By Rajiv Shah A recent, well-attended meeting of Gujarat civil society activists in Ahmedabad , held to discuss the impact of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, has decided to file a petition in the Supreme Court against the controversial exercise initiated by the Election Commission of India (ECI) across the country. Announcing this, senior High Court advocate Anand Yagnik , who heads the Gujarat chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), said that a committee has already been formed to examine the pros and cons of SIR. “While the SIR exercise began in Gujarat on November 4 and is scheduled to continue for a month, we will file a supporting petition in the case against SIR in the Gujarat High Court or the Supreme Court after observing how it proceeds in the state,” he said. Yagnik’s announcement followed senior advocate Shahrukh Alam —who is arguing the SIR case in the Supreme Court—urging Gujarat’s civil society to also file ...
By Ram Puniyani Himanta Biswa Sarma , Assam’s Chief Minister—who has long been through the BJP’s “washing machine”—now stands as an aggressive right-wing leader. He often makes derogatory remarks about the Muslim community, which continues to face systematic neglect in Assam. Recently, during a Congress meeting in Assam , one Congress worker sang Amar Sonar Bangla . Sarma promptly directed the police to file an FIR against the person for singing what he called “the national anthem of Bangladesh .” It seems Sarma knows little about the history of this song, the circumstances in which it was composed, or its deep connection with India’s freedom movement. It is also worth noting that only the first ten lines of the original Amar Sonar Bangla were adopted as the national anthem of Bangladesh.