Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
Dr Pravin Togadia International Working President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Dr Pravin Togadia on Friday supported Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s controversial remarks on Pakistan’s ISI fomenting terror modules using Indian Muslims. Togadia congratulated Congress Vice-President and claimed that political parties should come out of denial mode and accept the bitter reality that a section of radical Muslim youths in contact with anti-national forces. I don’t think he spoke without concrete evidence, the VHP leader stated. Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists were nabbed by police from Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh and many sleeper cells were busted by security agencies all over the country, he pointed out. Togadia was talking with ‘The Hitavada’ exclusively during his two days Nagpur tour on Friday. Dr Togadia, who is known as mascot of Hindutva politics, further slammed political leaders for launching attack against Rahul instead of anti-...