Rohith Vemula Not A Dalit, Claims Police Report

In an interesting turn to the Rohith Vemula suicide case, a police report has claimed that Vemula was an OBC not a Dalit.

The police report says that certified copies collected from Irrigation Department in Hyderabad claims Vemula's caste as Vaddera (OBC) and not Dalit.

The opposition parties are accusing HRD Minister Smriti Irani for crushing the voice of students and civil society over Vemula's suicide case.

During a debate in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday on the controversies surrounding the Hyderabad University, Irani had said nobody allowed a doctor near Vemula either to revive him or take him to the hospital.

 "Nobody allowed a doctor near him. The police has reported that not one attempt was made to revive this child, not one attempt was made to take him to a doctor. Instead what was done was that his body was used as a political tool, hidden. No police was allowed till 6.30, the next morning. It is not me the Telangana police is saying this," she had said.

However, the duty doctor at the university's health centre had on Thursday contradicted the claim of the HRD Minister.

CMO Dr Rajashree told CNN-IBN that she was not stopped by students when she went to the hostel room. "In fact it was the students who took me to the room and kept on requesting me to do something to revive Rohith," Dr Rajashree said.

Hyderabad University scholar Vemula was expelled by the University of Hyderabad in August 2015 for allegedly attacking a student activist belonging to Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

He was doing his PhD in science technology and society studies for the past two years.

On January 17, Rohith entered the NRS hostel, locked and hanged himself reportedly after being depressed over his expulsion from the university.

‘Politician Singing Pro-Afzal Tune Could Have Been Killed’

The judge who sentenced Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru to death has hit out at opposition members for backing students who allegedly participated in an event at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in his support.

Former High Court judge SN Dhingra, who had heard the 2002 Parliament attack case, said to NDTV that the "same politicians could have been killed" in the terror attack.

"If the group of which Afzal was a part been successful, and many people wanted them to succeed, then those Parliamentarians who are today siding with them, what if 40 -50 of them were killed?  The whole scene in India would have been different," Justice Dhingra said in an exclusive interview.

"So do we want to celebrate Afzal martyrdom day since only 15 common citizens died?"

The arrest of JNU students over an event to mark the anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru, during which anti-India slogans were raised, is at the centre of an acrimonious debate in Parliament. The opposition has targeted the government saying the JNU case and the suicide of Hyderabad student Rohith Vemula demonstrate the government's attempts to crush dissent.

Justice Dhingra has also criticized Afzal Guru's hanging being described as "judicial killing" by a section of JNU students.

"Judiciary has been given a right to kill. Judiciary has been given this power to kill a person who is dangerous to society. The Indian Penal Code has provisions that allow and call for this in case a person is dangerous. If this is a judicial killing then would you term every jail sentence as "judicial incarnation?" or "destroying a life?" he questioned.

Asked whether the sedition charge against JNU students is excessive, the retired judge said it is the law in India, however archaic.

"If you go strictly according to law, even utterances are sufficient. if utterances must be accompanied by some sort of action inciting revolt, then neither he, nor Hardik or Jayprakash Narayan were guilty. JP also said the same thing and a sedition case was imposed on him. We say it is an archaic law, most of our law is archaic and inherited from the British and other countries."

After INS Arihant, India To Have Deadlier ‘INS Aridhaman’

India's Nuclear-Powered Ballistic Missile Submarine INS Arihant has cleared all deep sea and weapons firing trials and is waiting for clearance from the Indian Navy to be officially inducted into the force. It will soon join India's underwater fleet and assume operational duties in service to the nation.

INS Arihant will guarantee India a second strike nuclear capability against arch rivals China and Pakistan. It completes India's Nuclear Triad, a capability that allows a country to launch a nuclear missile from Land, Air and Sea.

INS Arihant has four vertical launch tubes, which can carry 12 (three per launch tube) smaller K-15 missiles or four larger K-4 missiles. The K-4 has a longer range of 3,500 km and has completed all trials.

What makes INS Aridhaman deadlier than INS Arihant :::

INS Aridhaman is the second nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine being built by India. She is being built under the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project to build nuclear submarines at the Ship Building Centre in Visakhapatnam. This submarine will have double the number of missile hatches than its predecessor INS Arihant giving it the ability to carry more missiles. It will have a more powerful reactor than its predecessor.

The boat will have a seven-blade propeller powered by a pressurised water reactor. She can achieve a maximum speed of 12–15 knots (22–28 km/h) on water surface and 24 knots (44 km/h) underwater, reported Defence News.

The submarine has eight launch tubes in its hump. She can carry up to 24 K-15 Sagarika missiles (each with a range of 750 km or 470 mi), or 8 of the under-development K-4 missiles (with a range of 3,500 km or 2,200 mi).

INS Aridhaman will be fitted with the sonar ISS (Integrated Sonar Suite), state-of-the-art sonar developed by NPOL DRDO. It is a unified submarine sonar and tactical control system, which includes all types of sonar (passive, surveillance, ranging, intercept, obstacle avoidance and active). It also features an underwater communications system. The hull features twin flank-array sonars and Rafael broadband expendable anti-torpedo countermeasures.

Launch of INS Aridhaman :::

This is one of India's top secret military projects and hence there are absolutely no reports on the progress of the construction of this deadly nuclear submarine. All we know is that INS Aridhaman after clearing all trials will dominate the Indian Ocean by the end of 2018, if all goes as per schedule.

P.S. : The hull fabrication of India's third Arihant-class Nuclear Submarine has also been completed.