News18.com Daybreak | Second Lenin Statue Toppled; Fear Of 'Third Front' Politics & Stories You May Have Missed

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Another statue of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, was razed to the ground by a mob in Tripura on Tuesday. This is the second such incident in two days after the BJP stormed to power in the state that was a Left bastion. On Monday, a group of alleged BJP supporters had brought down a sculpture of the Communist revolutionary leader in the heart of Belonia town in the southern part of the state while chanting Bharat Mata ki Jai. Tuesday's incident took place in Sabroom town, also in south Tripura.

Even as several opposition leaders tore into BJP over their alleged involvement in taking down the statue of Lenin in Tripura, several BJP ministers defended the act saying it was a mark of protest against communism. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said the late Russian leader was "a terrorist" and questioned if the statue of such a person could be installed in India.

A statue of anti-untouchability activist and Dravidian movement leader EV Ramasamy, commonly known as Periyar, was vandalised by two men in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district. Police identified the arrested as Muthuraman and Francis. While Muthuraman is suspected to be a BJP worker, Francis is believed to be a CPI activist, police said. The vandalism attempt came hours after senior BJP leader H Raja said Periyar was "casteist" and called for the reformist's statue to be "destroyed" in a Facebook post.

A Delhi court extended the custody of Karti Chidambaram by three more days after a fresh round of heated courtroom exchanges between the CBI and Karti's counsels. The matter has now been posted for March 9. Karti, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, has been in CBI custody since February 28.

When Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget for the year 2018-2019, he hoped – would help the ‘Kisan bhai’. Depicted as a male-dominated profession, women have been most often than not excluded from the farming narrative. This narrative, however, undermines a surprising, yet important fact: Out of every 10 farmers, six happen to be women. This means a staggering 60% of the total farmer population of India are women. What’s troubling the main (and unnoticed) driving force in India’s farmlands? Read the first story of our series #BeingAWoman.

The deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to avail various services and welfare schemes run by the government may be further extended beyond March 31, the Centre indicated in the Supreme Court.

Hadiya, the woman at the centre of the ‘Kerala Love Jihad’ row, is being “psychologically and physically abducted”, her father Ashokan told the Supreme Court, in response to an affidavit filed by Hadiya. The SC will hear the case on Thursday.

The Bahujan Samaj Party has announced that a former MLA of the party, Bhimrao Ambedkar, as their nominee for the Rajya Sabha. Hailing from Etawah, Ambedkar, who shares his name with the Dalit idol, represented Lakhna Assembly constituency.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has invited leaders of all opposition parties for dinner in the capital on March 13 in a fresh bid to forge a united front against the BJP.

A village Panchayat in Bihar’s Supaul district forced a newlywed couple to lick their own saliva off the ground after it ruled their love marriage as ‘illegal’. Groom Sanjeet Kumar and bride Juli Kumari belong to Barhara village under Marauna police station of the district. Sanjeet and Juli told News18 that they were in love for a couple years but feared stiff resistance from the conservative society.

Exactly nine years after the island nation ended the 30-year-long bloody civil war, Sri Lanka is once again facing communal tensions. This time it is Buddhists versus Muslims. President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe-led government has clamped a nationwide 10-day emergency to douse the raging communal fire.

Nargis Rabadi, popularly known as Shammi aunty and a familiar face from both large and small screens passed away at 89. During the course of her career she would appear in over 200 Hindi films, while television programs, such as Dekh Bhai Dekh, Zabaan Sambhal Ke, Shriman Shrimati and Filmi Chakkar, cemented her place as one Indian television's most popular grannies.

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The BJP’s dramatic inroads in the North-East taking its tally to 21 states has stirred national politics with the Lok Sabha polls just a year away. Naturally, the BJP win under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the organisational preparedness of Amit Shah, appears to be working as a catalyst for the disparate opposition to come together, directly and indirectly. It is resulting in more than baby steps by the opposition in the battle against the BJP, which has become dominant and now projecting itself as invincible. Venkatesh Kesari writes why the Congress fears BJP promoting 'Third Fronts' to divide opposition votes ahead of 2019.

Barely three days after the shocker in Bijepur by-poll, the saffron surge in the North East has energised the BJP in Odisha. Suddenly, there is a spring in the step of party leaders, who looked despondent after the crushing defeat in the by-election. Encouraged by the stunning victory in Tripura, where it hardly had a presence even a couple of years ago, senior party leader and Union Minister Jual Oram bragged that after Manik Sarkar, it is time for Naveen Patnaik to be shown the door in the Assembly elections that will take place along with Lok Sabha elections.