Author: AshutoshBaluni

Following the refusal of villagers to buy from a Dalit shop, the collector of a district in Gujarat transferred all ration cards to a neighbouring village in a worrying incident of potential caste discrimination. Conflicting accounts Kanosan village, with a population of 2,000, in the Saraswati tehsil of the Patan district in Gujarat, is dominated by the Thakor, or non-Dalit, community, and for around 18 months, the majority of the villagers have refused to buy essentials from the government-allocated fair price shop (FPS) owned by Kanti Parmar, who happens to be from the Dalit caste. As a result, the Patan…

Kulbhushan Upmanyu, a Himachali agriculturist and a critical figure in the Chipko movement, has called for another mass movement in the state. “Himalaya Niti” Way before his name would become gospel in Indian environmentalists circles, somewhere in the 1980s, Sunderlal Bahuguna was on a journey—the Kashmir-Kohima Chipko padayatra—to advocate for the protection of the Himalayan region. While history books and feature articles might have largely focused on Bahuguna, there was a man in his late thirties marching right beside him. Kulbushan Upmanyu, now 74, has voiced his desire to carry on his comrade’s work and advocate for the protection of…

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of being involved in the murder of a pro-Khalistan Sikh leader on Monday, sparking a row between the two nations. What are the allegations Trudeau, while speaking to the House of Commons on Monday, claimed that Canadian security agencies have been attempting to link “agents of the government of India” to the June murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh community leader designated as a “Khalistani terrorist” by India, in the Surrey suburb of Vancouver. If substantiated evidence were to come forward and implicate Indian government officials in the killing of a…

A landslide caused by heavy rainfall claimed 17 lives in Congo on Sunday, with several other countries also reeling from climate change-induced floods. Overnight disaster Following several days of torrential downpour, the Democratic Republic of Congo was rocked again with a landslide demolishing houses built along the Congo river in the northern city of Lisala in Mongala Province, according to Matthieu Mole, head of Forces Vives, a civil society organisation. Witnesses saw houses built on the foot of nearby hills bear considerable damage from torrential rain, before a landslide reduced them to rubble, trapping residents inside. According to governor Cesar…

In the wake of a new outbreak of the Nipah virus in Kerala, experts have suggested that other states might not be detecting deaths and infections as much as Kerala. Kerala shuts shop, braces for 4th outbreak in 5 years Two years from when it last rocked the nation, the Nipah virus has resurfaced in the Kozhikode district in Kerala, having already infected six people and claimed two lives since the early reports on August 30. Authorities have been hard at work to contain the deadly zoonotic (transmitting from animals to humans) virus, with 706 people having been tested as…

With climate change stoking record heat waves across the globe, questions have been raised over the safety of players when the US hosts the FIFA World Cup in 2026. “One player is going to die” As the climate change situation has been growing dire in recent years, the world has been witness to a summer of record-breaking temperatures, devastating wildfires and an ever-worsening air pollution situation, particularly in the US. This year, only 4% of the 318 million-strong US population were living in areas where an extreme heat alert was not declared, with 175 cities housing more than 111 million…

INDIA, the opposition alliance, released a blacklist of 14 TV anchors that they would boycott on grounds of peddling hateful content on Thursday. Who’s in the blacklist? The INDIA coordination committee organised a meeting on Wednesday to deliberate on several matters ranging from sharing seats in elections, to drawing up a blacklist of TV anchors to boycott, with the latter being released on Thursday. The Alliance, which holds power in 11 states, declared that no representative would feature on shows helmed by the 14 anchors, while clarifying that the boycott won’t extend to their respective media organisations. The blacklist includes…

Recent studies have pointed to a link between climate change and mosquitos, with the latter thriving under warmer temperatures. 14 times more dengue cases than ‘96 Every inch of the country that is touched by a ray of sunlight is inhabited by mosquitos, and this is no poetic exaggeration. Ladakh, an area populated by rocky mountain passes that serve as walls against any threat, couldn’t keep dengue out with the recently-christened Union Territory registering its first two cases in 2022. Thus the final victim is crossed out from dengue’s list, with the vector-borne disease present in every single state and…

Igor Stimac, head coach for the Indian football team, has revealed that he selected players for matches after suggestions from an astrologer recommended by the Indian football federation, Data science who? In an interview with the Indian Express, Stimac disclosed that Bhupesh Sharma, an astrologer from Delhi-NCR, has been present as an advisor behind some managerial decisions like choosing which players to start a match with and which to place as substitutes.  As the Indian Express learnt, there are an estimated 100 messages between Stimac and Sharma between May and June 2022. It was a crucial period for the men’s…

Luis Rubiales has stepped down as the president of Spain’s football federation after mounting pressure following the incident at the Women’s World Cup final. “I can’t continue my work” The disgraced leader of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) drew the public’s ire when he grabbed Spanish midfielder, Jenni Hermoso, and kissed her during the medal presentation ceremony of the FIFA Women’s World Cup final in Sydney on 20th August. While Rubiales’ immediate remarks appeared to downplay the situation, lambasting those critical of his behaviour as “idiots and stupid people”, social media and Spanish politicians raised a furore over Rubiales’…