Editorial

IN JNUSU Elections 2018, JNU students administered a comprehensive rebuff to the ABVP - the campus storm-troopers of the fascist RSS, and elected the united Left panel of candidates with a huge majority. The JNU elections this year saw a record 67.8% voter turnout - indicating that the JNU student community recognised the urgent need to defend the University from relentless assaults by the Modi regime.

THE long-overdue verdict of a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court decriminalises homosexuality, reads down Section 377, and upholds the humanity and rights of Indians across the spectrum on the rainbow of sexual orientations and gender identities. The remarkably progressive verdict strikes a blow to centuries of bigotry and homophobia, and gets rid of a colonial-era law, Section 377.

LOIS Sophia, a 28-year-old student of the University of Montreal, Canada, was arrested for raising ‘Fascist BJP’ slogans against the BJP Tamil Nadu President Thamilisai Soundararajan on a flight to Thoothukudi and at Thoothukudi airport. The BJP Government at the Centre and its puppet, the current Tamilnadu Government, together conducted a massacre of unarmed protesters against Vedanta’s Sterlite copper smelting plant. Lois Sophia was arrested and remanded to 14 days of judicial custody based on a complaint by the BJP President who took offence at her party being called “fascist”.

ON India’s 72nd Independence Day Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered yet another long address to the nation. This time round it lasted for 82 minutes – 25 minutes longer than his last year’s address, but 12 minutes shorter than his longest Independence Day address of 94 minutes which he had delivered in 2016. On social media, he had asked for suggestions from the people regarding points he should cover in his speech, and to be sure, there were plenty of suggestions from every corner on the whole range of issues that are currently uppermost in people’s minds.

The attack on Umar Khalid is a consequence of the relentless campaign of fake news, hate speech and incitement to murderous violence, directed by the Modi Government and the Godi Media against students, academics, activists, dissenters and journalists.

In the Emergency, the Government openly imposed censorship, and several newspapers, when asked to bend, infamously chose to crawl. Today, the Modi Government does not declare Emergency – but the Government stranglehold on Indian media is even more complete and thorough than was witnessed during the Emergency.