Jallikattu protest: Violence breaks out in Chennai, other parts of Tamil Nadu

January 23, 2017

Chennai, Jan 23: Violence broke out in Chennai and a few other places in Tamil Nadu after police started evicting pro-Jallikattu protesters on Monday morning.

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A group of about 50 protesters set Ice House police station on fire. Around 15 bikes parked in front of the police station also went up in flames.

The protesters hurled stones at the police station, and at least 22 policemen were injured in the stone-pelting.

Protesters clashed with police in front of Parthasarathy Temple arch near Marina. Protesters set tyres on fire and threw them at police. Police used teargas at the protesters.

MTC buses came under attack in some places in the city. Some bus passengers suffered injuries when protesters threw stones at the buses.

The city was experiencing traffic blocks on all main roads. Traffic was severely affected on East Coast Road (ECR) and Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) as protesters, including techies, blocked the roads. Nearly thousands of protesters sat on the on OMR.

"Traffic has been affected in almost all roads," traffic police said, adding that they were yet to begin clearing it up.

MRTS train services were suspended.

Some schools have asked parents to pick up their wards early.

The situation is also tensed in Alanganallur and Tamukkam Ground in Madurai and in Coimbatore too.

In Coimbatore, police detained nearly 300 students, who refused to move out of the VOC Park ground. The students were detained in a marriage hall on Avinashi Road. The students refused to go back home and are continued to protest. Slowly, crowd began swelling around the marriage hall and more students joined in. Police detained all of them and took them to another marriage hall at Ganapathy.

The standoff between the police and the protesters on Marina Beach in Chennai started around 6am.

Thousands of protesters including students, young professionals, women and children woke up to the announcement they had waited for long. A speaker representing the core organising committee announced, "We have received a copy of the ordinance. If all goes well, it will be made into an Act in the Tamil Nadu assembly which convenes today. Our lawyers say that there is good chance that it will serve as a permanent solution."

The crowd went silent as a lawyer got on the stage next. He told the crowd that the draft seems acceptable but it has no signature or a seal of approval. The speaker who spoke next said, "We need half a day to study the draft. We cannot be sure until then."

Police requested the protesters on Marina Beach to disperse in a peaceful manner as "their purpose has been fully achieved" since the state government promulgated an ordinance on Saturday. However, most protesters refused to leave.

Armed with loudspeakers, first about a dozen policemen entered the protest arena. Hundreds of cops followed thereafter. Protesters huddled together and sat down in defiance. Student volunteers sprang into action and formed a human chain around the protesters. As police marched forward, protestors began to panic.

With no speaker to give them direction, the crowd began singing the national anthem. When police refused to step back, they sang it one more time. When police broke into the crowd, the protesters chanted in unison, "Vande Madaram" and "Jai Hind". Within minutes, police took charge of the protest arena. They dragged protesters out one by one. With nowhere to go, protesters ran to the seafront.

By 8am, many of the protesters gave up and walked off with heavy hearts. Some were in tears. They had planned one last blowout before leaving Marina. One of the sobbing protesters, Ramkumar, a third year student of a city college, said, "They just needed half a day to study the draft. We could have stayed on."

However, thousands held fort and refused to leave the seashore despite attempts by policemen to remove them. But the protest venue had been dismantled by 9am. Arrangements for the Republic Day celebrations were already in order.

Police completely evicted protesters in VOC Park in Coimbatore and in Vellore. Police also forced protesters at MGR roundabout in Trichy to disperse.

Special Assembly Session

A special session of the assembly will be held at 5pm on Monday to pass a bill to replace an ordinance that amended the provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The ordinance promulgated on Saturday has enabled the conduct of jallikattu.

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News Network
March 17,2024

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New Delhi: The Election Commission on Sunday made public fresh data on electoral bonds, which it had submitted in sealed covers to the Supreme Court and was later asked to put it in public domain.

These details are believed to be pertaining to the period before April 12, 2019. Electoral bond details after this date was made public by the poll panel last week.

The BJP encashed electoral bonds totalling Rs 6,986.5 crore; maximum Rs 2,555 crore received in 2019-20, as per the EC data.

The Trinamool Congress received Rs 1,397 crore through electoral bonds, second largest recipient after BJP, as per the EC data.

On the other hand, the Congress redeemed a total of Rs 1,334.35 crore through electoral bonds.

DMK received Rs 656.5 crore through electoral bonds, including Rs 509 crore from lottery king Santiago Martin's Future Gaming.

BJD encashed electoral bonds worth Rs 944.5 crore, YSR Congress Rs 442.8 crore, TDP Rs 181.35 crore.

Political parties had filed data on electoral bonds in sealed cover as directed by the Supreme Court's interim order dated April 12, 2019, the poll panel said in a statement.

"Data so received from political parties was deposited in the Supreme Court without opening sealed covers. In pursuance of the Supreme Court's order dated March 15, 2024, the Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies along with a digitized record of the same in a pen drive in sealed cover. The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data received in the digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website," EC said.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will face Kerala BJP chief K Surendran in the high-profile Wayanand constituency this Lok Sabha election.

Wayanad, a Congress stronghold, has been with the party since 2009. Mr Gandhi won it in 2019 and retained his Lok Sabha membership, having lost his Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani.

His rival this time, Mr Surendran, has the significant task of challenging the Congress-Left binary in Kerala's political landscape. Both the Congress and the Left are in a national alliance though they remain rivals in this southern state.

Surendran has contested all three Lok Sabha elections since 2009 and also four Assembly elections. In 2021, he contested from Konni and Manjeshwar seats simultaneously. 

In 2019 general elections, Mr Surendran finished third in Pathanamthitta constituency behind the Congress and the Left. He had lost the 2016 assembly polls from Manjeswaram by merely 89 votes. He also contested a bypoll in 2019, but lost it as well.

He was appointed to head the BJP Kerala unit in 2020 and became the face of the protests against the entry of young women into Sabarimala years ago.

Mr Surendran, who is from Kozhikode, figured in the BJP's fifth candidates' list, which also named actor Kangana Ranaut and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

Wayanad is the second Kerala seat to see a battle of titans after Thiruvananthapuram, where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will face the three-time Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

The BJP has also fielded former vice-chancellor of Sree Sankara Sanskrit University K S Radhakrishnan from Ernakulam and actor-turned-politician G Krishnakumar from Kollam. T N Sarasu, a former educator, will contest from Alathur in Palakkad.

The highlight of the BJP's fifth list was the electoral debut of actor Kangana Ranaut from Mandi in her homestate Himachal Pradesh. The list, which named 111 candidates in 17 states, also featured new joinees like industrialist Naveen Jindal and Mr Gangopadhyay.

Mr Gangopadhyay, who joined the BJP recently after taking voluntary retirement, is the first former judge to join electoral politics. He has been fielded from Tamluk in Bengal and will face Trinamool's Debangshu Bhattacharya, a youth leader who had penned the party's "Khela Hobe" song.

Varun Gandhi, a sitting MP from Pilibhit, has been dropped and his seat has gone to Jitin Prasada, who switched to the BJP from the Congress in run-up to the election. His mother Maneka Gandhi has been fielded from her current seat, Sultanpur.

Actor Arun Govil, who played Ram in popular TV series Ramayan, will contest from Meerut. Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey and General VK Singh too were part of the list.

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News Network
March 14,2024

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The high-level committee on simultaneous elections, chaired by Ram Nath Kovind, on Thursday met President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan and submitted its report on 'One Nation, One Election'. The report comprises 18,626 pages.

Home Minister Amit Shah was also present at Rashtrapati Bhawan when Kovind led panel submitted the report.

"Simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and state assemblies can be held in first step, followed by local body polls within 100 days in second step," reported PTI quoting the panel.

"Synchronised polls for all three tiers of government to improve governance architecture, in line with quest of aspirational India," it added.

The report has been submitted 191 days after the constitution of the panel on September 2, 2023.

It's further reported that the proposal also puts focus on having a singular electoral roll for holding Lok Sabha, state assembly and local body polls.

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