the permission of the JNU administration. What JNU Said? Meanwhile, the JNU administration said it has taken note of the matter and will be taking appropriate action against “unruly behaviour on campus” and “repeated destruction of public property. How The Controversy Begun? The latest controversy began with a podcast interview released on February 16, 2026. In it, the Vice Chancellor, while discussing the UGC’s equity regulations, said, “You can’t always progress by playing the victim card. Just as it happened for Black people, the same thing has happened here for Dalits.” Student organisations (SFI, AISA, JNUSU) said that this statement is casteist and an insult to the struggles of Dalits. They called it an attack on constitutional rights in the name of ‘woke culture’ and demanded the Vice Chancellor’s resignation. The VC clarified that her statement had been distorted. She said no one should be permanently categorised as a “victim.” Courtesy : News18 Note: This news is originally published on https:/news18.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights
‘Let me tell you what shame is’: Rahul Gandhi attacks PM Modi, flags US trade deal & Epstein files
NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi on Monday stepped up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of presiding over what he described as a series of national “shames”, as he went on to talk about the US trade deal and Epstein files charges. This comes after PM Modi slammed Congress for the ‘shirtless’ protest at AI Summit terming it “gandi aur nangi (dirty and shameless) politics”. “Modi ji, you talk of shame? Let me tell you what shame is. Your name, your minister’s, and your friend’s appearing together in the Epstein files, your name being linked to such a vile criminal—that’s what shame is,” he said in a post on X, along with a video message. Accusing the PM of selling out the nation to the US via the trade deal, Rahul said, “The trade deal you’ve struck with America, in which you’ve sold out the country—that’s what shame is. You’ve handed over our country’s data. You’ve wiped out the farmers. You’ve ruined the textile industry—that’s what shame is.” He brought up the Gautam Adani indictment case in the US, and alleged that the prime minister was favouring his “friends Anil Ambani, Adani”. “The entire country knows it: the case running against Adani in America has kept you awake at nights—because it’s a case against the BJP and your financial architecture. For 14 months, no action has been taken on it—that’s what shame is. Modi ji, do whatever you deem fit for your friends Anil Ambani, Adani, and yourself,” he said. “I and the lion-hearted warriors of the Congress Party will keep defending the country—we won’t retreat an inch,” he added. Bharatiya Janata Party reacted to this questioning Rahul’s basis of his claims. “Rahul Gandhi Ji, You’re a perennial ANTI INDIA lier ! There is no verified document, court record, or official investigation that names Prime Minister Narendra Modi in any Epstein-related case. STOP LYING! It was Pt Nehru who wrote letters to Edwina Mountbatten at 2 am midnight! It was you who partied when Mumbai was under terror attack! India–US trade has grown from around $74 billion in 2014 to over $190+ billion in recent years,” BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said. Union petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri has clarified over his purported links to Epstein. He said that during the eight years he spent in the United States, he met convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “only three to four times” in a private capacity. He said the interactions occurred when he was associated with the Independent Commission on Multilateralism after retiring from the Indian foreign service, and added that he had just one email exchange with Epstein. Puri maintained that the meetings took place before he joined the Union Cabinet in 2017 and that the details were already in the public domain. Courtesy : TOI Note: This news is originally published on https:/timesofindia.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights