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Thursday, December 18, 2025
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India to setup second Rafale fighter squadron at Hasimara Air Force base in WB

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The Commune
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The Indian Air Force (IAF) will raise its second squadron of Rafale fighter jets at the strategically important Hasimara Air Force base in West Bengal by next month.

Hasimara is an important airbase for IAF operations due to its geographic proximity to Bhutan and the Chumbi Valley, where the Doklam tri-junction lies between India, Bhutan and China. This is where a standoff took place between Indian and Chinese troops in 2016.

“Second Rafale Squadron is being raised at the next Main Operating Base (MOB) Hasimara in mid-April this year,” said an Indian Air Force official.

The first squadron is already operational in Ambala after the first batch of five Rafale aircraft landed on 29 July 2020. These aircraft were officially inducted on 10 September at Ambala Air Base into the 17 ‘Golden Arrows’ Squadron.

The Ambala airbase is also strategically very important as it is very close to the border with Pakistan and due to the fact that it can also operate near the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The Indian Air Force has so far received 11 jets out of the 36 that were ordered from France. Six more jets are expected to be delivered in a month.

The remaining fighters will be delivered by April 2022 as IAF pilots are being trained in France.

The two squadrons of Rafale jets will add more teeth to the IAF’s depleting fleet strength. The new 4.5 generation fighters will operate in Ambala and Hasimara against Pakistan on the western front and China on the eastern sector, respectively.

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People protest against move by Highways Department to demolish Hindu temple

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The Commune
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Featured Image: Representational Photograph

A Murugan Temple that was built over 40 years ago on the Pudukottai Road in Karambakudy is one of the most famous temples in the area. Apart from the presiding deity Lord Murugan, Lord Dakshinamoorthy, Lord Shiva and Lord Ganesha are also housed in the temple. Hundreds of devotees visit this temple daily and it is customary for five to ten weddings to take place at these temples on auspicious days.

A petition had been filed in the Madurai High Court seeking the removal of the temple on the grounds that the temple is allegedly present on land owned by the Highways Department. The High Court, which heard the petition, ruled in September last year to demolish the temple. Following this, the Highways Department had sent notices to the management of the temple twice in the last six months.

The Highways Department had urged the temple administration to relocate the temple. The public has demanded that the temple not be demolished until the elections. However, the Highways Department said that if the temple is not demolished within 15 days, the department would take steps to remove the temple.

Devotees in the area are in opposition to the demolition of the Karambakudy Murugan Temple, which is a temple frequented by the poor in the area. They are concerned over the Highways Department’s demand that the temple be demolished.

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NCPCR askes Netflix to stop streaming ‘Bombay Begums’ over inappropriate portrayal of children

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The Commune
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Netflix Bombay Begums

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the apex body for child rights in the country, has asked Netflix to stop streaming the web series ‘Bombay Begums’, citing inappropriate portrayal of children in the series.

NCPCR has made it very clear that the OTT platform must furnish a detailed action report within 24 hours and that failing to deliver would lead to the initiation of appropriate legal action. The apex child protection body has raised strong objecting with regards to the alleged inappropriate portrayal of children in the series.

The commission took action based on a complaint that alleged that the series normalises minors indulging in casual sex and drug abuse.

Last year, Netflix had faced similar criticism from its subscribers for the sexualisation of young girls in the film ‘Cuties’. The film portrayed 11-year old girls twerking, while inappropriately dressed.

The commission, in its notice, said that the content of the web series is not suitable for young minds. The show will not only pollute the minds of young children, but may also result in the abuse and exploitation of children, the NCPCR said.

“Netflix should take extra precaution while streaming any content in respect of the children or for the children and shall also refrain themselves from getting into such things,” the commission said in its notice.

“Therefore, you are directed to look into this matter and immediately stop streaming of this series and furnish a detailed action report within 24 hours, failing which the Commission will be constrained to initiate appropriate action pursuant to the provisions of Section 14 of the CPCR (Commission for Protection of Child Rights) Act, 2005,” the commission said.

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Exuberance and energy marks Isha’s Mahasivaratri celebrations

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The Commune
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A spectacular display of music and dance interspersed with meditative experiences in the presence of Adiyogi marked the Mahasivaratri celebrations of Isha. “Let this night not just be a night of wakefulness, let this night be a night of awakening for you,” Sadhguru said adding that there would be immense spiritual possibilities on the auspicious night.

A live audience, a fraction of what Isha hosts annually attended the all-night event in person. With strict distancing norms, hygiene protocols and medical screening procedures, this is said to be one of the most cautious and unusual Mahashivratris at Isha. But it did little to dampen the celebratory mood of the audience, volunteers and performers.

The event was preceded by the Linga Bhairavi Yatra to Nandi at the Isha Yoga Center. Fiery and passionate, the Yatra is a representation of the Devi’s qualities and culminates in the Maha Arati. The Yatra was followed by the Panchbhuta Kriya performed by Sadhguru.

Isha’s homegrown music and dance troupes – Sounds of Isha and students of Isha Samskriti enthralled the audience for the night. Parthiv Gohil & his troupe, regulars at Isha’s Mahashivratri celebrations, jammed with familiarity and ease with Sounds of Isha. Kutle Khan, Kabir Cafe, Mangli and Anthony Dass added versatility.

Keeping with tradition, Sadhguru felicitated farmers and made offerings to their bedecked bovine partners. There was also an intense Midnight Meditation with Sadhguru late in the night.

The event was live streamed and telecast across 100 channels. Apart from English and 11 Indian languages, it was also streamed in Nepali, Russian, French, Portuguese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese reaching a worldwide audience of millions of viewers.

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‘Accident, not an attack’: EC report on Mamata’s injuries

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The Commune
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mamata banerjee NRC SIR

Preliminary police findings which have been submitted to the Election Commission have found that the reported injuries sustained by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee were a result of an accident and not an attack, The Print has reported.

The report claims that cops have drawn this preliminary conclusion based on video footage and eyewitness accounts of local cops and Trinamool Congress members.

The cops say that she sustained the injury when her car hit a small iron pole. Banerjee who was waiving to her supporters with the car door open sustained injuries after the door abruptly shut as a result of the impact.

Speaking to the media after the incident, Banerjee though alleged that she was attacked by four-five men who banged the car door to hurt her.

Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Derek o’Brien has also filed a complaint with the EC, alleging that the incident was a deep-rooted conspiracy to kill Banerjee.

Her nephew Abhishek Banerjee claimed that this incident would severely dent BJP’s electoral chances in West Bengal as he tweeted, “BJP, brace yourselves to see the power of people of Bengal on Sunday, 2 May”.

Mamata Banerjee has now been admitted to the SSKM Hospital where she will reportedly be kept under observation for 48 hours for the injuries sustained.

Both the BJP and the Congress have termed Banerjee and her party’s reactions as a drama.

Elon Musk is now world’s second richest man

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The Commune
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A single day surge in the prices of Tesla shares increased the value of its founder Elon Musk by a whopping $25 million. This is a new milestone for this tech billionaire who is also the founder of SpaceX. Thanks to this, the value of his overall wealth rose to $174 billion. This makes Musk the second richest man on Earth after Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos.

Musk had earlier been the richest man in the world, beating Bezos earlier this year. But, this rise in the price of shares also helped Bezos, making him gain $6 billion, shooting his net worth to $180 billion. This caused him to get back on the throne as the world’s richest man.

The 49-year-old business magnate, who is the favourite child of sensational headlines, was featured in the news recently after he revealed that his electrical car making company had bought $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, and would soon accept it as a sort of payment for cars. His comments sent bitcoin to all-time highs, past the $50,000 mark for the first time ever.

Many industry experts attribute this boost to Tesla’s share price to the fact that Joe Biden’s election pushed for clean energy technologies, thus making a boom in the rates of the retail investors.

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AIADMK fields 15 female candidates for Assembly Elections

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The Commune
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Since there are 2 MPs on the AIADMK candidate list, many of the current MLAs have not been given a chance to contest again. Fifteen women are have been selected as the AIADMK candidates in the upcoming Assembly elections. Two AIADMK MPs have been given the opportunity to contest in the Assembly elections. AIADMK MP KP Munuswamy has been declared as the candidate for Veppanahalli constituency and AIADMK MP Vaithilingam has been declared as the candidate for the Orathanadu constituency.

Some of the current AIADMK MLAs have not been given a chance to contest the elections. Narasimhan, who is the Thiruthani MLA, Manoranjitham who is the Uthangarai MLA and Rajendran who is the Bargur MLA were not given seats in the re-election. The names of Kallakurichi MLA Prabhu, Gangavalli MLA Maruthamuthu, Attur MLA Chinnathambi and Omalur MLA Vetrivel, who returned to the AIADMK after supporting DTV Dinakaran, are also not on the AIADMK candidate list.

The Mettur constituency was allotted to PMK and the MLA from that constituency will not contest the election. Sankagiri constituency MLA S. Raja and Sattur MLA Rajavarman were not given a chance to contest the elections again. Similarly, the Chandamangalam MLA Chandrasekaran, Kambam MLA Jakkaiyan and Srivilliputhur MLA Chandraprabha were not included in the AIADMK candidate list.

The names of Usilampatti MLA and Perundurai MLA Toppu Venkatachalam are also not on the list of candidates. Former minister Manikandan, the current MLA from the Ramanathapuram constituency, was not given a chance to contest the election as the constituency was allotted to the BJP. Since the Cholingar constituency was allotted to PMK, the name of MLA Sampath from that constituency is not on the list of candidates. Of the current AIADMK MLAs, 72 have been given the opportunity to contest again of which 15 are women.

Remains of female ruler found beneath Europe’s first Bronze Age palace

By
The Commune
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An archaeological excavation that took place in Spain revealed that the burial graves that were present for a few women there had been in the elite warrior style, suggesting that women may have been rulers in the Bronze Age. This leads us to believe that several women may have been the rulers of a highly stratified society which flourished on the Iberian peninsula until 1550BC.

Research has been going on here since 2013 conducted by a team of archaeologists and this is one of the significant findings on the site. This was published on Thursday in the journal Antiquity documenting one of the site’s most tantalizing finds: a man and a woman buried in a large ceramic jar, both of whom died close together in the mid-17th century BC. In the jar that they were buried in were 29 valuable objects, nearly all of them belonging to the female, believed to be between 25 and 30 years of age. “It’s like everything she touched had silver on it,” said Cristina Rihuete of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Among the exquisitely crafted items were bracelets, rings and a rare type of crown, known as a diadem. In total, 230 grams of silver were found at the burial site – an amount that at the time would have been worth the equivalent of 938 daily wages. Similar jewels were found in other neighbouring burial sites, leading researchers to believe that women may have played the role of a ruler or some such significant position.

Men were probably the warriors of society, as suggested by the swords found at several male burial sites, said Roberto Risch of Autonomous University of Barcelona.

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Man thrashed by public for trying to sexually harass 7 year old girl

By
The Commune
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A mysterious man who had entered the house of a driver named Karuppasamy was thrashed by members of the public for trying to harass a seven-year-old girl child.

Karuppasamy is a driver belonging to Amudha Nagar in Melapalayam in the Tirunelveli district. His house was broken into by a man at 3 AM in the morning on Thursday. The man had attempted to sexually harass the former’s seven-year-old daughter who had been asleep.  He had attempted to shut her by covering her mouth. The kid had then screamed for help, alerting her household members and neighbours who rushed immediately.

The man who had tried to flee was thrashed and later inquired to know about his whereabouts. It was revealed that the person was Justin hailing from Palayanchettikulam in the Tirunelveli district. He was later handed over to the Upper Palaiyam police station.

The child was then sent to Palayankottai Government Hospital for examination. This incident is being investigated by the Palayankottai Women’s Police Station. The public besieged the police station and staged a protest demanding the arrest of Justin Bosco under the law for sexually harassing the girl.

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Twitter arbitrarily suspends accounts for allegedly sharing Russian report that criticized it

By
The Commune
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Microblogging site Twitter has been arbitrarily suspending accounts like legal rights organisation Legal Rights Observatory (LRO), Dalit and OBC Rights initiative Dalit Positive Movement (DPM) and Sankardev Samiti.

Both LRO and DPM had allegedly shared a report by Russian news outlet Sputnik before getting banned. The report accused Twitter of having an anti-Hindu bias when it banned Rashmi Samant’s Twitter account. Samant’s account was later restored.

Ratan Sharda, an author and freelance columnist affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) tweeted about the ban and stated that both the organisations are filing complaints against Twitter with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The LRO is a volunteer organisation and is allegedly affiliated with the RSS. The LRO has, in the past, been fighting legal battles against Maoist insurgents, Christian missionaries and evangelical organisations active in northeastern India, organisations and individuals protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and several others. The LRO has highlighted illegal financial transactions and in other criminal activities indulged in by various individuals and organisations.

The National Convenor of DPM had written a strongly worded letter to Twitter accusing the microblogging site of arbitrarily suspending the account with malicious intent and said that such strong arm tactics to muzzle voices would attract SC/ST Prevention Act.

Both LRO and DPM’s accounts have now been restored. However, the account of Shankardev Sewa Samiti remains suspended. Sankardev Sewa Samiti is a government registered NGO which has been felicitated by Government of Assam for its exemplary service during COVID19. The Kalinga Rights Forum has now lodged a complaint with the Ministry of Electronics and IT for taking action against Twitter and has sought a ban on the tech giant.

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TheCommune
The Commune is a news and views portal focusing on social and political issues of the southern part of India with a focus on Tamil Nadu.
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