Above the fold: Top stories of the day
1. Law Commission has recommended the abolishment of the death penalty with the exception of terror cases.
2. Three people have been killed and eight injured after violence erupted in Manipur's Churachandpur town last evening over three bills passed in the state assembly on Monday.
3. A Bajrang Dal activist has been arrested in connection with the murder of rationalist and Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi in the north Karnataka town of Dharwad.
4. Indian is within seven wickets of a win against Sri Lanka in the 3rd test of the series.
The Big Story: Off with their names
As the decision to rename Aurangzeb Road to APJ Abdul Kalam road gets stuck on a procedural point (there is a 1975 guideline prohibiting such renamings in Delhi), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has started efforts to get the law scraped altogether.
On Saturday, a nongovernmental organisation called Citizens For Democracy started an online petition reminding the Modi government that as late as April, it had made a statement in Parliament stating that roads in the capital should not be renamed given the logistics involved.
In reaction, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti swung into action (the SBAS’s previous big splash was when its leader Dinanath Batra had managed to get Wendy Doniger’s books pulped). The Hindu reports that SBAS activist Rajeev Gupta met Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Monday to get this law scrapped so that all roads which bear the names of Mughal rulers could be renamed.
An online petition by Gupta, in fact, calls for not only Mughal rulers to be struck off the city’s map but also the Delhi Sultanate (Lodhi and Tughlaq Road).
This sort of wholesale change, Batra told the Hindu, “has been our thinking all along”.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day’s biggest stories
Renaming Aurangzeb Road would be but a footnote: the real cancer is how India’s view of medieval history has been irrevocably communalised.
Politicking and Policying
1. The Railways will launch a zero-accident mission envisaging renewal of tracks, more railway bridges, better signalling and rolling out of accident-proof coaches and engines.
2. The Aam Aadmi Party’s Manish Sisodia takes up yet another portfolio, becomes Delhi’s Law Minister.
3. The Prime Minister’s Office has fast-tracked the appointment of IAS officer Rajiv Mehrishi as the new Home Sectretary.
Punditry
1. In the Business Standard, Ajai Shukla writes of the role that Russia still has to play in India's foreign affairs.
2. In the Hindu, Sudheendra Kulkarni writes about how India and China need to work together to make the new Asian century.
3. In the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta argues that "development" has become an overused word in Indian politics.
4. In the Indian Express, Tony Joseph points out the gaps in Surjit Bhalla's analysis of the Census 2011 data which concludes that there was large-scale Christian conversations.
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1. Law Commission has recommended the abolishment of the death penalty with the exception of terror cases.
2. Three people have been killed and eight injured after violence erupted in Manipur's Churachandpur town last evening over three bills passed in the state assembly on Monday.
3. A Bajrang Dal activist has been arrested in connection with the murder of rationalist and Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi in the north Karnataka town of Dharwad.
4. Indian is within seven wickets of a win against Sri Lanka in the 3rd test of the series.
The Big Story: Off with their names
As the decision to rename Aurangzeb Road to APJ Abdul Kalam road gets stuck on a procedural point (there is a 1975 guideline prohibiting such renamings in Delhi), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has started efforts to get the law scraped altogether.
On Saturday, a nongovernmental organisation called Citizens For Democracy started an online petition reminding the Modi government that as late as April, it had made a statement in Parliament stating that roads in the capital should not be renamed given the logistics involved.
In reaction, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti swung into action (the SBAS’s previous big splash was when its leader Dinanath Batra had managed to get Wendy Doniger’s books pulped). The Hindu reports that SBAS activist Rajeev Gupta met Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Monday to get this law scrapped so that all roads which bear the names of Mughal rulers could be renamed.
An online petition by Gupta, in fact, calls for not only Mughal rulers to be struck off the city’s map but also the Delhi Sultanate (Lodhi and Tughlaq Road).
This sort of wholesale change, Batra told the Hindu, “has been our thinking all along”.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day’s biggest stories
Renaming Aurangzeb Road would be but a footnote: the real cancer is how India’s view of medieval history has been irrevocably communalised.
Politicking and Policying
1. The Railways will launch a zero-accident mission envisaging renewal of tracks, more railway bridges, better signalling and rolling out of accident-proof coaches and engines.
2. The Aam Aadmi Party’s Manish Sisodia takes up yet another portfolio, becomes Delhi’s Law Minister.
3. The Prime Minister’s Office has fast-tracked the appointment of IAS officer Rajiv Mehrishi as the new Home Sectretary.
Punditry
1. In the Business Standard, Ajai Shukla writes of the role that Russia still has to play in India's foreign affairs.
2. In the Hindu, Sudheendra Kulkarni writes about how India and China need to work together to make the new Asian century.
3. In the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta argues that "development" has become an overused word in Indian politics.
4. In the Indian Express, Tony Joseph points out the gaps in Surjit Bhalla's analysis of the Census 2011 data which concludes that there was large-scale Christian conversations.