“The RSS has done this at their shakhas for years now, catching hold of children at a very young age, implanting in them the story of a narrow ‘Akhand Bharat’, killing their scientific temperament and replacing it with extreme edicts — an action plan entirely based on the idea that young brains are more malleable…” Priyank Kharge, Karnataka Congress legislator, on the textbooks revision controversy in the state (The News Minute, June 11) “Today the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has achieved their dark, extreme goal of ripping away a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health decisions.” Nancy Patricia Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives on the Supreme Court overturning women’s abortion rights (Times of India, June 25) “In any place around the world, it is very important that people be allowed to express themselves freely, journalists be allowed to express themselves freely and without the threat of any harassment.” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, on the arrest of Alt-News co-founder and journalist Mohammed Zubair in India (Scroll.in, June 29) “The savage execution of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur will deepen the darkest forebodings about India’s future. It is important to name this gruesome act for what it is, without aestheticizing it. It was an execution and not a murder.” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, public intellectual, on the beheading of Lal by Islamic radicals (Indian Express, June 30) “A major failure of the government’s energy policy is the decline in India’s domestic crude oil production. In 2021-22, the production of crude oil from domestic wells fell to 28.4 million tonnes. Shockingly that’s even lower than the production of crude oil in 1994-95 (32.2 million tonnes).” Minhaz Merchant, journalist, columnist and biographer (BusinessWorld, July 2)
