Top wrestlers criticise Brij Bhushan’s son getting BJP ticket for Lok Sabha polls
The Hindu
Olympic wrestlers criticize BJP for fielding son of accused sexual harasser in national elections, sparking controversy.
Top Olympic wrestlers have criticised BJP for fielding the son of their former federation chief in national elections, despite his father being charged with sexually harassing female wrestlers.
Scores of wrestlers came out in protest last year seeking criminal action against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a BJP MP.
A trial court admitted a case of sexual harassment and intimidation against Singh, who has denied wrongdoing and is currently on bail.
In the long general election, Singh’s son Karan is standing as a BJP candidate in his father’s Kaiserganj seat in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh state, a seat Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has previously won six times.
“Daughters of the country have lost, Brij Bhushan won,” said Sakshi Malik, a 2016 Rio Olympics bronze medallist, in a social media post on Thursday. “By giving an election ticket to his son, they have shattered the aspirations of the country’s millions of daughters.”
BJP national spokespersons did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The countrymen are voting in a seven-phase parliamentary election that began on April 19 and ends on June 1, with Mr. Modi widely tipped to win a third term when results are announced on June 4.
“Writing, in general, is a very solitary process,” says Yauvanika Chopra, Associate Director at The New India Foundation (NIF), which, earlier this year, announced the 12th edition of its NIF Book Fellowships for research and scholarship about Indian history after Independence. While authors, in general, are built for it, it can still get very lonely, says Chopra, pointing out that the fellowship’s community support is as valuable as the monetary benefits it offers. “There is a solid community of NIF fellows, trustees, language experts, jury members, all of whom are incredibly competent,” she says. “They really help make authors feel supported from manuscript to publication, so you never feel like you’re struggling through isolation.”
Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.