Pop star Rihanna supports farm protest. Asks, 'Why aren't we talking about this?'
Mumbai, Feb 2: International pop star Rihanna on Tuesday extended her support to the ongoing farmers agitation while criticising the Internet shutdown at the protest site.
The 32-year-old singer became the first global star to voice her support to the protest.
"Why aren't we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest," Rihanna wrote on Twitter alongside a CNN news article headlined, "India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police." .
Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, have been camping at several Delhi border points since November end, demanding the government to repeal the three farm laws and legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.
The tweet by Rihanna, who has 100 million followers on the microblogging site, garned thousands of retweets and likes within an hour.
Bollywood actor Swara Bhasker lauded the "Diamond" hitmaker's remarks, while Kangana Ranaut criticised her statement.
Farmer unions on Monday announced a countrywide 'chakka jam' on February 6 when they would block national and state highways for three hours in protest against the Internet ban in areas near their agitation sites, harassment allegedly meted out to them by authorities, and other issues.
Sites of the farmer protest at Delhi's borders have turned into fortresses with the police beefing up security and putting up multi-layer barricades to stop the movement of vehicles. Barbed wire has also been put up to keep off people on foot.
The strengthened security measures at the agitation sites across the Delhi borders come after the violence during the Republic day tractor parade by protesting farmers in which 394 security personnel were injured.
why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest https://t.co/obmIlXhK9S
— Rihanna (@rihanna) February 2, 2021
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
