The selected cartoons appeared first in other publications, either in print or online, or on social media, and are credited appropriately.
In today’s featured cartoon, Alok Nirantar calls out Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not setting the right example by wearing a mask in his public appearances, as India’s daily Covid-19 cases double at a record pace.
R. Prasad invokes the spirit of late Urdu poet Syed Akbar Hussain, who wrote under the name ‘Akbar Allahabadi’. The poet’s name on the website of the Uttar Pradesh Higher Education Services Commission (UPHESC) was changed to ‘Akbar Prayagraj’, to much derision, and later changed back and attributed to ‘hacking’. Yogi Adityanath’s UP government had renamed Allahabad district to Prayagraj in 2018.
Sajith Kumar mocks the Modi government and its supporters for the issue surrounding Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. The Ministry of Home Affairs refused to renew the organisation’s foreign currency licence on Christmas Day, citing ‘adverse inputs’.
Manjul alludes to the contentious move to link Aadhaar to voter IDs, taking a potshot at PM Modi after GST authorities raided properties allegedly linked to Kanpur-based perfume trader Peeyush Jain, and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that he was “mistaken” for another perfume trader, SP MLC Pushparaj Jain.
Sandeep Adhwaryu depicts the current state of medical professionals in India amid the fresh rise in Covid cases, and after several resident doctors in Delhi were beaten up by the police over protests against the delay in postgraduate college allotments.