INDIA

The Government of India banned six more YouTube channels for propagating "fake news and misinformation". The six YouTube channels were found to be operating as part of a coordinated disinformation network, had nearly 20 lakh subscribers and their videos have been watched over 51 crore times, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said. The names of these channels are Nation TV, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24, Samvad Samachar, Swarnim Bharat and Sambad TV. In December, the government banned 104 YouTube channels, 45 videos, four Facebook accounts, three Instagram accounts, five Twitter handles and six websites for threatening national security and spreading fake news. The YouTube channels exposed by the PIB Fact Check unit spread fake news about the elections, proceedings in the Su...

Citizens for Justice and Peace in India published an annual report titled 'A Year of Othering and Violence for Religious Minorities in India,' which documented several incidents of hatred directed at minority communities across the country. According to the report, there will be repeated instances of hate crimes, hate speeches, discrimination, and assaults on the life and liberty of Indians belonging to religious minorities through the year 2022. The Perpetrators were either “members of an unnamed mob belonging to the majority community”, or, equally and often identified with organisations affiliated to supremacist Hindutva, read the report. "Such incidents were reported from various parts of the country: a visible trend in all these incidents is that religion atrocities are often...

Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena has granted sanction to prosecute former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union vice president and AISA member Shehla Rashid Shora for her tweets on the Indian Army, officials said on Tuesday. According to officials at the LG office, the sanction is related to a 2019 FIR against her, under Section 153-A of the IPC, registered at Special Cell police station in New Delhi, on the basis of a complaint by one Alakh Alok Srivastava. The student activist and a resident of Kashmir, in 2019, took to Twitter and attacked the Armed Forces for “terrorizing” the locals of Kashmir. “Armed Forces are entering houses at night, picking up boys, ransacking houses, deliberately spilling rations on the floor, mixing oil with rice, etc,” Shehla tweeted on her o...

The Supreme Court dismissed a PIL on Monday that contested the formation of a committee to assess the viability of implementing the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in Uttarakhand, giving a big boost to the BJP’s Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Panels. A bench consisting of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha ruled that the argument put forth by one Anoop Baranwal lacks merit and that the creation of such committees cannot be contested as being outside the bounds of the law in court, Muslim Mirror reported. “Constitution of committees set up by Gujarat and Uttarakhand to frame UCC is challenge here. Article 162 indicates that executive power of states extends to what legislature permits it to…Constitution of the committee cannot be challenged as ultra vires,” the bench said. Th...

Unknown miscreants vandalized a chruch- St. Michael’s Church in Mahim area of Mumbai in Maharastra. Videos on Social media showed crosses built above the graves at the cemetery connected to St. Michael’s Church in Mahim, Mumbai vandalised. Christians in India are furious over the cemetery’s intentional desecration/defiling, Muslim Mirror reported. The community says there has been an increase in the tendency of destroying Christian symbols, which is affecting the community’s religious beliefs. Clyde Crasto, Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson, condemned the event and requested Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and the Mumbai Police to take “immediate cognisance” of the issue. “This act seems like a deliberate attempt to pr...

Suhail Dar Sheikh Eşref Efendi, founder and spiritual head of the Sufi Centre Rabbaniyya in Berlin Germany today called upon Muslims of Kashmir, India and Myanmar to not lose hope. Sheikh was addressing a Friday congregation in Jamia Masjid of Anantnag, attended by thousands of people from south Kashmir. The 16th century mosque, one of the most prominent mosques of the valley, hosted the Germany based muslim scholar. "Muslims of Kashmir, Myanmar and India should not lose hope in these times of oppression and injustice, in fact, it is during the hardships that one's faith is tested," he said, while addressing the massive Friday gathering. He said that Muslims are facing despair here in Kashmir, but they should not stop praying or seeking from Allah, he will certainly hear th...

The Supreme Court on Thursday put on hold the Uttarakhand High Court’s order to evict over 4,000 families in Haldwani from land claimed by the Railways. “There cannot be uprooting of 50,000 people overnight. There has to be segregation of people who have no right on the land and the need to rehabilitation while recognizing the need of railways,” the Supreme Court stated. The top court added that the next hearing would be on February 7, according to Bar and Bench.

On January 2, a group of people in the Narayanpur district staged a protest against what they claimed was the “forced conversion” of members of the tribal community to Christianity. The protest descended into violence, and a church was vandalized, Muslim Mirror reported. Broken chairs and papers were seen scattered about in a video of the church, which was erected on the grounds of Vishwa Dipti High School in Narayanpur, just one kilometer from the district administrative center. A man was seen on another video damaging a statue of the Virgin Mary that had been placed on the church’s property. The incident also resulted in damage to another statue of Jesus Christ. In connection with the attack on a church inside a school and an assault on police officers on Monday, Narayanpur p...

The Madhya Pradesh government has asked hundreds of residents to leave Ujjain’s Gulmohar colony as the city in view of the Kumbh Mela that is scheduled to be hosted in the city in 2028. The Ujjain Municipal Corporation (UMC) has issued a public notice in Gulmohar and Gyarsi colonies, asking inhabitants, most of them Muslims, to vacate their homes. As soon as the notice of UMC reached the area on December 11, one local resident Salim Bhai Patangwale died, locals said, Muslim Mirror reported. The Residents of Gulmohar and Gyarsi Colony said, "Our homes were not constructed on government-owned property. Small farmers were the owners. These people attempted to recoup their investment by farming but were unsuccessful, so they sold their land as tiny plots. Poor people bought the land a...

Days after the alleged attack on a Kashmiri research scholar, The Uttar Pradesh Police has sought the details of all the Kashmiri students studying at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). An official circular of the University's controller for examinations has been written to all the facilities of the university seeking details of the students which is to be submitted to the Uttar Pradesh Police. "I am directed to request you to kindly furnish the Information with regard to (i) the total number of students studying in your Faculty / Centre, etc. (Male / Female-wise) and the Total Number of Jammu Kashmiri students admitted (Male / Female-wise, with complete detail) during the session 2022-2023 to the Proctor," the circular accessed by The Kashmiriyat read. The Controller Examinatio...