MANCHESTER, N.H. ― Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Republican US President Donald Trump in November.

Sanders, with a win Tuesday night in New Hampshire and a contested victory in Iowa under his belt, is in the strongest position to seize the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July, clearly separating himself from former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). He is also the candidate in the field with the second-greatest resources ― in the form of money, staffers and volunteers ― to power his efforts as the campaign continues.

His strongest potential rivals ― Biden and Warren ― are struggling, and the moderate candidates elevated by the nearly universally white electorates in the first two primary states have demonstrated almost no ability to appeal to the more diverse electorates casting ballots in Nevada, South Carolina and in a host of states on Super Tuesday, on March 3. 

In a crowded field, Sanders ― a democratic socialist who long declined to officially join the Democratic Party and is running on a platform of Medicare For All, a massive infrastructure program to combat climate change and a $15 minimum wage ― is assembling a diverse coalition beyond his base of the youngest and most liberal Democratic primary voters, according to public polling.

“We are putting together an unprecedented multicultural, multigenerational political movement,” Sanders told a roaring crowd here at the Southern New Hampshire University Fieldhouse.

A Quinnipiac University poll found him leading the field among “somewhat liberal voters” and placing third among Democrats who considered themselves “moderate or conservative.” He is third among Black voters. Among white voters without a college degree, he has a large lead and is essentially tied for the lead among college-educated white voters. Though the poll does not break out Latino voters, other surveys show him as one of the top two candidates competing for their votes.

There are still ways the party’s moderate wing could attempt to stop Sanders, and there are weaknesses in his coalition. In the Quinnipiac poll, Sanders is the only candidate with a significant gender gap: He has the support of 32% of men and just 20% of women. And the oldest voters in the field remain resistant to him: His support among voters ages 18 to 34 is nearly seven times greater than his support among voters older than 65. Women make up the majority of the Democratic primary electorate, and the oldest voters turn out at the most reliable levels.

And though Sanders won the most votes in Iowa, Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel group whose affiliated super PAC ran ads attacking him, asserted that their ad, which questioned Sanders’s electability and health, provided a blueprint for stopping his momentum, noting he performed much worse among voters who decided late.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has already spent more than $300 million of his own money on the election, obviously dwarfs the financial resources of Sanders. But no other candidate comes close. That will provide Sanders with a potentially key advantage as the race moves into more expensive states, including California, Texas, Massachusetts and Virginia, on Super Tuesday.

Sanders’s other rivals at the moment ― Klobuchar and Buttigieg ― are both poorly positioned to capitalize on Biden’s struggles. Buttigieg, despite months in the national spotlight, is still polling in the single digits among Black voters. Quinnipiac’s poll didn’t find a single Black supporter for Klobuchar.

Klobuchar may present a more significant threat than Buttigieg. Unlike Buttigieg, she is only now fully entering the national spotlight, and primary voters who have been following the race only casually could discover her in the coming days. While her fundraising so far has paled in comparison to Buttigieg and Sanders, she has raised $4.5 million in the days since Friday night’s Democratic primary debate. Her campaign plans to deploy additional staffers to Nevada, South Carolina and key Super Tuesday states.

But if the race does turn into a showdown between Bloomberg and Sanders, there’s evidence most Democratic voters would lean in Sanders’s direction. He’s the top second choice of Warren supporters and is essentially tied with Bloomberg as the top second choice of Biden supporters, according to Quinnipiac’s poll. And Democrats’ views of Sanders ― 76% view him favorably, while just 18% have a negative opinion ― are more positive than those of Bloomberg. Just 58% have a positive opinion of the former mayor.

And on the key questions that Democratic primary voters are weighing, Sanders performs well. He’s the candidate most trusted on health care, the No. 1 issue for both primary and general election voters. Despite moderate Democrats’ worries about his ability to win over swing voters, most Democrats believe he is capable of beating Trump ― and public polling on a Sanders vs. Trump race backs them up. 

“This victory is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” Sanders told the crowd, who respond with a chant of “Bernie beats Trump! Bernie beats Trump!”

Front-runner status after two states does not guarantee a victory. Bloomberg’s money, or Klobuchar’s momentum or Biden’s deep ties to Black voters could all, in one way or another, prove too much for Sanders to overcome.

Even as Sanders was delivering his victory speech, another potential obstacle was appearing: A powerful union in Nevada, the next state to vote, was signaling opposition to his candidacy and his push for “Medicare for All.”

And the results in Iowa and New Hampshire did little to winnow the field. The only candidates to leave the race after the first primary results so far are Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Neither attracted significant support. The crowded field, where both surging candidates like Klobuchar and Buttigieg and seemingly fading ones like Warren and Biden could be in position to grab delegates in three weeks, is likely to lead to an extended primary battle.

But at the start of the race, Sanders is in pole position.

No breakup is ever well-timed, but there’s something particularly poorly planned about doing it just weeks before Valentine’s Day. 

Just ask Amy Luong. Up until recently, Luong, a 23-year-old account coordinator from Des Moines, Iowa, thought she was on sure footing in her yearlong relationship. She and her boyfriend had almost broken up a month ago, but if anything, that had only brought them closer together. Luong’s boyfriend told her he didn’t want to lose her. They’d started talking about the future in unambiguous terms. 

But just last week ― one week before Valentine’s Day ― he dumped her. 

“He brought up that his friends didn’t like me, they didn’t want to talk to me when I was over at his place and that they suggested he break up with me,” Luong told HuffPost. “It started a 12-hour argument about us being together and how he didn’t feel like I respected him. I told him that I do everything I can to respect and support him, but he accused me of doing no such thing.”

The hyperdramatic fight ― and the relationship itself ― ended when Luong told her boyfriend to get an Uber home and leave.

“When I told him that, he said that he was done with me,” she said. “And I still freaking drove him home.” 

Luong had been “valentighted.” The term joins the ranks of other newfangled, slightly ridiculous dating trends (ghosting, mosting, orbiting, breadcrumbing, etc.) but this time, it’s pegged to everyone’s favorite Hallmark holiday. 

Valentighting was coined by Metro UK writer Ellen Scott last year. Scott defined it as “the heartbreaking act of dumping someone right before Valentine’s Day, because you’re too tight to get them a gift, write a card, or make any kind of fuss. Get it? Valentine’s Day plus being too much of a tightwad to buy a gift. Valentighting.”

Clever. But as Luong’s story illustrates, there’s usually more than an aversion to gift-giving at play when a person gets valentighted.

“Valentine’s Day of all holidays brings the relationship to a head and highlights issues between couples that might not be working,” said Kim Seltzer, the host of “Charisma Quotient” podcast and a dating coach in Los Angeles, California. 

If it’s about the gifts at all, it’s less about penny-pinching and more about a person’s fear of having a gift be interpreted as an investment in the relationship, Seltzer said.

“So avoiding the gift might really be about not wanting to spend money on someone you don’t see a future with,” she explained. (In other words, your ex isn’t just a cheap-ass in this scenario, they’re a cheap-ass with commitment issues.)

The whole ordeal is even worse when you’ve gone to the trouble of buying the valentighter a slew of gifts beforehand. That was the case in 2018 for Michael*, a 23-year-old from Ohio. 

“My boyfriend broke up with me on Valentine’s Day, which was also his birthday,” he said. “I was driving up to his house to surprise him with a cake I made him and presents and he called me on the way up and told me not to come because ‘We’re over.’ I had no suspicions ― it was a total surprise.”

Ashley*, a 27-year-old freelance artist from Dallas, Texas, told us about a college boyfriend who professed his love for her on New Year’s Eve, only to unceremoniously dump her on Valentine’s Day. 

“We were talking about everything from a potential wedding, to our children’s names,” she said. “After winter break, we went back to school and would talk every other day. But as it got closer to Valentine’s Day we communicated less and less. I literally had to reach out to him first in order to have a conversation. Some days he wouldn’t even reply back at all, so I was starting to get the picture.”

Then on the morning of Feb. 14 (dun, dun, dun), Ashley received a notification on her phone that her boyfriend had posted something on Facebook. 

“It was a photo with dozens of roses and the biggest teddy bear,” she said. “I initially got excited until I read the caption: ’12 dozen roses for the luckiest woman alive. I love you forever.′ Then I saw her name, not mine, tagged in the photo. My heart dropped instantly.” 

It’s not just the recently dumped that struggle with Valentine’s Day. The holiday puts the squeeze on a lot of relationships, especially new ones. In those cases, it’s hard to know what kind of gift, if any is called for: How much should you spend? Would you overplay your hand if you get the person something and they show up empty-handed?

And different types of partners expect different things: For every person who loathes the commercialness of Valentine’s Day and posts memes about turning it into a second Halloween, there’s another person who loves it and still isn’t over that time their ex forgot to buy flowers. 

“The thing about gifts is that they demonstrate how people give and receive acts of love,” Seltzer said. “One person may hope for roses and gifts while the other prefers cuddling and romantic night in. Because of these differences, couples often feel not ‘loved’ because of this. That’s why it’s so important to communicate what you prefer.”

For the happily coupled up, stronger communication is the answer to most Valentine’s Day dilemmas. But what do you do if you’re a victim of valentighting? Try to take comfort in the love you do have in your life, Seltzer said ― platonic love, familial love, self-love.

And obviously, avoid social media if all the schmaltzy posts are bugging you. Don’t cloister yourself away at home if you want to go out; it’s not that much of a couple-infested jungle out there, said Marni Kinrys, a dating coach at the Wing Girl Method. 

“In fact, I’d say V Day is the best day for singles to go out and have fun at breweries, bars and places like that, where singles tend to congregate and there won’t be sappy couples around to make you feel bad,” Kinrys said.“You can go out with full certainly that the people you meet are single and looking!” 

*First names used for privacy reasons.

Uber on Tuesday reinstated its driver who had reported poet Bappadittya Sarkar to the Mumbai Police for speaking about protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) during his journey.  

The driver was suspended for “up to 72 hours” after Uber set up an inquiry into the incident, according to Hindustan Times. 

“​High-quality service is something we strive for every day. Following our internal review and to meet our standards, we enrolled the driver for re-sensitisation of our policies and community guidelines,” an Uber spokesperson told HuffPost India over email. 

These classes are mandatory for drivers to attend before they begin working for Uber, according to the Hindustan Times report. In light of the incident with Sarkar, the driver has been asked to attend this programme again.    

READ: Mumbai Police’s Questions To Poet Brought In By Uber Driver: ‘What’s Your Ideology? What Do You Read?’

Talking to HuffPost India over the phone last week, Sarkar had said that he had taken an Uber from Mumbai’s Juhu and was speaking to a friend over the phone about Shaheen Bagh, “people’s discomfort with laal salaam” and how protests against in different cities are different.

About 20 minutes into the ride, he said his driver had stopped the car and asked him if he could go to an ATM. It was only when the driver came back with two police officers that Sarkar realised he had actually been brought to a police station. 

The driver, the poet said, had asked the police to arrest him. “Ye communist hai. Ye desh jalaane ki baat kar rha tha. Aap isko andar daalo (He’s a communist. He was talking about burning the country. You arrest him),” the driver told the police, according to Sarkar. 

Sarkar said that the driver claimed to have a recording of Sarkar’s conversation with his friend. He played the recording to the police officials, who, Sarkar said, did not find anything “inciting”.

The police still questioned Sarkar. They asked him about his ideology, to name a few countries with communist establishments and what kind of literature he reads. They also asked him who was funding him and questions about his father’s income.

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A virology expert has suggested that people stop hugging each other as concerns heighten around coronavirus spreading.

John Oxford, an emeritus professor of virology at Queen Mary University of London, said he is not expecting a vaccine to combat the outbreak for “months and months”. 

Speaking to Today on BBC Radio 4, he also dismissed the common provision of people wearing masks as a “total diversion”.

“What we need to do is less of the hand-shaking, hugging, kissing and all that sort of a thing because this virus looks like it’s spread by ordinary tidal breathing, not necessarily sneezing and coughing,” he said.

 Oxford said he has studied both the coronavirus and SARS, describing them as “little people” with weaknesses.

“I think this virus has a weakness; it loves us to be close together,” he said. “It’s a social virus; it rather hates it in England compared to China, I would think, because we’re so stand-offish.

“We have to govern ourselves in our social actions, how we interact with people, and I think that’s extremely important.”

On the other hand, Neil Ferguson, director of MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, appeared on the show and cast doubt on Oxford’s suggestions.

“I think the measures John talked about may have some potential to slow spread down, move us out of the winter flu season, release NHS pressures a bit, but I think it’s highly unlikely we will stop transmission of the virus,” he said.

Ferguson said it is not known for certain that the virus is being spread locally in the UK as cases are only being detected in travellers – people who were infected overseas.

With surveillance of pneumonia cases underway in UK hospitals, he said a clearer indication of how, and if, the virus is being spread will be known in “a few weeks”.

In the meantime, scaling back on physical contact won’t necessarily be effective in combating coronavirus, Ferguson suggested.

“I think we’re in the early phases of a global pandemic at the moment. The fact we’ve only reported eight cases in this country is just because again our surveillance is focused on travellers. We think probably we’re picking up maybe one in three cases coming into the country at the current time,” he said.

As of Tuesday evening, a total of 1,358 people have been tested for coronavirus in the UK, of which 1,350 were confirmed negative and eight positive, the Department of Health said.

NEW DELHI —  “The policewoman pulled my legs up, she twisted my neck, and my head was down. My dress came down. Forget the burqa, even my shirt came down…” said Rafia Fatima, as she spoke of how a march against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) descended into chaos on Monday as protesters clashed with the Delhi Police.

The 29-year-old homemaker said that she found herself in that position after she climbed one of the yellow barricades set up by the Delhi Police and was trying to push past the “sea” of police personnel, women and men. 

“I told her ‘don’t do this to me’. Then she pushed me from the barricades and I fell down,” she said. 

Fatima said that she landed at the feet of four or five policemen, one of whom kicked her in her private parts and chest with his shoes. This, she said, continued until another policeman pulled her up and helped her to the side of the road. 

“A policeman hit me on my private parts and chest with his shoes,” said Fatima. “I still cannot believe it.”

ALSO READ: CAA Protesters Forced Into Hiding As UP Police Puts Bounty On Their Heads

Fatima, who was in hospital on Tuesday, said that she had internal injuries and a fractured rib cage.

When asked why she climbed atop a police barricade and tried to push past the police personnel, Fatima said that she had pleaded with a police officer to let the protestors carry out their march, even suggesting that they could walk in two lines from Jamia Millia Islamia University to the Parliament, with the police accompanying them. 

“What choice do we have?” she asked. “We want to carry out a peaceful protest, we beg and plead, but they never give us permission. They are crushing our rights as citizens.”

The muted response to the events on Monday, almost two months after a brutal crackdown on Jamia students by the Delhi Police, encapsulates the challenges that protesters face as they try to keep the fight going even after media and public attention has shifted from the issue.  

The attack on 15 December, which left several students injured, had sparked off a nationwide wave of outrage against police brutality on CAA protesters and students. In contrast, the police’s reaction to this march barely registered with the public. With the exception of a few tweets and reports, the incident barely made news the next day.  

The ‘normalisation’ of violence 

The protesters on Monday were a motley crew of students of Jamia Millia Islamia and residents from the neighbouring Muslim-dominated localities. 

Fatima, for instance, was at the protest site with her mother, sister and brother. Their father is a retired professor who taught English at the University. Fatima said her brother, a 20-year-old student at the University, was beaten up by the police on 13 December. 

“From that day, I am standing with my brother. I never leave his side at a protest,” she said. 

This latest round of violence, protesters who were at the site on Monday said, goes to show how unyielding the Narendra Modi government’s stand on the anti-CAA movement still is, even as the Delhi Police tweaks its methods of cracking down on them. 

As Srijan Chawla, a 22-year-old student of mass communication at the University, put it, “They were aware the media was present. They were hitting us on the legs and feet but the camera could not capture it. They were making full use of their gear and equipment to hurt us.”

The Delhi Police answers to Home Minister Amit Shah and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the centre. 

In a statement, the Delhi Police said they “showed a lot of patience in handling the aggressive Jamia students” who were “forcing their way through the police barricades and trying to march to Parliament without permission.” They have registered a case against the “violent crowd”.

It is unclear how many students were taken to Dr. M.A. Ansari Health Centre, the University’s health facility, and Al Shifa Hospital, next door in Okha. The Al Shifa hospital spokesperson told the Press Trust of India that at least 20 people from the protest were at the hospital on Monday. Some of them had suffered internal injuries, but the spokesperson did not say whether these were caused by assault or suffocation in a stampede like situation. Doctors at Al Shifa hospital told India Today that more than 10 women were hit on their private parts. 

Safoora Zadgar, a 27-year-old student of philosophy at the University, who says a policeman hit her with a lathi on her hand on Monday, said, “Violence against students has been normalised in the world’s largest democracy, acceptable even. That is scary, not just for us, but students everywhere.”

The immutable attitude of the Modi government towards the protests, the cycle of violence, and the Supreme Court’s recent observation that protesters cannot block roads indefinitely, is also forcing the anti-CAA protesters to consider how long they can persist with their struggle in its present form and how the movement can evolve. 

Some students are more circumspect about how long they can continue with the street protests, especially with classes beginning at the University after the holidays, and exam season looming. 

Others like Suyash Tripathi, a 23-year-old law student who says a policeman kicked him four times on his legs and chest, said the protest at the university will continue until the CAA is repealed and the Modi government drops its plan to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR) across the country. 

While the home ministry said in Parliament last week that it has not taken any decision to implement a nationwide NRC “till now”, the Modi government’s doublespeak on the issue does not inspire much confidence. 

“We want a government representative to come and speak with us or we will have no choice but to intensify our protest,” said Tripathi. “There is no talk of ending the protest. We have to keep going.” 

Bouts of dizziness

Three university students that HuffPost India spoke with on Tuesday said that they were at the receiving end of blows and kicks as protesters in the frontline tried to push past the barricades and clashed with the police. 

But what they recall and can’t quite understand is being overcome with bouts of dizziness and fainting. Having been in dense crowds, with even more protesters, they don’t believe this happened due to suffocation. 

Tripathi said that more than the kicks he endured, it was fainting in the middle of the protest that bothered him. 

“It was a really strange feeling. Even when I regained consciousness, I couldn’t lift my hand. I couldn’t lift my feet,” he said. “I felt strange and dizzy for the rest of the day as well. I even told the doctors about it.” 

Dr. Azeem, who treated students at the Al Shifa Hospital, told the London-based newspaper, The Telegraph, that the Delhi Police had used a toxic chemical spray against the students. 

Azeem said the students were complaining of pains in their abdomen, stomach and chest, and these symptoms were not consistent with the use of pepper spray. 

Calls for comment and a text to the Delhi Police spokesperson Mandeep Randhawa earlier on Wednesday were not answered. 

Tripathi said, “I have been to other protests with a lot of crowds. I have never felt that way before. I felt paralysed.” 

The wrong questions? 

Even more painful than their battle wounds, protesters said, is the reactions to their clashes with the police, and not just from the right-wing. 

They face questions like ‘why are you protesting without permission? Why are you protesting in an area that is not a designated protest site? Why did you break the barricades? What was the police supposed to do?’

Students from the Jamia Coordination Committee told HuffPost India that they have tried seeking permission to carry out a march against the CAA at least thrice since December, but the Delhi Police has never granted them permission.

Zadgar, the philosophy student, said, “‘Why are you trying to carry out a march’ — what is this negative question? It is so regressive. The police never grant us permission, but we have to justify why we want to exercise our fundamental rights?” 

Another issue facing participants in the protests, which have largely been spontaneous and leaderless, is the lack of political support.

Arvind Kejriwal, who was elected chief minister of Delhi for the third time on Tuesday, has asked the centre to clear the streets of protesters. Rahul Gandhi has never visited any anti-CAA protest site in Delhi. His sister Priyanka Gandhi had visited the families of activists who were jailed in connection with the anti-CAA protests in Lucknow, but the Congress’s stand on the protests is ambiguous. 

Even as five state governments and one Union Territory have passed resolutions against implementing the CAA, these students in Delhi are left wondering if they will see politicians on the ground sticking up for them in hairy situations. 

Chawla, the mass communication student, whose classes have resumed, is worried about how long the movement can sustain. 

“If we back off now, if Jamia and Shaheen Bagh end, all this might not happen again,” she said. “We feel like the nerve centre of all the protests in the country. We have a responsibility.”

The protest site at Jamia, Chawla pointed out, is not just populated by students, but residents of the neighbouring localities who wanted to oppose the CAA. 

“As long as there are even two or three people who want to come and protest here, who are we to say that we are stopping,” she said. 

To some, asking how long the protests will continue is also the wrong question. 

Rafia Fatima, the woman who says she was hit on her private parts, said, “This is a call not just from the Jamia students, but from our society. It is our right to protest.” 

Fatima’s younger sister, who asked that her name not be published, said, “We feel like all this is an existential threat for us. How can we put a timeline on this?” 

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Courteney Cox celebrated her “Friends” co-star Jennifer Aniston’s 51st birthday on Tuesday by posting this snap on Instagram of the pair looking very much alike:

“No matter how hard you might try... there’s only one Jennifer Aniston,” Cox (aka Monica Geller in the hit sitcom) captioned the picture that Aniston (who played Rachel Green) clearly enjoyed seeing on her feed:

Aniston, meanwhile, marked her special day with an Instagram post thanking Interview magazine for using photographs of her on its front page.

“I had no idea this would be coming out today. Feeling proud and honored to be celebrating with this cover,” Aniston wrote, below. “Thanks to the Interview team for celebrating women at every age... turns out 51 is pretty fun.”

Other “Friends” stars also honored Aniston on Instagram.

Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay, described Aniston as “always beautiful and keeps getting more beautiful.”

And Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing) dedicated his fourth-ever post on the picture-sharing network that he only joined last week to the actor:

After the Congress managed to win exactly zero seats in the Delhi Assembly elections, party leaders have reacted by either congratulating voters for rejecting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or slamming other leaders for “gloating” over AAP’s victory. 

No, the Grand Old Party doesn’t seem to have a Plan C till now.

It began on Tuesday after Election Commission leads showed that the Congress would repeat its performance from 2015 and actually do worse in terms of vote percentage. 

The party’s vote share in the 2020 Delhi elections was just 4.26% — down from 9.7% in 2015 — and 63 of its candidates lost their deposits. As per the Election Commission rules, if a candidate fails to get at least one-sixth of the total valid votes polled in their constituency, they have to forfeit the deposit. 

The Congress had contested on 66 seats this time, leaving four for its ally Rashtriya Janata Dal. 

On Wednesday, AICC Delhi in-charge PC Chacko resigned from his post and strangely sought to put the blame of the party’s decline on late chief minister Sheila Dikshit. “The downfall of the Congress party started in 2013 when Sheilaji was the Chief Minister. The emergence of a new party AAP took away the entire Congress vote bank. We could never get it back. It still remains with AAP,” he told ANI.

However, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi had told NDTV on Tuesday that the party leaders “sorely miss Sheila Dikshit’s persona”. “We lost a tall leader and we could not pitch anyone else effectively,” he had said. 

Even on other important matters, Congress leaders didn’t seem to be on the same page.

Sharmistha Mukherjee, daughter of former president Pranab Mukherjee, took on senior leader P. Chidambaram, who had saluted the people of Delhi for setting “an example to other states” by defeating the “polarising” and “divisive” agenda of the BJP. 

Mukherjee asked the former Union minister if Congress had outsourced the task of defeating BJP to state parties. 

On Tuesday, as the results were trickling in, Mukherjee had strong words for her party leadership as well, tweeting that “inordinate delay in decision making at the top, lack of strategy and unity at state level, demotivated workers, no grassroots connect, all are factors” in the Congress’s drubbing in Delhi.  

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, in a tweet said the Delhi results were disappointing for the party, but there were consolations — “the BJP’s divisive politics has been repudiated with their rout, AAP’s development message is what has prevailed over identity politics, and 8 months after sweeping the Lok Sabha polls the winners have been rebuked”.

Later, he posted an Urdu couplet, according to PTI, saying, that one is taking pride in someone else’s victory, even in the party’s defeat.

Other senior leaders seemed to agree.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday said those spreading “religious hatred” have been wiped out. 

“Amit Shahji had asked people to press the voting button with such force that the current is felt in Shaheen Bagh. Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter has given a good statement by saying that the button was pressed (by voters) in such a way that it (BJP) got electrocuted,” he was quoted as saying by PTI.

About the Congress’s performance in Delhi, he only said the votes got shifted to AAP as people backed the person and the party which they believed could defeat the BJP.

Missing amidst all of this second-hand gloating? Any indication of how the Congress plans to clean up its own house.

Congress leaders, agree, however that something needs to be done about the crisis at the top.

While expressing concern over the party’s debacle in Delhi elections, M. Veerappa Moily said that the Congress could not perform because its “votebanks have been transferred to AAP as they thought only he (AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal) can defeat the BJP.”

“That’s how the people have come to that conclusion... no use in supporting Congress party; otherwise it will benefit BJP,” the former Karnataka Chief Minister told PTI.

He, however, said that the time to act is now and called for a “surgical action” to revive the party.

Party leader Kapil Sibal also said the party does not have a leader to project and that needs to be resolved at the earliest.

How did BJP leaders react?

The BJP managed to get eight out of 70 seats, marginally improving its tally, and its vote share increased from 32.19% in 2015 to 38.5% this year.  

Even as Congress leaders were floundering to pin the blame on someone while also celebrating the BJP’s defeat, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari took responsibility for the party’s performance. 

Tiwari on Wednesday offered to quit from his post, but sources told NDTV that he was told by the leadership that there was no need to do so. He had tweeted after the exit polls that the party would form the government by winning 48 seats, and asked everyone to save his tweet. 

When asked about this after the results were declared, he said, “I am state president, so I take the responsibility for this defeat. My estimate based on some factors has proved wrong but what possibly could you do with my tweet, just keep it saved.” 

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Tiwari also pointed out that the BJP’s vote percentage has increased. “Delhi did not reject us and the increase (in vote share) is a good sign for us,” he was quoted as saying by PTI.

BJP national spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain also had the same view. “BJP is the only party which has gained and our seat tally increased while even the number of AAP seats has gone down. Congress shifted its vote to the AAP, yet we gave a good fight,” Hussain said. 

(With PTI inputs)

Goa-based fashion designer Wendell Rodricks passed away early Wednesday evening at his residence in Colvale, Goa. He was 60.

The exact cause of his death isn’t known yet.

A giant in the field of Indian fashion, Rodricks was a big champion of LGBTQ causes, eco-friendly designs and dissented against deforestation in Goa. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2014.

In March 2019, he had said that he was receiving threats from PWD minister Sudin Dhavalikar over his fight to save a 100-year-old chapel and ancient mango trees. 

Born in a Goan Catholic family, Rodricks grew up in Mumbai and studied at Mahim’s St. Michael’s High School. He is believed to have saved up money to study fashion designing in Los Angeles and Paris.

Other than introducing the concept of resort fashion, Rodricks is credited with reviving the kunbi saari, a traditional Goan attire and being part of the khadi movement which he championed in fashion events globally. 

The designer was also known for spotting Deepika Padukone and encouraging her to take up modelling, a career choice that’d eventually lead her to the movies.

In a January 2017 to Femina, Rodricks spoke about retiring as designer and handing over the reins of his label to his protege, Schulen Fernandes.

He had said, “I don’t miss being behind the wheel at all. I can finally dedicate time to things that I’ve been waiting to do. The work on the museum is underway (Rodricks was turning his Goa home into a space dedicated to Goan costumes). The dogs are taking it well but my three cats are giving me grief about the move! I would like to write a lot more. My next book Poskem is about Goa. I hope I’ll be able to turn it into a movie like Chetan Bhagat. I’d like to teach a lot more too.”

Many people expressed their shock at Rodricks’ sudden death,

BIDAR, Karnataka — In the first week of February this year, a posse of policemen arrived at the modest home of Mohammed Barkat Ali and seized his 11-year-old daughter’s slippers.

These were no ordinary slippers, Ali learnt. These were seditious slippers—vital evidence in a high-profile Karnataka police investigation to determine if a school skit on India’s controversial new citizenship law, scripted and performed by a group of nine to 11-year-olds, counted as sedition.

The police’s actions would be laughable if the only arrests were of children’s footwear. Instead, the investigation has already resulted in the arrests of Fareeda Begum, the 52-year-old headteacher of Shaheen School in Bidar, and Najbunnisa, a 26-year-old single mother whose daughter acted in the play. The two women were arrested a fortnight ago, on January 30, and are yet to get bail.

The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 offers amnesty to non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah has frequently called for a National Register of Citizens to disenfranchise those who cannot produce enough documents to prove that they are Indian. 

READ: What Happens To The People Arrested For Insulting Modi?

At Shaheen School, the children were asked to write and perform a play as a means to understand the implications of the new law. The Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) process of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) urges teachers to think of creative new ways for students to engage with their curriculum.

Nilesh Rakshal, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), spotted a Facebook video of the play on his feed and was outraged by a moment where Najbunnisa’s daughter waved Barkat Ali’s daughter’s slippers in the air and said, “The boy who was selling tea till the other day is asking us for documents. I’ll ask him where he was born and where his papers are. If he does not provide them, I will beat him with my slippers”. 

The reference to tea was seen as a veiled dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who claims he once sold tea at a railway station. 

Rakshal filed a police complaint on January 26, India’s 71st Republic day. The police in Karnataka, a state ruled by Modi’s BJP, swung into action and promptly arrested Fareeda Begum and Najbunnisa, and seized the offending pair of slippers. The two women, claims Superintendent of Police Bidar D.N. Nagesh, have been arrested for helping the children write the play. The remand report for the two women, reviewed by HuffPost India, claims that the police “found grounds for suspicion that the two (headteacher and the mother) influenced the children.” 

The students of Shaheen School, however, insist that they wrote the play themselves — a claim they have stuck to, even when repeatedly interrogated by the Karnataka police. 

“We were scared. The policemen raised their voice every time they questioned us,” one of the children who participated in the play told HuffPost India. “We got the content online and from newspapers. We rehearsed during recess hours and after school.” 

At its surface, the sedition case in Bidar is the latest instance of India’s authoritarian turn under Modi and the BJP. Dig a little deeper and two interesting themes emerge: A police force so subservient to its political masters that it is willing to interrogate 11-year-old children and arrest teachers and parents, and a generation of inquisitive young Indians who are becoming increasingly aware of their rights.

A cat, mouse and dog game

The Shaheen School play on the Citizenship Amendment Act is short, succinct and darkly humourous. 

“My papers are already with the government,” says a character in one memorable scene, when he’s asked how he will find all the documents necessary to prove his citizenship. “My papers were eaten by a mouse, the mouse was eaten by a cat, the cat was eaten by a dog, and the dog was picked up by the municipal corporation. So my papers have been submitted.”

The conversation ends with the character saying, “I am completely unworried. And you should be too.”

In their interrogation, the children said, the police refused to believe that they had written the play themselves. The child playwrights said they drew their material from hours spent online.

The dialogue that so incensed Rakshal the BJP worker, for instance, was drawn from a viral video clip of a elderly woman who uttered these very same lines when she was asked what she would do if the Modi government implemented the National Register of Citizens.

The play ends with a young boy reciting Hum Kaagaz Nahi Dikhayenge, a protest poem by Bollywood lyricist Varun Grover that has become the de facto anthem of the thousands of anti-CAA protests around the country.

The children interviewed by HuffPost India said they weren’t really looking for the poem, but chanced upon it in YouTube’s trending videos section.

“Parents of several of our students are illiterate or barely educated. The students depend on online sources of information. Thanks to the web, they often explain subjects which are difficult even to the grasp of adults,” said Zohra Fathima, a teacher at the school. 

Najbunnisa, the single mother currently in jail, is a domestic worker who dropped out of school in her teens.  

“The police’s claim that the students were tutored by adults is baseless,” said Asma Tarannum, another teacher of the school. “Adolescents know a lot these days.”

Yet the police questioned at least 60 children at Shaheen school, stopping only after the Karnataka State Commission for Child Rights intervened on February 6. 

No grounds for sedition

The management of Shaheen school has struggled to comprehend how a school assignment could have spiralled into a crime against the nation.

“Even though Shaheen is a minority run school, over fifty percent of our students are non-Muslim. We maintain good relationships with all religious groups in the area. Different political parties take our infrastructural support for events,” said Thouseef Madikeri, the CEO of the school, adding that no political party had raised any objection to the school events in the past. 

A month prior to the sedition row, the BJP’s student affiliate — the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) — had borrowed a bus belonging to Shaheen group of institutions for a rally supporting the CAA. 

“Even after coming to know that they had used the bus for a pro-CAA rally, we did not raise any objection,” Madikeri said. 

The management had not expected a small event to become a political rallying point between the BJP and the Congress, especially in a relatively peaceful town like Bidar. 

“This should have been a civil case for defamation, at the most,” said Keshavarao, an advocate for Shaheen school. “If the PM felt defamed, he should have filed the complaint and not a BJP worker in Bidar.” 

Prime Minister Modi, who frequently holds staged interactions with high school students, has not commented on the row thus far.

Advocate Keshavarao said a 2016 Supreme Court judgement held that citizens should not be booked under sedition without an order from the state’s Director General of Police or Commissioner of Police. 

The order should illustrate that the seditious act either led to the incitement of violence or was intended to create public disorder, the judgment read. In Bidar, the sedition case has been registered by a constable at the New Town police station. 

In court, the police have produced little evidence beyond a video recorder and a compact disc containing a recording of the play. 

The child’s slippers, seized with much fanfare by the police, were not produced in court.

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The death toll from the coronavirus has risen to 1,018, and there are now 43,106 confirmed infections worldwide.

Governments around the world are scrambling to both prevent the disease spreading and to repatriate their citizens currently stranded in the Chinese city at the epicentre of the outbreak.

There is quite the global crisis on the boil. But how bad is it really?

For context, here’s how it stacks up to previous deadly outbreaks.

Let’s start with the latest on coronavirus

At the time of writing, 1,018 people – all bar two in China – have died in the latest outbreak and there are about 43,106 reported cases of infection.

In Hong Kong, a 39-year-old man has become the first coronavirus death reported in the territory, and a 44-year-old man has died in the Philippines.

Around 470 cases have been reported in two dozen other countries.

The US, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and World Health Organisation’s (WHO) guidance that such measures were unnecessary.

Its symptoms, including cough and fever and in severe cases pneumonia, are similar to many other illnesses.

The director-general of the World Health Organisation said this week the agency is still unable to predict where the outbreak is heading but that he believes there is still an opportunity to contain it.

SARS

You may have noticed that coronavirus has been compared a lot to SARS, and for good reason: SARS was in fact a coronavirus. 

Confused? Don’t be. Coronavirus is actually a family of viruses that includes the common cold.

This current outbreak of coronavirus was temporarily named “2019-nCoV” but that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily, so the generic family name has stuck.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was responsible for a global outbreak between November 2002 and July 2003. It was very similar to the current coronavirus. Crucially, while it was less infectious, it was also deadlier.

But the death toll from coronavirus has now surpassed SARS which only killed 774 people.

But it’s difficult to compare the number of deaths during the SARS outbreak after the same amount of time, as Chinese authorities withheld information – a lesson they appear to have learned this time around.

No further cases of SARS have been reported since 2004.

Ebola

While the symptoms of SARS and coronavirus could be confused with a case of the flu, those of ebola most certainly can not.

The virus severely affects the blood’s ability to clot, leading to often fatal uncontrolled bleeding.

As you can see from the chart above, it is far deadlier than coronavirus and during the West Africa outbreak between 2014-16 almost 50% of cases were fatal.

Only a global concerted effort led by the WHO stopped the virus from spreading beyond the African continent, although isolated cases such as Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey did slip through the net.

Spanish Influenza

To put all of these into perspective, it’s necessary to hark back to 1918.

Not only was humanity dealing with what was then by far the most deadly war in history, but an outbreak of influenza spread around the world and killed around 5% of the entire world’s population – some 50m people.

There was barely a corner of the world unaffected with cases reported on remote islands in the pacific and even the Arctic. 

What was particularly terrifying about this strain of the flu virus was that it was especially lethal for those in the normally healthy age bracket of 20-40 years.

Medicine was obviously more primitive 100 years ago and there was no WHO to coordinate a response, but scientists still aren’t quite sure why it was so devastating.

Infographic supplied by Statista.

(CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated total deaths during the Spanish influenza were around 500m. This should have been around 50m.)

Two Indian crew on board the cruise ship quarantined off the Japanese coast have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the Indian Embassy in Japan said on Wednesday

Authorities confirmed that 174 people on board the cruise ship Diamond Princess had been infected with the deadly disease. A total of 138 Indians, including 132 crew and 6 passengers, are on board the ship.

All the infected people have been taken to hospitals for adequate treatment, including further quarantine, in accordance with the Japanese health protocol, the embassy said.

As news of more cases were reported aboard the cruise ship on Wednesday, an Indian security officer sent out an appeal for help to the Indian government.

Sonali Thakkar, who was placed in isolation on Monday, told NDTV, “We are scared that if the infection is spreading, it is spreading so fast that we could also become one of them. We don’t want to. We just want to go back home.”

“We want the Indian government to take us back to India and isolate us there. Or at least send some more medical staffers across to help these people with the tests. We want to go home,” she told the news channel.

Thakkar’s is the second Indian to send out a public appeal for help from the Indian government. 

Earlier, a crew members, identified as Binay Kumar Sarkar, had posted a Facebook video in which he said, “Please somehow save us as soon as possible. What’s the point if something happens (to us)...I want to request the government of India and Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi-ji, please segregate us and bring us back home safely.“

In its statement on Wednesday, the Indian Embassy said it was in constant touch with the Japanese authorities to ensure the welfare of Indian nationals on board the ship as well as the possibility of their early disembarkation, in case they are not found to have tested positive for the virus.

The Embassy of India in Tokyo said it had reached out to the Indian nationals through emails and telephone calls and explained to them about the health and safety regulations of Japanese authorities and requested for cooperation, a statement said.

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The U.S. Air Force issued new guidelines on Friday giving members who wear religious apparel a way to serve the country without compromising their faith.

The Air Force’s updated dress and personal appearance policy clarifies the grooming and uniform standards for members who wear turbans, hijabs and beards for religious reasons. It also outlines the process to request these exemptions, sets timelines for management to respond, and ensures that the approvals will follow someone throughout his or her career in the Air Force.

Muslim, Sikh and pagan members of the Air Force have individually requested andreceived waivers for religious apparel and beards in recent years, but this is the first time the guidelines and the accompanying approval process are being standardized. 

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The Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group that has pushed for changes to the U.S. Air Force’s dress and appearance policy, commended the move. Giselle Klapper, a Sikh Coalition staff attorney, said her group has long been seeking a blanket proclamation that all Sikh Americans who wear turbans and beards as part of their faith can serve in every branch of the military without seeking individual accommodations. Still, she called the policy clarification a “great step forward.”

“No Sikh American should have to choose between their religious beliefs and their career ambitions,” Klapper said in a statement Wednesday. 

The updated policy requires religious apparel to be “neat and conservative” and not impede an individual’s ability to perform assigned military duties or wear protective equipment.

Beards can’t exceed two inches ― if they do, they must be “rolled and/or tied” to achieve the required length, the regulations state. Hijabs, turbans and under-turbans (also known as patkas) should be free of designs and made of a “subdued material” in a color that closely resembles one’s uniform. Religious head coverings are also required to be free of designs or markings unless the individual’s uniform has a camouflage pattern. 

The updated regulations mandate that faith-based religious apparel requests can only be denied for a “compelling government interest” and the denial must be the “least restrictive” way the Air Force has of achieving that government interest.

Under certain conditions, commanding officers can order the removal of turbans or hijabs to keep service members safe, the regulations state — for example, while someone is walking within 25 feet of an operating aircraft. In the event of a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or explosive threat, commanding officers could also ask someone wearing a hijab to remove it to ensure a proper gas mask fit.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) welcomed the policy change.

“Thousands of American Muslims and members of other minority faiths serve in our nation’s military and should be able to practice their faith while serving,” CAIR’s spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper said in a statement.

In 2017, the U.S. Army officially updated its dress and appearance standards to accommodate hijabs, turbans and beards. 

Gurchetan Singh, the first Sikh American to secure a religious accommodation to serve in the Air National Guard, said Wednesday that he’s grateful for the Air Force’s policy change.

Singh was born in India and followed his father, an asylee, to the U.S. in 2012. Singh wanted to serve in the U.S. military to defend the country that had taken his family in, according to the Sikh Coalition. The advocacy group submitted a religious accommodation request for Singh in April 2019. It was approved in September, which means Singh will soon head to basic training. 

Singh said that he believes the Air Force’s policy update will make it easier for Sikh Americans to serve while maintaining their articles of faith. 

“Accommodations, after all, aren’t about special treatment ― they are about ensuring that religiously observant Sikhs and others don’t have to choose between staying true to our faith and serving our country,” he said.

NEW DELHI — Ten people were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the alleged sexual assault of students during a cultural festival at the all-women Gargi College last week, Delhi police said.

The accused are between 18 and 25 years of age, they added.

Over 11 police teams were looking into the technical details available and also visiting various sites in NCR to identify the suspects and investigate the case, the police said.

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Many people are being questioned and multiple suspects have been identified, they added.

According to the police, the accused persons were outside the college when the fest was underway.

A senior police official said the accused are students of various colleges in Delhi and NCR areas. They gathered outside the gate of the college, vandalised a car and then broke in, he added.

Police said the accused jumped over the barricades placed by the college security staff, outnumbered them and then misbehaved with the women students.

Officials said the investigation was on and more people could be arrested.

Students of Gargi College have been boycotting classes, demanding that the fact finding committee constituted following the incident show its findings.

A case was registered on February 10 at the Hauz Khas police station under IPC sections 452 (House-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrong ful restraint), 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).

A group of men had broken into the institute during the ‘Riverie’ fest on February 6 and allegedly groped, harassed and molested the attendees.

The incident came to light after some students took to Instagram to narrate their ordeal. Students and teachers also posted on other social media websites about the incident.

Over 100 students held a protest on February 10 outside Gargi College.

The students had alleged that Rapid Action Force and Delhi Police personnel were deployed close to the gate from where the men entered.

Political parties in India have to upload on their websites the details of pending criminal cases against candidates contesting polls in the next 48 hours, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.

The top court has also asked parties to give reasons for selecting such candidates and provide these details to the Election Commission, Ananthakrishnan G reported for the Indian Express.

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Parties will have to specify their reasons and publish them on their websites. They will also have to publish details of the pending criminal cases against such candidates on social media platforms and newspapers:

If parties fail to comply with its directions on candidates with pending criminal cases, EC shall bring it to notice of apex court, the top court said. 

The bench of justices RF Nariman and Ravindra Bhat said there had been an alarming increase in criminalisation of politics in the last four general elections.

In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench had unanimously held that all candidates will have to declare their criminal antecedents to the Election Commission before contesting polls and called for a wider publicity, through print and electronic media about antecedents of candidates.

It had left it to the Parliament to “cure the malignancy” of criminalisation of politics by making a law to ensure that persons facing serious criminal cases do not enter the political arena as the “polluted stream of politics” needs to be cleansed, PTI reported.

During the hearing on the contempt plea, the EC had told the court that increase in number of MPs having pending criminal cases was “disturbing” and as per the statistics, there were 43% MPs in Parliament who have criminal cases against them.

The poll panel had agreed with the suggestions of senior lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing BJP leader and petitioner Ashiwini Upadhyay, including that all political parties should mandatorily upload on their website details of candidates with criminal antecedents along with the reasons as to why those without any criminal record could not be selected.

On March 29 last year, the apex court had sought response from the Centre and the EC on Upadhaya’s plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings for alleged violation of its judgment, directing all candidates to declare their criminal antecedents to the poll panel before contesting elections.

On October 10, 2018, the EC had issued notification regarding the amended Form-26 and directions to political parties and candidates for publication of criminal antecedents.

However, the plea filed by Upadhyay alleged that the EC neither amended the Election Symbol Order, 1968 nor the model code of conduct (MCC) so the said notification has no legal sanction.

(With PTI inputs)

Health officials in China’s Hubei Province — the epicenter of the outbreak of a new coronavirus — reported the largest single-day infection rate to date on Thursday, identifying 14,840 new cases in the region and 242 more deaths.

The figures, which are more than 10 times the previous day’s reported infections, come as Chinese health officials have expanded how they diagnose those who show symptoms associated with the virus, called COVID-19. Officials previously relied solely on specialized testing kits, but the new data includes those who have been screened by doctors, The New York Times reported. Hubei has also begun using CT scans to identify infected patients.

“From today on, we will include the number of clinically diagnosed cases into the number of confirmed cases so that patients could receive timely treatment,” Hubei’s health authority said in a statement, according to a translation from the South China Morning Post.

Reuters added that if cases identified using the new methods were excluded from the count, then there were only 1,508 new cases. More than 50,000 people have now been confirmed to have COVID-19 across China.

The new figures reflected a statistical whiplash and come just a day after Beijing reported the lowest daily number of new infections in two weeks. The government touted that decline in its attempt to champion its containment efforts that have effectively quarantined 60 million people in and around Hubei. Senior Chinese officials have also been urging workers to return to their jobs after extending the Lunar New Year holiday, although many have been staying home out of fear.

Experts have warned, however, that the number of people infected with the virus could be far higher than reported due to the complicated testing required, a shortage of medical supplies at some hospitals and recent observations that many people have mild cases that don’t require medical treatment.

Officials agree, however, that COVID-19 is highly transmissible and warned that infection rates could fall or skyrocket at any moment.

“Our greatest fear remains the damage this coronavirus could do in a country like [the Democratic Republic of Congo],” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said during a WHO meeting on the Ebola crisis in West Africa on Wednesday. “Even as the flames of one outbreak begin to die down, we are fighting another fire-front.”

He added: “The number of newly confirmed cases reported from China has stabilized over the past week, but that must be interpreted with extreme caution. This outbreak could still go in any direction.”

The fallout from the spread of the coronavirus, which WHO dubbed COVID-19 on Tuesday, continues to spread.

Businesses have also taken steps to prevent the spread of the virus, including airlines that have canceled many of their flights into China. One of the world’s largest technology trade shows, set to be held in Barcelona, called off this year’s event because of the outbreak.

New cases have continued to pop up around the globe. The United States reported its 14th on Wednesday, saying a person evacuated from Wuhan to a military base near San Diego had tested positive for the virus.

BJP’s divisive poll campaign for the Delhi assembly elections failed to bear fruit, but the party is at it again. This time, its newly elected MLA Om Prakash Sharma from Vishwas Nagar has called Chief Minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal a supporter of terrorists. 

ANI quoted Sharma as saying, “Arvind Kejriwal is a corrupt man, he sympathises with terrorists, plays role of Pakistan Army spokesman, raises questions on Indian Army and supports tukde tukde gang. Indeed, terrorist is the appropriate term for him.”

Sharma’s comment don’t come as a surprise since leaders of the BJP including ministers like Amit Shah and Anurag Thakur had made communal remarks like “goli maro” and “current” for Shaheen Bagh during their poll campaign, which fell flat as people rejected BJP’s divisive comments and voted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) back to power with a resounding victory. 

AAP won 62 seats and BJP 8 seats. The AAP has been voted back to power for the third time. In 2015, AAP had swept the polls to win 67 seats, leaving the BJP with 3 seats. 

BJP’s Parvesh Varma had taken a similar jibe at Kejriwal in the run up to the elections. 

After their win, AAP’s Sanjay Singh had said, “The two crore families of Delhi have now said that their son Arvind Kejriwal is not a terrorist but a staunch nationalist. I salute the people of Delhi from (for) giving AAP such a massive mandate.”

AAP had constantly said during their campaign that they were contesting the elections on the issues of electricity, water and education. 

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Read HuffPost India’s investigation into how the Modi government brought untraceable funds into Indian politics here.

Electoral bonds worth Rs 81.67 crore were sold by the State Bank of India (SBI) in the latest tranche opened just ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections 2020, The Hindu reported. 

The largest number of bonds—43—were sold by the bank’s Kolkata branch between January 13 and 22, according to the report, based on a query filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd). A majority of the bonds were encashed at the New Delhi branch, the RTI response stated. It is not known yet which parties received the bonds sold in January. 

According to an analysis released in January by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) raised Rs 2,410 crore during 2018-19, of which Rs 1,450 crore came as donations through electoral bonds.

“The BJP received donations through electoral bonds worth Rs 1,450.89 crore, the Congress Rs 383.26 crore and TMC Rs 97.28 crore,” it said.

HuffPost India’s series on electoral bonds by Nitin Sethi had revealed that the SBI resorted to misinformation in its responses to RTI inquiries on the controversial electoral bonds scheme. It also revealed the government’s claim that bond donors are completely anonymous was a lie. SBI maintains a secret number-based record of donors who buy electoral bonds, and the political parties they donate to.

The Supreme Court had refused to grant an interim stay on the electoral bonds scheme on January 20 and sought a response from the centre and the Election Commission within two weeks.

The Central Information Commission (CIC) asked the Modi government last month to reveal the names of those who requested that donors who buy electoral bonds remain anonymous.  

Documents reviewed by HuffPost India also revealed that when anonymous billionaires use electoral bonds, the Indian taxpayer pays the banking fees, commissions, and associated charges. Sethi also established, through the documents obtained through RTI, that the Ministry of Law and Justice signed off on the government’s decision to hastily pass the electoral bond scheme by bypassing the Rajya Sabha. The approval came even as the ministry put on record that the government’s strategy was illegal and unconstitutional.  

The series also revealed how Narendra Modi’s PMO directed the finance ministry to break its own rules to approve an unscheduled and illegal sale of electoral bonds for state assembly elections on two separate occasions. These elections — Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana — were the last round of polls before the Modi government’s first tenure ended.

Sethi’s series, which was mainly based on documents accessed by transparency activist Batra, also detailed how the Modi government overruled the objections of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Election Commission. 

Across North America and Europe, bees are suffering dramatic species loss due to the climate crisis

Thanks to our ever-warming planet, bumblebee populations ― which are already threatened by pesticides and habitat loss ― have declined 46% in North America and 17% in Europe compared with baseline numbers from 1901 to 1974, according to a new study published in the journal Science.

“The scale of this decline is really worrying,” Peter Soroye, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the study, told The New York Times. “This group of organisms is such a critical pollinator in wild landscapes and agricultural regions.”

It’s estimated that between $235 billion and $577 billion worth of annual food production globally relies on the pollinator services of more than 20,000 types of bees, along with birds, bats, and butterflies.

Three years ago, the rusty patched bumblebee was listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after it was found that its population across the country had declined by 90% since the 1990s. A declining bee population undermines the world’s ability to produce food.

In the U.K., a study in May found that 17 species of bees are considered regionally extinct ― including the great yellow bumblebee, the Potter flower bee and the cliff mason bee ― 25 were threatened, and an additional 31 were considered of concern to conservationists. And of Europe’s more than 800 bee species, 171 are considered either endangered, vulnerable or near-threatened. 

Bees are just one part of a severe biodiversity crisis, which could see a million species go extinct over the next decade because of human actions. To solve it, we must rapidly decrease emissions, slash pollution and protect land.

“Land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge: the increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural environment,” Robert Watson, chair of the U.N. study, told HuffPost. 

But there are glimmers of hope to be seen in the efforts of individuals, communities, cities and countries to try to stop the demise of bees. From paying residents to grow pollinator lawns to banning pesticides, here are five reasons to have some hope for the future of bees. 

Paying people to create bee-friendly gardens

In the U.S., 104 cities have registered as “Bee Cities” ― meaning they are committed to improving pollinator habitat, raising awareness with residents about bees, and incorporating “pollinator-conscious” policies into city planning.

Meanwhile, in an effort aimed specifically at supporting the threatened rusty patched bumblebee, Minnesota approved a new “Lawns to Legumes” program toward the end of 2019. The program will pay out a total $900,000 each year to homeowners (up to $350 each) who replace their manicured grass lawns with pollinator-friendly wildflowers, clover and native grasses. 

“I have gotten a ton of emails and so much feedback from people who are interested in this,” state Rep. Kelly Morrison, who introduced legislation implementing the program, told the Star Tribune. “People are really thinking about how they can help.”

And for anyone interested, the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge was launched in 2015 to encourage people across the U.S. to add their bee and butterfly-friendly gardens to the map. 

Planting gardens on roofs of buildings and bus stops

One of the best known cities for green roof infrastructure is Chicago. As of 2017, more than 350 had been installed. The policy supporting green roofs was aimed at combating the urban heat-island effect that keeps urban areas hotter than their surroundings. However, these green roofs have added benefits for bee populations.

Initial studies indicate that with the right plants, green roofs can support wild bee species. But this is particularly successful when there are more ground-level gardens and green areas nearby.

Several other cities are also seeing a surge in green roofs, including Newark, New Jersey; Washington, D.C.; New York; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; as well as Toronto.

And across the Atlantic, in the Netherlands, all 316 bus stops in Utrecht are being converted to have green roofs. Beginning last year, sedum plants ― a variety of green and flowering succulent ― are being planted on top of the transit shelters. The goal is to support dwindling bee populations while also helping to improve air quality by capturing dust particles and contributing to rainwater storage.

Cracking down on bee-killing pesticides

For years, environmental campaigners have been calling for pesticides to be banned because of their harmful effects on bees. And recently, there has been some progress on this front.

In 2015, Portland, Oregon, joined seven other municipalities in officially banning a type of insecticide feared to be harming bee populations. And in 2018, Canada proposed phasing out three types of neonicotinoids ― a class of chemicals widely used in pesticides. After proposing additional restrictions in 2019, the policy remains under review by the federal government.

Also in 2018, the European Union made headlines as it banned neonics everywhere except private greenhouses in order to protect pollinators.

The move came after a major study by the European Union’s scientific risk assessors that concluded pesticide use was contributing to plummeting bee populations. A separate study in 2017 found that 75% of global honeybee populations were contaminated by neonics.

Just last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it was banning a dozen neonic pesticides found harmful to honeybees.

Intriguingly, as one study found in 2017, bees have been flourishing in abandoned lots in Detroit, offering opportunities for wildlife within cities. The researchers attribute this to the fact that vacant urban areas sometimes go undisturbed for long periods of time ― meaning they aren’t overly manicured or treated with pesticides. 

“No one’s out there spraying a bunch of Roundup or neonicotinoids,” Damon Hall, a biologist at Saint Louis University not affiliated with the study, told Yale 360, echoing the scientists’ findings.

Funding farmers to save bees

Without pollinators, growing crops would become a lot more challenging. Almonds, for instance, are basically exclusively pollinated by honeybees. So, supporting farmers is a key part of the bee-protection puzzle.

In Germany, a law was adopted in Bavaria last year to do just that after a petition was signed by 1.75 million people demanding action to save bees. Under the new policy, farmers will get financial support to make 30% of agricultural land meet organic farming standards by 2030. Additionally, 10% of green spaces will be turned into meadows, and rivers and streams should be protected from pesticides.

Six years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture earmarked $8 million in funding for farmers and ranchers in five Midwestern states to help establish new habitat for honeybees. Under this program, agricultural land considered environmentally sensitive is voluntarily taken out of agricultural production. Instead, farmers work to conserve the soil, water, and wildlife for a 10-year to 15-year period, during which they receive payment from the government. The 2018 Farm Bill maintains this goal, along with supporting research on pollinator communities.

The rise of citizen science apps

Getting regular people involved in helping scientists monitor bee species is growing in popularity. There are a plethora of citizen science apps that allow people to snap photos, identify bees and record sightings in their neighborhoods.

In the U.S., the nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation lists 11 different bee mapping tools on its website.

Back in 2014, the U.K.’s first nationwide bee count began. People could record their sightings on the Great British Bee app developed by charity Buglife, nonprofit Friends of the Earth and home improvement retailer B&Q. In 2018, the app recorded more than 480,000 bees and 50 different species.

“The great thing is that you do not have to be an expert, everyone can get involved and be part of the generation that helps save our bees,” Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth, told the BBC when the count launched. 

A big advantage for citizen science is the ability to collect data across huge geographical ranges as well as in private spaces like gardens.

While these initiatives to engage the public are incredibly popular, little research has been done to evaluate their effectiveness in collecting accurate, high-quality data. A recent study suggested only about 50% of people using these apps were able to accurately identify species. 

But, according to the study, the ability of these apps to engage the public boosts appreciation for the pollinators and encourages awareness of the issues facing bees.

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar got into a Twitter spat with historian Ramachandra Guha on Thursday, on whether or not Sardar Vallabhai Patel had ever been excluded from Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet.

Jaishankar attended the launch of Narayani Basu’s biography VP Menon : The Unsung Architect of Modern India on Wednesday and said he learnt from the book that “Nehru did not want Patel in the Cabinet in 1947 and omitted him from the initial Cabinet list.”

Guha on Thursday corrected Jaishankar’s statement, calling it a “myth” and accused him promoting “fake news”.

Guha quoted Srinath Raghavan’s recent article in The Printtitled ‘Nehru never excluded Patel from cabinet list. Louis Mountbatten and V.P. Menon got it wrong’.

In his article, Raghavan, a Professor of International Relations and History at Ashoka University and a senior fellow at Carnegie India, delineates the history of this claim.

He then goes on to quote the letters Nehru and Patel wrote to each regarding the latter’s inclusion in the cabinet.

He also talks about why Viceroy Louis Mountbatten and V.P. Menon’s claims to the opposite effect were not reliable.

Jaishankar, however, did not back down and passive aggressively asked Guha to read a book.

Guha then clapped back with a photo of the letter Nehru wrote to Patel inviting him to join the cabinet.

Jaishankar has yet to respond to this.

Eva Mendes just subtly dropped some information about partner Ryan Gosling, and it’s making us ― hungry.

The actor on Tuesday posted a video of herself eating a macaroon with the caption, “On my way home after a long day. Really wanted to thank the best catering service ever @electricavenuechef. Gracias to Karen and Austin who make delish clean food with so much love. And it’s not just the food, it’s their beautiful smiles, it’s the music they play while they cook, its all of it. Aaaaand they sent me home with these heart shaped macaroons so you know I’m a lifer now!!”

In comments on the Instagram post, a fan asked: “Love macaroons what else did they make there and do you and Ryan cook at all?”

Mendes quickly divulged some behind-the-scenes details of her relationship with Gosling, celebrating him as both an “amazing chef AND baker.”

“For reals. Incredible. No joke. I’m not sure that what I do is cooking. It’s more like steaming veggies and juicing and making rice. He really cooks. I survive,” she quipped in response to the fan.

Gosling and Mendes have two daughters together, Esmerelda and Amada, no doubt making family dinners very lively.

We also would love to know Gosling’s specialities: Is he more of a cookie or cake person? Has he dabbled with breads?

The people need to know, Ryan. Here’s hoping he addresses this pressing topic ASAP.