Heena Sharma Blog

The police in Aligarh has issued prohibitory notices to 4,000 people, restricting their movement and warning them of action if there was any trouble in the Uttar Pradesh town on Friday. The police have issued notices to 200 people with a criminal background under Section 110 (G) of the CrPc and initiated process of the Goonda Act against 50 persons. Besides, around 100 arms license holders, who are residents of Shahjamal, Jamalpur and Jeevangarh areas, where protests are going on, have been issued warning notices, threatening cancellations of their licenses, if they were seen at the protest sites. Aligarh SSP, Muniraj G, said that 'red notices' had been issued to 2,000 anti-social elements, informing them about restrictions on their movement and 2,000 others were issued notices under section 107/116 of the CrPC asking them to sign bonds wherein they would undertake not to breach peace. Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave the Centre four weeks to respond to pleas challenging the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and said it will set up a five-judge Constitution bench to hear the petitions. While making it clear that it will not grant any stay on the CAA without hearing the Centre, a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde restrained all high courts from hearing pleas on CAA till it decides the petitions. The bench said it will hear petitions pertaining to Assam and Tripura separately as the problem with CAA in these two states is different from rest of the country. "The petitions concerning Assam and Tripura as well as matters related to Uttar Pradesh, which is going ahead with the implementation of CAA without framing any rules, can be dealt with separately," the court said. Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, told the bench that the government has been given copies of around 60 pleas out of the 143 petitio...

Activists Ekta and Ravi Shekhar returned home to their 14-month-old baby here on Thursday, a day after an Uttar Pradesh court gave bail to them and 56 others arrested for protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the NRC nearly two weeks ago. The Shekhars, who run the environment NGO Climate Agenda and made national headlines with many voicing concern about their toddler daughter being left alone, were among the 59 people taken into custody during the protests on December 19. On Wednesday, the court of the additional sessions judge, Varanasi, granted bail to Ekta (32) and Ravi (36), residents of Mehmoorganj, and 56 others, ending their ordeal. "I didn't think it would take so long," an emotional Ekta told NDTV as she hugged her daughter after two weeks. "Main bata nahin sakti (I can't put it in words)," she said when asked how it felt. The bail application of the couple -- nabbed along with other protesters from Left groups from Ben...

The town squares of Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp were buzzing this year with people debating issues like Citizenship Amendment Act and scrapping of Article 370 with memes going viral, even as these companies battled the menace of fake news, data breaches and attempts by the government to frame rules to make social media platforms more accountable. With over 451 million Internet users (at the end of March 2019), India is second only to China in terms of monthly active internet users, as per estimates of industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Interestingly, about 66 million of these are children aged between 5-11 years, who access internet on devices of their family members, constituting about 15 per cent of India's active Internet userbase. Indians are creating and consuming content on their mobile phones -- right from TikTok videos and Netflix shows to news reports shared by friends and family members on various WhatsApp groups. A large n...

Likening the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) with demonetisation, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said these exercises are "tax" on the poor, who will suffer the same way they did after the note ban in November 2016. He was talking to reporters at the airport here after attending the inaugural function of the National Tribal Dance Festival. "Whether NPR or NRC, it is a tax on poor people of the country. You understand demonestisation. It was a tax on poor people. Go to banks and give your money but do not withdraw money from your account. Entire money went to the pocket of 15-20 rich people. This (NPR or NRC) is the same thing," he said. He was responding to a query on the Centre's claim that the NPR has no link with NRC. "Poor people will have to go to officers and show their documents and give bribe. They will have to give bribe if there is a slight mistake in their names. Crores of rup...

JD(U) national vice president Prashant Kishor on Thursday scoffed at the Centre's refrain that there have been no deliberations so far on a country-wide National Register for Citizens, calling it a "tactical retreat". The poll-strategist-turned politician, whose party is an alliance partner of the BJP, asserted that the change in stance was prompted by country-wide agitations against the new citizenship law and the proposed NRC. "The claim of abhi to NRC ki koi charcha hi nahin hui hai is nothing but a tactical retreat in the face of nationwide protest against #CAA_NRC. It is a pause and not the full stop. Govt could wait till SC judgement on CAA. A favourable court order and the whole process will be back," Kishor tweeted. Speculation that CAA will be followed by NRC had intensified in the wake of Union Home Minister Amit Shahs remark during a debate on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament that "NRC aane wala hai" (NRC is on the...

Curfew was on Friday relaxed for 16 hours in Shillong, as the city limped back to normalcy after week-long protests and stray incidents of vandalisation of public property over the amended citizenship law , an official said. With the Assembly adopting a resolution on Thursday to urge the Centre for Inner Line Permit regime -- which would keep the state out of the law's purview -- the protests have subsided in the state capital to an extent as several agitators welcomed the move. Curfew imposed on Sadar and Lumdiengjri police station areas in Shillong was eased from 5 am to 9 pm in view of the improved law-and-order situation, East Khasi Hills district magistrate M W Nongbri said. Night curfew, however, would remain in force, he said. Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma had announced on Thursday that the government would relax prohibitory orders to allow people to celebrate Christmas. He also said that a call would be taken on resumption of mobile Internet services followin...

As dusk fell on Sunday, police smashed their way into the main library of New Delhi's Jamia Millia University, firing tear gas shells as scores of terrified students barricaded doors and hid inside bathrooms to protect themselves. Video footage shot by a student inside the library and reviewed by Reuters shows dozens of young students - including several women - scrambling for cover, cowering beneath desks, and jumping over metal and broken glass dividers as they attempted to flee. More than 600 students sought shelter inside the building as violence raged around the university in southeast Delhi, after thousands gathered to protest a controversial new citizenship law that has sparked days of violent unrest. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government insists the Citizenship Amendment Act is necessary to help persecuted minorities from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who settled in India before 2015. But the move has triggered a severe b...

Amidst a clamour for withdrawal of the Citizenship Bill (Amendment), the students' union and alumni association of Cotton University have decided to ban the entry of members of the ruling BJP, RSS and other organisations supporting the bill into the varsity. Cotton University Students Union general secretary Rahul Bordoloi in a joint press meet on Monday urged all the MLAs and MPs in Assam and other northeastern states to take a stand against the contentious bill. Along with the BJP-RSS, the students' union and alumni association also banned entry of all organisations and leaders, who are supporting the CAB, into the institution, he said. Bordoloi said the students' union opposes the CAB and it will organise a protest against it on December 5. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill seeks to amend a 1955 law to grant citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan if they have lived in India f...