Days after India blocked a BBC documentary that examines Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during 2002 anti-Muslim riots and banned people from sharing it online, authorities on Wednesday were scrambling to halt screenings of the film in colleges and universities and restricting its clips on social media, a move that has been decried by critics as an assault on press freedom. Jawaharlal Nehru University in the capital, New Delhi, cut off power and the internet on campus on Tuesday before the documentary was scheduled to be screened by a students’ union, saying it would disturb the peace on campus. The students nonetheless watched the documentary on their laptops and mobile phones after sharing it on messaging services like Telegram and WhatsApp. The documentary has caused a storm at other Indian universities too. Authorities at the University of Hyderabad, in India’s south, have begun a probe after a student group showed the banned documentary earlier this week. In the southern state of Kerala, workers from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party held demonstrations on Tuesday after some student groups affiliated with rival political parties defied the ban and screened the film. The two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” has not been broadcast in India by the BBC, but India’s federal government blocked it over the weekend and banned people from sharing clips on social media, citing emergency powers under its information technology laws. Twitter and YouTube complied with the request and removed many links to the documentary. The first part of the documentary, released last week by the BBC for its U.K. audiences, revives the most controversial episode of Modi’s political career when he was the chief minister of western Gujarat state in 2002. It focuses on bloody anti-Muslim riots in which more than 1,000 people were killed. The riots have long hounded Modi because of allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed. Modi has denied the accusations, and the Supreme Court has said it found no evidence to prosecute him. Last year, the country's top court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi's exoneration. The first part of the BBC documentary relies on interviews with victims of the riots, journalists and rights activists, who say Modi looked the other way during the riots. It cites, for the first time, a secret British diplomatic investigation that concluded Modi was “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity.” The documentary includes the testimony of then-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who says the British investigation found that the violence by Hindu nationalists aimed to “purge Muslims from Hindu areas” and that it had all the “hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing.”   Suspicions that Modi quietly supported the riots led the U.S., U.K. and E.U. to deny him a visa, a move that has since been reversed. India’s Foreign Ministry last week called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacks objectivity and slammed it for “bias” and “a continuing colonial mindset.” Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser in the government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, denounced it as “anti-India garbage.” The BBC in a statement said the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions. “We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” the statement said. The second part of the documentary, released Tuesday in the U.K., “examines the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to the film’s description on the BBC website. In recent years, India’s Muslim minority has been at the receiving end of violence from Hindu nationalists, emboldened by a prime minister who has mostly stayed mum on such attacks since he was first elected in 2014. The ban has set off a wave of criticism from opposition parties and rights groups that slammed it as an attack against press freedom. It also drew more attention to the documentary, sparking scores of social media users to share clips on WhatsApp, Telegram and Twitter. “You can ban, you can suppress the press, you can control the institutions … but the truth is the truth. It has a nasty habit of coming out,” Rahul Gandhi, a leader in the opposition Congress party, told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. Mahua Moitra, a lawmaker from the Trinamool Congress political party, on Tuesday tweeted a new link after a previous one was taken down. “Good, bad, or ugly — we decide. Govt doesn’t tell us what to watch,” Moitra said in her tweet, which was still up Wednesday morning. Human Rights Watch said the ban reflected a broader crackdown on minorities under the Modi government, which the rights group said has frequently invoked draconian laws to muzzle criticism. Critics say press freedom in India has declined in recent years and the country fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in last year’s Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. It accuses Modi’s government of silencing criticism on social media, particularly on Twitter, a charge senior leaders of the governing party have denied. Modi’s government has regularly pressured Twitter to restrict or ban content it deems critical of the prime minister or his party. Last year, it threatened to arrest Twitter staff in the country over their refusal to ban accounts run by critics after implementing sweeping new regulations for technology and social media companies. The ban on the BBC documentary comes after a proposal from the government to give its Press Information Bureau and other “fact-checking” agencies powers to take down news deemed “fake or false” from digital platforms. The Editors Guild of India urged the government to withdraw the proposal, saying such a change would be akin to censorship.

India on Friday called for "cessation of violence" in Ukraine, as visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his office in Delhi this evening. "PM Modi called for an end to violence as Lavrov briefed him on the situation in Ukraine, including pace negotiations," the Indian Prime Minister's Office said in a statement, after the hour-long meeting. "Prime Minister reiterated his call for an early cessation of violence, and conveyed India's readiness to contribute in any way to the peace efforts," it added. India's statement comes in the face of massive global pressure on New Delhi to take a stand against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Earlier in the day, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Lavrov in Delhi. "Concluded talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Discussed bilateral cooperation and developments in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Indo-Pacific, ASEAN and the Indian sub-continent," he tweeted. Read: Russia praises India’s neutral stand on Ukraine fighting Later addressing the media, Lavrov said that they would welcome Modi's mediation in diffusing the Ukraine crisis. "India is an important and serious country. If India plays that role that provides resolution, India as our common partner... we are for security guarantee of Ukraine... West has ignored its responsibility... India can support such process," he said. Lavrov is in India at a time when US Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are also visiting the country. In February, Modi urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to immediately halt military action against Ukraine, underscoring the need for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. This was after Ukraine's envoy in Delhi had sought Modi's intervention in ending the Russian offensive.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday met external affairs minister S Jaishankar and other key officials to take stock of the ongoing rescue operations to bring back all Indian nationals from the war-torn Ukraine. All efforts will be made to evacuate Indian nationals out of Ukraine, the PM said. This is the second meeting chaired by Modi on the situation prevailing out of the Russian expansion in Ukraine. He also spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy separately. India has reiterated its stand of defusing the crisis through dialogue, reports The Hisdustan Times.  India’s primary concern is the rescue of thousands of Indians, mostly students, who are stuck in the Eastern European country. With Ukraine closing its air space, India has flown special Air India flights to Budapest (Hungary) and Bucharest (Romania) as part of ‘Operation Ganga’ to bring back its stranded citizens. READ: Mamata, Modi on the same page on Ukraine crisis A top official familiar with the development said foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla gave a presentation to the prime minister on the current situation in Ukraine with a special focus on the evacuation operations. According to the government, 249 and 240 Indian nationals were brought back in two flights on Sunday while 219 people were flown in a day ago. Earlier in the day, Shringla said around 2,000 Indian nationals have been evacuated from Ukraine so far. However, there are issues exiting via Poland border and alternative arrangements are being made, he said. After the war broke out in Ukraine, many Indian citizens were provided temporary shelters by the embassy while the government has started several helplines for those stuck in the war-torn nation and their relatives. READ: Modi urges Putin to halt military offensive in Ukraine Modi presided over the meeting soon after his return from Uttar Pradesh, where he addressed rallies for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidates for the ongoing assembly elections. Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma in a statement said, “The ongoing hostilities and military conflict between Russia and Ukraine is a matter of grave concern for the world. Indian National Congress while expressing its anguish is of the considered view that the international community must work together for cessation of armed conflict and early restoration of peace to save human lives and further aggravation of the crisis.”“The path of diplomatic negotiations must be embraced in all sincerity for a negotiated resolution of all issues between Russia and Ukraine respecting the MINSK and Russia — NATO agreements and earlier understandings,” he added.

The country fought the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic “courageously” and it would be “victorious” in its ongoing fight against the virus during the second wave, PM Narendra Modi said on Sunday. “In the form of the corona pandemic, we are being continuously put to test. This is a crisis that has plagued the whole world, so many people have lost their loved ones. Even big countries were not spared from its devastation,” Modi said in his monthly radio programme ‘Mann ki Baat’ reports The Times of India. He emphasized that no matter how big the challenge, the country’s ‘vijay sankalp’ (resolve to be victorious) had always been equal to the challenge. “Our collective strength and our spirit of service has always rescued the country from the midst of every storm,” he said. Also read: India's COVID-19 tally crosses 28 million as daily cases fall During the programmed, he spoke to three people involved with transporting oxygen cylinders and containers through rail, road and airways, and listened to their experience and challenges during the recent crisis when many parts of the country faced severe shortage of medical-grade oxygen. He also pointed to the government completing seven years in office and highlighted signature initiatives, including power connections to all households and the Jal Jeevan mission to provide tap water to all rural homes. “In the midst of this pandemic, India is moving forward with the resolve of service and cooperation,” he added. Modi pointed to the scheme to provide tap water connection to every rural household in the country by 2024 under Jal Jeevan Mission and said it had made strong progress without any break during the pandemic. “In the seven decades after independence, only 3.5 crore rural homes of our country had water connections. However, in the last 21 months, 4.5 crore houses have been given clean water connections. Of these, 15 months were of the corona period,” he added. Also read: Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps The PM also noted the contribution of farmers and the agriculture sector during the pandemic. “The agricultural sector protected itself from this attack to a great extent. Not only did it keep itself safe, but the sector also progressed, moving forward. Farmers produced record output and this time, the country went on to procure record amounts of crops. This time, in many places, farmers have got more than the minimum support price for mustard,” he said. Noting that India was able to provide support to every citizen due to record food grain production, he said, “Today, 800 million underprivileged citizens are being provided free ration in this hour of crisis. So, no such day ever occurs in a needy home when the stove is not lit.”

Barisal-born Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty Sunday joined India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in the poll-bound eastern state of West Bengal's capital Kolkata.