Around 300 green crematoriums have come up in Punjab and Haryana through the efforts of Sirsa activist Ramji Jaimal. ‘We think at scale and we’re a scientific people.’
For activist Nagendra Jena, ‘Brahmin Shamsan’ on the signboard was odious in the 21st century. The burial ground is now 'Swarg Dwar' and open to all, but Dalits in the village are still not rushing to cremate their dead.
In 'Fire on the Ganges: Life among the Dead in Banaras', author Radhika Iyengar writes how no ‘upper-caste’ Hindu will be willing to perform the task of burning corpses, even if the said work has been ‘glorified’ for centuries as the only way of ‘providing moksha’.
In ‘To Hell and Back’, Barkha Dutt writes about how Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian pallbearers were the handymen tasked to repair the broken bits of our humanity.
Former BJP MLA set up Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal in 1996. It organises cremations for the poor & abandoned, and helped cremate 4,000 during second Covid wave.
In each of the 4 cases, which took place between September 2020 and January 2021, families allege they were under pressure from police to quickly cremate the bodies.
While some families do not have money to perform last rituals, others haven't been able to collect ashes as they are afraid to travel during the pandemic.
In tactical terms, the shirtless protest was worse than a self-goal. Suddenly, the fiascos of the AI Summit were forgotten, and the Youth Congress’s disruption became the issue.
IAF is fine with accepting the aircraft with 'must-haves', even if some other steps remain pending, which may take at least another year, it is learnt.
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