I travelled through Great Nicobar today.
These are the most extraordinary forests I have ever seen in my life. Trees older than memory. Forests that took generations to grow.
The people on this island are equally beautiful - both the adivasi communities and the settlers - but they are being robbed of what is rightfully theirs.
The government calls what it is doing here a тАЬProject.тАЭ What I have seen is not a project. It is millions of trees marked for the axe. It is 160 square kilometres of rainforest condemned to die. It is communities that have been ignored while their homes have been snatched away.
This is not development. This is destruction dressed in developmentтАЩs language.
So I will say it plainly, and I will keep saying it: what is being done in Great Nicobar is one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against this countryтАЩs natural and tribal heritage in our lifetime.
It must be stopped. And it can be stopped - if Indians choose to see what I have seen.
Soumya took a stand against the bullying of a Muslim couple, Namita made a reel on d benefits of namaz, Professor Sumathi wrote an apology to Nida Khan. All three women are Hindu, all three women are subjected to rape threats by a lynch mob for displaying humanity in public life
We reflect on the life of Dr BR Ambedkar and his timeless values of justice and dignity on his 136th birth anniversary. A fierce defender of human rights, BabasahebтАЩs vision of an equal world is at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals and our work at the United Nations
One of the BJP's dangerous plans is to тАЬgerrymanderтАЭ all Lok Sabha seats to its advantage for the 2029 elections
The proposed Bills remove all Constitutional safeguards on delimitation, giving full power to the Delimitation Commission which the govt itself will appoint and direct.
We have seen how BJP does this - it hijacked delimitation in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir, where it split up anti-BJP regions and communities for electoral advantage. As a result,
- some seats have 25 lakh voters, while some have only 8 lakh
- some seats have 12 Vidhan Sabha segments, while some have only 6
- тБаsome seats are broken into pieces without connection, sometimes divided by rivers or mountains
Having captured the Election Commission, PM Modi is confident that he can capture the Delimitation Commission too. The Congress will not allow this to happen.
Delimitation should be based on a transparent policy framework, developed after wide consultations with a consensus. Indians of all communities and States should feel confident that they will be represented and their voices will be heard.
This is the only way forward to protect and strengthen our democracy.