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Tamil Nadu minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Monday remained defiant over his controversial remark calling for the eradication of ‘Sanatana Dharma’, which has triggered a massive political controversy across the country.

“Day before yesterday I spoke at a function about it (Sanatana Dharma). Whatever I said, I'll repeat the same thing again and again...I included all the religions and not just Hindus...I spoke condemning the caste differences that's all...”, the DMK leader was quoted by ANI as saying in Thoothukudi.

Erdogan arrived Monday in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Vladimir Putin focused on reviving Ukraine's grain export deal.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived Monday in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Vladimir Putin focused on reviving Ukraine's grain export deal, Turkish state media reported.

Erdogan was accompanied by a large delegation that included Turkey's defence, foreign, energy and finance ministers, the Anadolu state news agency said.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday hit out at the BJP-led union government for calling a special session of Parliament during Ganesh Utsav, saying people of Maharashtra observe fast and don't leave home during the festival. While the agenda of the five-day Parliament session has been kept under wraps, Raut claimed that the prime minister wants to have discussions on “China invading Ladakh” and the Manipur issue.

“In Maharashtra, we have Ganesh Utsav so we can't go. Modi ji would never call a special session of Parliament during Navratri,” the Shiv Sena leader told reporters.

With the G20 Leaders’ Summit around the corner, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dismissed objections raised by China and Pakistan over some of the events being organised in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh and asserted that it is the host nation’s ‘internal matter’ as it can hold diplomatic meetings in every part of its territory.

“Such a question would be valid if we had refrained from conducting meetings in those venues. Ours is such a vast, beautiful, and diverse nation. When G20 meetings are happening, isn’t it natural that meetings will be held in every part of our country,” Modi said in an inclusive interview with news agency PTI.

The Sundarbans of West Bengal, known for its mangrove forests, marshes, venomous snakes and Royal Bengal tigers, has another face too. And it is a bloody one. 

In 1979, a massacre took place on Marichjhapi, one of the over 100 islands of the Sunderbans. Thousands of Hindus who had migrated from Bangladesh were killed. Thousands disappeared. And so did the story that is soaked in blood and hatred.

West Bengal had a Left Front government then under Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. 

But this chapter of death and destruction is now forgotten, except for a commemorative marble stone on the neighbouring island of Kumirmari, and in the scarred memories of the survivors.