I left the courtroom that day disheartened but determined: determined to fight for the children who would come after my son.

While hearing a petition against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), practiced in the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community in India, the Supreme Court asked, "Why should anyone have the power based on religious practice to touch the genital of a girl."

A three judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked, "Why and how can the bodily integrity of an individual be part of the religion and its essential practice."

"Why should the bodily integrity of a woman be subject to some external authority? One's genitals is an extremely private affair," asked Justice Chandrachud.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising appeared on behalf of the petitioner Sunita Tiwari, a Delhi-based lawyer. Senior advocated Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued for the Dawoodi Bohra Women's Association for Religious Freedom, The Times of Indiareported.

"It is a ritual performed on every girl child within the Dawoodi Bohra religious community without any medical reason and does not have any reference in the Quran ," the petition reads, The Press Trust of India reported.

"It violates the rights of the child and human rights. It also violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is a crime in the Unites States of America..." it said.

"We have also prepared a report on the consequences it has on adult life and the trauma that stays. The act amounts to an offence under the IPC and the POCSO," Jaising said, referring to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) 2012 and the Indian Penal Code, Live Lawreported.

Comparing FGM to male circumcision, Singhvi said that "khatna" involved a minute nipping of the female genitals, and argued that it was protected by the Constitution under the fundamental right to religion and religious practices.

"There is a distinction between FGM and female circumcision. The latter is a minute process which is practised by 2 Islamic communities. It is being supported by 95% of the women. This raises issues involving Articles 25, 26 and 29 as well as Article 14," he said.

The petition said that FGM has nothing do with religion and is a cultural practice.

The Modi government is supporting complete ban on the practice of female circumcision.

Attorney General KK Venugopal argued that male circumcision had certain health benefits, like reducing infection from HIV, but FGM was a serious health threat.

"Unlike male circumcision, genital mutilation on a female leads to serious vaginal and and uterine complications. The fundamental right to religion and religious practice is always subject to public health and morality," Venugopal said.

"The 'sati' was also an ancient practice. But any such practice has to fulfil the conditions of public order and morality..." he said.

In July 2017, a woman was found passed out on the footpath in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa. She bore an Aadhaar card identifying her as a Delhi resident called Duniya Khan. On investigation, local police found that she was actually an Uzbek national from Tashkent, whose name is Zeboo Asalina. It's been nearly a year since, but the Aadhaar card is still active, as verified on the UIDAI website by HuffPost.

This raises a lot of questions about the security of the Aadhaar database. The foreign woman, whose Aadhaar bears a fake name and address, nonetheless has a genuine Aadhaar number — it was verified on the UIDAI website, and the Aadhaar-linked phone number was confirmed by the Bhubaneshwar police, and cross checked with Asalina's Facebook account which had the same phone number listed.

This comes at a time when the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar is being considered in the Supreme Court. The five-judge bench of the court had reserved its judgement on the validity of Aadhaar on May 10, and the judgement is expected sometime this month. The judgement will have major implications for Aadhaar, from the various linkages which were mandated, to the government's claims that it is required to fight cases of fraud.

HuffPost has accessed documents related to the arrest, and seen the Aadhaar card, where Duniya Khan gives her date of birth as August 14, 1995. On Facebook her account is still active and you see a young, cheerful woman with an easy smile. On the Aadhaar card, the small photo is much less flattering. In the FIR documents accessed by HuffPost, it's revealed that the Bhubaneshwar police apprehended Khan/ Asalina on July 23, 2017, when she was found sleeping on the footpath, holding a bottle of alcohol. When she woke up, she started cursing the police, kicking and slapping the police staff, and breaking the mirror of the police jeep.

At the police station, she continued to be aggressive, but a search revealed an Apple iPhone, and a bag containing Rs. 49,500, and the Aadhaar card, with her photo, in the name of Duniya Khan. The Aadhaar card's linked phone number was ascertained by the police, which was then used to identify her Facebook account, which is when the second identity came out.

At this point, the police suspected that Asalina was involved in a sex racket. Following this incident, the police arrested Tapas Jana, for running illegal sex trade in a rented accomodation in Patia near Bhubhaneshwar. "He initially identified himself as the caretaker of the duplex, but later confessed to running the illegal trade with a woman. He confessed to luring the girl into the trade. Jana was involved in communicating with the customers as well as transportation of girls and bargaining with clients for providing the escort services," said a police officer.

The police seized three phones from the accused, which contained photographs of around 70 women, including Asalina. HuffPost has reached out to the Odisha police and the UIDAI for more information, and we will update this if the agencies respond.

How does an Uzbek call girl get an Aadhaar card?

The Bhubaneshwar police told Odisha local news site Ommcom that the Aadhaar was likely forged. However, HuffPost checked the Aadhaar number on the UIDAI website, where it was verified as belonging to a woman between 20-30 years, from Delhi, with a phone number ending in the same last three digits as the one that the Bhubaneshwar police found with Asalina.

Yet despite local police referring the case to Delhi's Lajpat Nagar police station for verification of the identity of the individual associated with the Aadhaar number, the Aadhaar number associated with the woman remains valid almost one year after her initial arrest, with no evidence of any action taken by the UIDAI to investigate whether a foreign national with a false name and address was able to illegally obtain an Aadhaar number, to cancel the Aadhaar, or to determine if the case is part of a larger breach of Aadhaar's enrolment processes.

This is not a one-off concern either. In the last few years, there have been a huge number of cases involving fraudulent enrolment, with a number of methods used to bypass UIDAI security measures.

One of the most well-known cases of Aadhaar fraud involved an ISI spy getting an Aadhaar card and famously, Lord Hanuman also has one, as does a dog, Tommy Singh.

Just last month, an Aadhaar enrolment officer subverted the system using a simple rubber stamp of his thumb, to set up a parallel Aadhaar center where his minions charged people to get an Aadhaar card or change details on their cards.

A security and technology expert said, "The evidence is overwhelming that the Aadhaar enrolment process is critically compromised, potentially risking national security and making a mockery of the UIDAI's claims to guarantee the identity of individuals possessing an Aadhaar number. This latest potential case shows the urgent need for a suspension of the Aadhaar program pending a thorough and transparent audit of its systems and processes and the data collected to date."

Sacred Games, Netflix's first Indian original series is out and the wait, it can now be reported, has been worth it.

The 8 episodes of Season 1, adapted from Vikram Chandra's 928-page tome, chronicle the meteoric rise of Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a mob boss with delusions of grandeur, operating out of a Mumbai ghetto called Gopalmath. His paths intersect with Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan), a cop whose righteousness is at conflict with the questionable moralities of the police force.

At the surface, Sacred Games appears to be a standard cat-and-mouse chase but the show's probing, introspective nature turns a clichéd crime-saga to a biting commentary on the zeitgeist. Its relevance to our current moment cannot be overstated.

Take, for example, Gaitonde's reluctance to endorse a communal philosophy: A gangster who started on the streets, and lives a life revolving around murder and mayhem, is aware of the perils of religious fanaticism, even as characters — ostensibly more refined than him — are drawn to fundamentalism's many lures.

The catastrophic consequences of religious polarisation are a consistent undercurrent in the show. Directors Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, along with their team of writers (Varun Grover, Smita Singh, Vasant Nath) waste no time in exploiting the opportunity offered by a platform free of censorship to make a powerful statement.

"The biggest business in the world is religion. Under the garb of faith, they make fools out of all of us," says Gaitonde, firmly establishing his secular beliefs. But his beliefs, just like ours, are susceptible to subtle indoctrination.

Sacred Games is a parable of our times, a cautionary tale on the significance of preserving the country's secular fabric even as bad actors from within the system plot to tear it apart.

The references and visuals of the Babri Masjid demolition, the ensuing riots, and the 1993 bomb-blasts are ominous. But Sacred Games captures religion's dual faces: divisive and liberatory. The show also interrogates police apathy, the deep-rooted corruption in the force, and how prejudice, particularly towards the Muslim minority, perpetuates and fuels crime as callous cops turn a blind eye to crimes in slum settlements.

For an international audience, India's communal divide appears akin to the US's institutionalized racism: One of the running subplots is of an extra-judicial killing of an unarmed Muslim boy, an all-too-familiar story for Americans, where unarmed black men are routine targets of police violence.

Since this is, ultimately, a cops and robbers gig directed by Kashyap, the violence is graphic and the liberal use of wildly imaginative expletives is an education. The sex, and there's plenty of it, is matter-of-fact, never titillating.

The performances are consistently impressive, but nothing, absolutely nothing, comes close to Siddiqui as Gaitonde. Siddiqui's portrayal of the gangster is nuanced, complex and thoughtful, even if he tends to sound more north Indian than Maharashtrian.

Siddiqui is brash and brutal but also a helpless romantic. His scenes with Cuckoo (a terrific Kubra Sait), a character he falls irrevocably in love with, are treated with such tenderness, you lose the moment when you start feeling for an unquestionable baddie. There's genuine warmth in that odd connection between two marginalized souls, a safe place made of humanity, love, and loyalty in an ongoing cacophony of violence, dread, and betrayal.

As for Saif Ali Khan, whose career has recently seen a spate of flops, Sacred Games is Redemption Point. His defeated eyes, tired gait, internalized rage, reveal an urgent yet sincere need to set things right. It's a stellar performance, one that Khan chews on slowly as he disappears into the broken persona of a tormented cop.

Neeraj Kabi as Khan's commanding officer, Jitendra Joshi as constable Katekar, Jatin Sarna as Gaitonde's henchman Bunty are particularly impressive in an otherwise solid cast. Luke Kenny, who plays some sort of a foreign mastermind is perhaps the only weak link, appearing stoic, uptight, and without any charisma. Radhika Apte as the RAW agent is reliably good but her character is one-note and her story arc ends abruptly. One can observe similar problems with Rajshri Deshpande's character (of Sexy Durga fame) who plays Gaitonde's wife. The women characters in the show aren't as strongly etched out as the men, who are well-rounded, layered characters.

It is clear that Sacred Games is, self-reflexively, India's submission to the global catalog of Prestige TV.

Luxurious in scale, slow in its pace, neo-noir in its treatment — the deliberate use of low lighting is as obvious a nod to Prestige TV, as is a middle-aged anti-hero with a health problem.

Sacred Games ticks all the right boxes: The plot is a slow-burner, simmering with gnawing tensions, pumping anxiety, and a throbbing heartbeat. The haunting, melancholic background score (Rachita Arora, Alokananda Dasgupta), is a clear indication of how it wants itself to be perceived — like an epic saga.

The show's biggest weakness is the expository voice-over (one of the biggest criticism of Narcos too, which this show has been compared to), but the gravitas that Siddiqui brings to his tale makes it easier to overlook this flaw.

At its heart, the showis almost saddening: in the toxic trifecta of religion, politics and Bollywood that form the blueprint of the show, Mumbai — the city where all this drama plays out — appears just like any character in Sacred Games; broken but hopeful.

Also see on HuffPost:

LUCKNOW, Uttar Pradesh — As she made her way around the Teele Wali Masjid, Chandani handed out generous portions of halwa to the women and men watching the sun set over the majestic Sunni mosque in Lucknow.

"We honour Hanuman ji every Tuesday. We ended up making so much prasad today that I brought some to the temple and the mosque," she said, flashing a smile. "I believe that I'm Hindu and Muslim. I feel no difference."

Altaf Ahmed, gatekeeper of the Teele Wali Masjid, shared his wisdom about the three temples situated across the street from the mosque. "The third temple is special because it has a reclining Hanuman, like the one near the Sangam in Allahabad," he said.

Chandani and Ahmed's stories are quintessential Lucknow, a city that prides itself on the peaceful coexistence of Hinduism and Islam. Its residents safeguard this fusion of Hindu and Muslim traditions, the Ganga-Jamunitehzeeb.

In the year leading up to the high stakes general election, however, this secular ethos is under threat. The Bharatiya Janta Party's (BJP) performance in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 Members of Parliament to the Lok Sabha, will determine who forms a government in New Delhi; and the ruling party is taking no chances.

In recent weeks, the BJP has sought to use the Teele Wali Masjid, a 350 year-old mosque, as a fulcrum to drive a wedge between the city's Hindu and Muslim residents. The Lucknow Municipal Corporation, where the BJP holds 58 of 110 seats, is considering a proposal to build a massive statue of Lakshman, the brother of the Hindu god Ram, in Tinkonia Park, a triangular patch of grass in front of the mosque.

The significance of the proposal, in a state that witnessed the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, is lost on no-one.

"We would have passed the proposal by July 20," said BJP corporator Rajneesh Gupta. "Lakshman was the founder of the city. It is only right that we honour him at the spot where the city started."

Gupta, who introduced the proposal to build the Lakshman statue, said that Aurangzeb had ordered the Teele Wali Masjid to be constructed on top of the rubble of a palace and cave linked to Lakshman: a claim that has no supporting historical evidence.

"Ideally, the Lakshman statue should be built on the Lakshman teela," he said. "How much space is needed for the mosque? All of Hindustan?"

Ideally, the Lakshman statue should be built on the Lakshman teela.

While BJP corporators have fanned controversy around the Sunni mosque, a veteran party leader has sought to portray the iconic reign of the Shia Nawabs in Lucknow as an example of the Islamization of the city and the need to reassert its Hindu-ness.

"What does one say, first nawab and then kebabs, but there is more to Lucknow than nawabs and kebabs," said Lalji Tandon, a former parliamentarian and state minister.

Tandon, who has recently published a book called Ankaha Lucknow, said the time had come to highlight the history and heritage of ancient Hindus in Lucknow.

"Lucknow's history has become synonymous with the ayaashi of the nawabs, their singing and dancing, gorging on food. It is not good for the image or the country," he said.

What does one say, first nawab and then kebabs, but there is more to Lucknow than nawabs and kebabs.

Another election, another god, another mosque

Muslim clerics, both Shia and Sunni, reacted swiftly and sharply after the 13-member working committee of the LMC, dominated by the BJP, approved the construction of the Lakshman statue, last week.

Muslims, they explained, spill into the streets while offering namaz three times in a year - the end of Ramzan, Eid and Bakr-Eid - and it is forbidden for them to pray in the presence of a statue.

"We are requesting them to install the statue a short distance away. In any case, this patch of grass is too small for a huge statue. Why not install the statue inside the temple which is just across the street?" said Maulana Syed Fazlul Mannan Rahmani, whose family has led the namaz at the Teele Wali Masjid for three generations.

Ram Krishna Yadav, the second BJP corporator behind the proposal, said that the history of Muslims in India ended in 1947, "when Pakistan was created for Muslims," but claimed that Muslims were prioritized over Hindus in India.

"Not only should the Lakshman statue be built on the Lakshman teela, the area should be dug up to find the rubble of the mahal and guffa buried under it," he said.

Rahmani believes the BJP is manufacturing a dispute in Lucknow because it is getting harder to milk the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya, with the matter pending with the Supreme Court.

"The BJP cannot exploit the Babri-Masjid and Ram Mandir dispute and has started a new conflict over Lakshman and the Teele Wali Masjid in Lucknow," he said.

The BJP cannot exploit the Babri-Masjid and Ram Mandir dispute and has started a new conflict over Lakshman and the Teele Wali Masjid in Lucknow.

Congress Party's corporator Mukesh Chauhan said, "Now that the BJP has failed to build the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, it is spreading its poison in Lucknow."

Chauhan said that he and the seven other Congress corporators in the LMC would try and block the BJP.

"Sanatan dharam does not allow the setting up of statues of gods on roads, but the BJP will put our gods on the roads and chaurahas just to win an election," he said.

Sanatan dharam does not allow the setting up of statues of gods on roads, but the BJP will put our gods on the roads and chaurahas just to win an election.

Out of the 110 members in the LMC, 58 are from the BJP, 28 are from the Samajwadi Party, eight are from the Congress, two from the BSP and the rest are independent.

Even though BJP has the numbers, SP corporator, Sayeed Yawar Hussain, who heads the Opposition in the LMC, said that he planned to raise the Supreme Court order, which bans the construction of religious structures or installation of statues of public figures on roads, pavements, sideways and other public utility spaces.

Hussain, who has been a corporator in the LMC since 1989, said the BJP had made a similar proposal in the early nineties.

"Why doesn't the BJP bring proposals on sanitation, roads, electricity, sewage, and water?" he asked.

Why doesn't the BJP bring proposals on sanitation, roads, electricity, sewage, and water?

The meeting of LMC working committee on June 30 reveals the BJP's intention to stay true to its twinned agenda of Hindu-nationalism. The second proposal approved that day was to install a 207 feet national flag in the Jhandewala Park in Lucknow.

"Both these proposals are about honour and nationalism. These proposals represent the will of the people," said Gupta, the BJP corporator, "The few people who are against them are traitors."

Rahmani said that if the LMC approved the proposal for the Lakshman statue, Muslim clerics would make it an "international issue."

"Just because you have a majority does not mean you have to break hearts, trample over the feelings of others. It would be a tragedy to ruin the centuries-old Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb just because the BJP wants to win the next election," he said.

It would be a tragedy to ruin the centuries-old Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb just because the BJP wants to win the next election.

'Combustible air'

As the general elections of 2019 draw closer, some analysts believe that the BJP has doubled down on its efforts to consolidate its Hindu base by reviving old disputes, and starting some new ones.

These include Lakshman's legacy in Lucknow, pitting the "Kailash Mansarovar Yaatri Bhawan" against the Haj House in Ghaziabad, the portrait of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), and the call for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe reservations at AMU.

The question is what sticks.

"The Ram Temple issue was dormant for decades, it was revived and then it died, it was revived and then it died again, and then it exploded," said Ashutosh Mishra, a professor of political science at Lucknow University. "It is not just the issue but whether the air around is combustible. Right now, we are sitting on a powder keg."

It is not just the issue but whether the air around is combustible. Right now, we are sitting on a powder keg.

The Muslim community is worried.

Nadeem Hasnain, a prominent anthropologist from Lucknow University, said, "This history ka khaata politics has to stop. Settling scores from the past will ruin us."

Hasnain said that it was up to Muslim religious leaders in Lucknow to act responsibly, give measured responses in the face of provocation and not give any reason for the tensions to escalate.

"Thousands of Muslims leave the Teele Wali Masjid after Friday prayers," he said. "All it would take is for one religious leader to make an irresponsible speech and things could get violent."

This history ka khaata politics has to stop.

How it started

Hindu groups have long pressed for Lakshman, a figure from the Ramayana, to be recognized as the founder of Lucknow, and for the city to be renamed Laxmanpuri or Lakhanpur. The BJP has legitimised these demands since they came to power in UP in 2017.

Earlier this year, the traditional theme of the Lucknow Mahotsav, the "Ganga Jamunitehzeeb," was changed by UP government to "Laxmanpuri se Lucknow tak".

Tandon, the former lawmaker from Lucknow, was dismissive of the Ganga-Jamunitehzeeb. "The Ganga-Jamunitehzeeb is not accurate. The culture of Lucknow was born on the banks of the Gomti river," he said.

Tandon's book, Ankaha Lucknow, triggered the Lakshman statue controversy. The BJP leader claimed that the Lakshman Teela is mentioned in old revenue records, but added that much of his account is based on stories that he had heard while growing up in Lucknow.

Tandon said the Sunni mosque was called Gulabi masjid, but the Akhilesh Yadav-government had a board installed on a public road, calling it the "Teele Wali Masjid."

"The name was slyly changed to appease a certain community," he said. "If name of Lakshman teela is not restored, then the situation will escalate. The public won't accept such an injustice to history."

Two months after the book was released, BJP corporators introduced the proposal to build a Lakshman statue. On whether he had intended his book to trigger a confrontation, Tandon said, "When there is action, there is reaction. Some benefit, some lose."

When there is action, there is reaction. Some benefit, some lose.

Voice of the Adityanath government

Minority Affairs Minister in the UP government, Mohsin Raza, said that he saw no reason for Muslims to object to a Lakshman statue in the park outside the Teele Wali Masjid.

Raza, who is the only Muslim minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, asked whether Muslims had the right to spill into the streets to offer namaz.

"Does Islam allow Muslims to read namaz on the road, block traffic, perhaps even stall an ambulance. Should a sick person have to wait until the namaz is over to get help," he said. "Has the public ever objected to Muslims offering namaz on the road? Muslims too must have large hearts and minds."

Has the public ever objected to Muslims offering namaz on the road? Muslims too must have large hearts and minds.

Rahmani of the Teele Wali Masjid conceded that Muslims did indeed spill into the streets and block traffic, but it was thrice in a year. The cycle of bhajans, keertans and jagrans performed by Hindus, the cleric added, was a course of life.

"Sometimes, it is at two in the morning. Sometimes, it goes on for three days. The roads are blocked to celebrate festivals like Diwali, Durga Puja and Janmashtami," he said. "Has any Muslim ever objected? Has a single letter of complaint ever been written?"

If it was a question of compromise, Rahmani said that it existed, naturally and instinctively. "It is born of respect for each other's traditions," he said.

Also on HuffPost India:

A form circulated among faculty in IIT Delhi has asked teachers to urgently share their Aadhaar numbers, and also the linked phone numbers. This isn't the first time that teachers at IIT have been asked to do so, but in the past many of the faculty did not enter their Aadhaar numbers. This time however, the circular states that if a teacher does not want to share their Aadhaar number, they need to explain why this won't share this information.

The circular is marked urgent, and the text reads: "The above data is required by MHRD urgently, which includes the mobile numbers of all faculty." IIT Delhi's heads of departments have been directed to collect this information byfore the end of July, and to note the reasons for dissent from teachers who don't want to share this information.

This rushed data collection exercise is taking place at the same time that a five-member bench of the Supreme Court is expected to give its judgement on the validity of Aadhaar, which could make this entire data collection exercise worthless.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has been pushing for Aadhaar linkages in universities for quite some time now. While the drive began with collecting student Aadhaar numbers for Direct Benefit Transfers, it shifted to asking the faculty for their numbers as well.

Shockingly, IIT Delhi first attempted to acquire this information through a publicly accessible Google Sheets file that anyone can open. A number of faculty members entered their data on this link, and although the majority did not share their Aadhaar or phone numbers, there are some teachers who have shared this information on a public platform.

Going forward, if any teacher continues to not share this information in such an insecure manner, they will also have to provide an explanation for why not.

'Ghost teachers' in colleges

The main justification for collecting Aadhaar information of teachers seems to be the rooting out of ghost teachers. Livemintreported at the start of the year that around 130,000 teachers in colleges were 'fake' - nearly a tenth of the approximately 1.4 million college teachers in India.

Because of this, MHRD in 2017 told colleges and universities to submit the Aadhaar numbers of faculty members, to prevent institutions from duplicating teachers' data, officials said.

However, RTI activists said that this entire claim is bogus and that the government has taken no action. The Wirereported that there was either no data to support this claim, or the ministry did not follow-up its findings with any detailed inquiry.

Sixteen kindergarten students of an all girls school in Delhi's Hauz Qazi area were allegedly kept locked in the basement of their school for hours for non payment of fees.

Reports suggest that students were locked in the basement of the school between 7:30 am and 12:30 pm in the heat without any food or water in the extreme heat.

NDTV quoted one of the parents as saying, "Children were locked in the basement for not paying the fees. I had cleared the fees, despite that my child was punished. The children were thirsty and were suffering in the heat. Police helped us. Even after I showed the proof of fees clearance, the Principal was not apologetic or remorseful."

The principal of the school has allegedly denied the allegations.

Hindustan Times quoted the principal telling the media, "The basement is not a punishment place; it is an activity room where children play and learn music. It is a kind of classroom."

The police have said that a case has been registered against the school.

Delhi: Case has been registered against Rabea Girls' Public School for allegedly illegally confining students in the basement of the premises on the grounds of default in payment of school fees.

— ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2018

The Hindustan Times report says that a case was registered under Section 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 75 (cruelty to child) of the Juvenile Justice Act.

Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights member Anurag Kundu said that they will look into the matter.

Have just received complaint against Rabia School harassing students for fee non-payment. Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has set up inquiry team. It will visit school & initiate inquiry tomorrow itself. Zero tolerance of violation of dignity of children.

— Anurag Kundu (@AnuragKunduAK) July 10, 2018

Will initiate action against erring officials for violation of Right to Education & ensure children's admission within 24 hours. Share mother's contact details privately. Delhi commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR), Delhi Govt committed to protecting children's rights https://t.co/vQi7QhcHZH

— Anurag Kundu (@AnuragKunduAK) July 10, 2018

A teacher said that there was confusion about the fees since some students had not submitted "teacher copies".

The Hindu quoted a teacher as saying, ""There was confusion over fee submission as the school was not informed by the school administration. It will be clarified with the accounts section. Some parents have not submitted a 'teacher copy' to the school and it created the confusion."

The movement is now essentially a bought-and-paid-for tool of ultra-conservative religious groups in the U.S.

On the second day of hearing of the fresh petitions challenging the draconian Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises gay sex, the government has told the Supreme Court that it will not take a stand on the issue and will leave it to the "wisdom" of the top court of the country.

Times of India reported that additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Government of India, told the court, "Let court decide, leave decision to wisdom of court."

"I state and submit that so far as the constitutional validity Section 377 to the extent it applies to "consensual acts of adults in private" is concerned,the Union of India would leave the said question to the wisdom of this Hon'ble Court",says Centre's affidavit @IndianExpress

— Ananthakrishnan G (@axidentaljourno) July 11, 2018

The petitions to de-criminalise gay sex is being heard by a five-judge Constitution bench.

NDTV reported that CJI Deepak Mishra asked "So you are leaving it to our wisdom whether 377 deals with crime and whether it should be as a crime or not we will deal with it?"

This comes after the Centre told the court that it must only decide on the validity of the law and not other issues "as it could have far reaching consequences for future."

The court said on Tuesday, "The question here is whether section 377 is ultra vires or not. Let us get out of this maze. We cannot now give an advance ruling on questions like inheritance to (same sex) live-in partners, whether they can marry, etc. Those are individual issues we cannot pre-judge now."

Imagine being able to hack someone's personal data simply by entering their mobile phone number into a Google search. There is a website of the Andhra Pradesh government that's leaking people's phone numbers, Aadhaar numbers, father's names, passbook and bank account numbers, and the district and mandal where they live - all the link to all this information is the first result you get when you search for the phone numbers of people in the database.

The Andhra government has been leaking the personal data of more than 23,000 farmers who have received subsidies from the Andhra Pradesh Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Board, and organisation that encourages the growth of Ayurvedic medicines in the state. The subsidies are offered to farmers and tribals in the state, and all their personal data is available on an open database on an Andhra Government website.

The information is not behind any access control, and you can see all the records, click on them to get the details of anyone, or download everything as an Excel sheet. But what's perhaps worse is that simply by searching for the phone numbers of many of these farmers, we were able to find the detailed information about them. HuffPost India randomly chose a dozen farmers, and in each case, this database was the first result for their phone number on Google.

That's the most concerning part - in most cases, even when the information has leaked, it isn't readily apparent to people. You have to know the website address, or at the very least spend some time poring through dashboards. In the case of this latest leak, all you need is the person's phone number, and all their information is made visible. HuffPost India has reported this issue to the AP government, much like earlier leaks, although at the time of writing the data is still available online.

Who's held responsible?

This is just the latest in a long line of leaks from AP - in just the last few months, we've reported on a website that let you geo-locate homes on the basis of caste and religion; while another tracked all the medicines people buy, such as generic viagra, along with their phone numbers; and one that tracked pregnant women in ambulances in real time.

A government official we spoke to in AP Secretariat said that while all the departments have been digitised, an understanding of security - and privacy - is yet to come. "Even if you tell them, 'this data is not something you can publish', they disagree and say that it is needed for the beneficiaries to be able to access their own information," he explained.

Karan Saini, a security analyst and consultant who writes on issues of web security and privacy, told HuffPost that the various government departments are generally unresponsive when breaches like this are brought up.

"Lack of outreach is an issue with all of these organisations," said Saini. "NCIIPC is the only one that can even be found by someone looking at the surface. [These organisations] are hard to get a response from."

One reason for this, said Srinivas Kodali, a security researcher who has revealed a tremendous amount of leaks in the AP system, is that there is no official system of accountability in the government when it comes to data leaks.

In May 2017, the AP government passed the Andhra Pradesh Core Digital Data Authority Act, under which in section 37 it states that no legal proceeding shall lie against any officer or employee for anything which is in good faith done. What this means is that leaks and breaches are not something any official in the government can be held responsible for.

This act came out less than a month after the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru published a report stating that 13 crore Aadhaar numbers were leaked - of which 2 crore were from Andhra Pradesh.

A lack of (human) resources

AP officials do acknowledge the problem. "There is a major shortage of cybersecurity professionals, and hiring them is a challenge," said V Premchand, head of the Andhra Pradesh Technology Service, who is in charge of the ongoing security work in the state. AP has seen a major security audit in May this year, and a privacy audit was announced last month.

"The work is ongoing but it is not something that can happen overnight," Premchand explained. However, others argue that the government isn't doing enough to make use of existing manpower. Unlike other countries, the Indian government does not have any real bug bounty program, where security researchers are incentivised to report weaknesses to organisations for cash rewards and recognition.

Sai Krishna Kothapalli, a student at IIT Guwahati and a security researcher, told HuffPost that the government actively discourages security experts from providing their support, rather than encouraging them.

"The US Department of Defense and others have a responsible disclosure program and a lot of people from India take part in that," he said. "Our talent is being used by them instead because the government here does not reply at all."

"India's top hackers are being employed by people outside the country, even though we have the talent here, because will you spend the time and effort to be ignored here, or report issues to a US company and make thousands of dollars instead?"

However, security audits in India are only being carried out by agencies that have been empaneled, and most of the hackers active here don't have the certification, he added. "They're too busy actually doing the work, while these big companies do audits, and leave all kinds of security issues behind."

I’d say it’s much easier to wait and find ‘your person’ by being authentic and honest about who you are and what you’re looking for than just telling people what you think they want to hear and ending up faking it forever. Ali Washburn, lifestyle podcaster and former online dater