"Jai Shri Ram, Jai Shri Ram" -- the chant rang out loud in the heart of Gwalior this evening, as a heated confrontation unfolded between a police officer and a lawyer amid prohibitory orders and tightened security across the city. What started as a dispute over enforcing prohibitory orders, quickly turned into a dramatic face-off between senior police officer Hina Khan and advocate Anil Mishra. Both sides chanted of "Jai Shri Ram" before a stunned crowd. The atmosphere in Gwalior has been tense over the installation of a statue of BR Ambedkar at the Madhya Pradesh High Court premises. Though the Dalits have called off their protest march planned for October 15, a security blanket has been firmly spread over the city in view of earlier instances of caste conflict. According to eyewitnesses, advocate Mishra, former president of the lawyers' association, arrived with his supporters to recite Ramayan's Sundar Kand near Phoolbagh on Monday evening. Hina Khan ...
Jailed Iranian women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi has smuggled out a letter of thanks for her Nobel Peace Prize awarded earlier this month, saying it marked a turning point in "empowering protest and social movements worldwide". The imprisoned women's rights advocate won the 2023 peace prize on Oct. 6 in a rebuke to Tehran's theocratic leaders and boost for anti-government protesters, while also drawing the Islamic Republic's swift condemnation. Mohammadi is serving multiple sentences in Tehran's Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years imprisonment, one of the many periods she has been detained behind bars, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organisation. Charges include spreading propaganda against the state. In the letter smuggled out of prison and read by her daughter Kiana in a video posted on the Nobel website, Mohammadi said the news of her Nobel prize had been met with cries from her cellmates of "Woman, Life, Freedom",...