The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. Another “anti-national” Dalit student crackdown: In Fergusson College, Pune police file cases of rioting against unidentified people.
2. Delhi has been put on alert after terror threat and 2,500 paramilitary personnel deployed even as Home Minister Rajnath Singh brushes aside concerns by calling it a "routine alert issued before every festival".
3. Brussels attack: 2 brothers have been identified as suicide bombers while 1 suspect is "on the run".
4. World Twenty20: India stay alive after a one-run win over Bangladesh

The Big Story: Dalit versus Goliath

After the veritable storm faced by the Modi government over Rohith Vemula’s suicide, it still isn’t backing down.

Vemula, a Dalit research scholar at the University of Hyderabad, was hounded by both the University administration as well as the Union government. In July 2015, the University stopped paying him his fellowship since he was involved in Dalit politics on campus ­– which was strongly opposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s student’s wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya came in on the side of the ABVP, calling Rohith an “anti-national” as well as a “castiest”. Dattatreya’s complaints were assiduously followed by the Human Resources Ministry headed by Smriti Irani. The embattled Vemula committed suicide on January 17.

Cases under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were filed against against Bandaru Dattatreya, the BJP’s MP from Secunderabad, and Appa Rao Podile, the University of Hyderabad Vice-Chancellor. Dalit students held them responsible for discriminating against lower-caste scholars on campus.

While Rao took a few months off to calms tempers, the Modi government, rather than waiting for the inquiry to be completed, decided to brazen it out by bringing him back on Tuesday. Outraged students were muzzled by brutal police action, who picked up 36 students. The University also cut off food, power and water on the campus, not allowing the media or even Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar to enter.

Even after Vemula’s tragic suicide, it is clear that the Modi government is not going to back down. While the effects of this might be local now, the repercussions of a brutal crackdown on a Dalit student body might soon undermine the BJP's prospects as it goes to the polls in five states over the next few months. The BJP, it seems, is on an ideological crusade. This has led to action against students not only in Hyderabad, but also the Films and Television Institute of India in Pune, the University of Madras and, of course, Jawaharlal Nehru University, ever since Narendra Modi came to power in Delhi.

The Big Scroll
At Hyderabad University, students accuse officials of shutting down mess, cutting off internet in order to punish them for protesting Vice Chancellor Appa Rao’s return. Also watch first-person accounts by University of Hyderabad students of the police action on campus as well as videos of the brutal police action itself.

Politicking & Policying
1. Emergency-like situation in University of Hyderabad, says the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice.
2. Leaked: How Hyderabad University planned every single detail of VC’s return.
3. The police resorted to brutality against Hyderabad University students, says Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Sitaram Yechury.
4. The Bharatiya Janata Party wants a strong signal from Mehbooba Mufti that all’s well before forming government in Jammu and Kashmir.

Punditry
1. Europe’s jihad crisis is not a problem of its Muslim communities but the outcome of cultural dislocations, says Praveen Swami in the Indian Express.
2. In the Business Standard, Nitin Desai argues that the extremists who counter dissent with ultra-nationalist sloganeering are the real anti-nationals.
3. Ruchir Joshi, in the Telegraph discusses the “Snapchat effect” on photography.

Don’t Miss

M Rajshekhar and Anumeha Yadav explain how the government gains when private companies use Aadhaar.

So far, it appeared that the authority was taking Aadhaar authentication requests solely from government agencies. For instance, to pay wages to workers of the rural employment guarantee programme.

But TrustID’s example showed that private companies too have been sending authentication requests to the authority. This is not entirely surprising for those who have followed the blueprint for Aadhaar as envisioned by Nandan Nilekani, its founder. In an interview in 2012, Nilekani spoke about creating a “thriving application system” using Aadhaar for both the public and private sector.