FOUR ARRESTED FOR ‘OUTRAGING HINDU FEELINGS’

PANAJI: Four musicians performing live at the Serendipity Arts Festival currently underway in Goa were arrested for allegedly outraging the sentiments of Hindus and subsequently released on bail on Wednesday.

According to a complaint filed by Venkatesha Krishna Kunduru, an advocate from New Delhi, the artistes of the band Dastaan were “misusing the platform by performing songs which insult Hindu religion by chanting Om with abusive words and displaying walks of life with deliberate intention of outraging the religious feelings of Hindus.”

The police booked -- Sumant Balakrishnan, 34, Anirban Ghosh, 37, Shiva Pathak, 40, and Nirmala Ravindran, 45 -- who were performing as part of a musical show under section 295-A of the Indian Penal Code (insulting religious feelings) on Wednesday. They were, however, released on bail later on the condition that they would cooperate. “They have been let off on condition that they will cooperate with the probe,” police sub-inspector Subhash Gaonkar said.

NEW DELHI: The country’s apex food safety regulator, Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), along with the Ministry of Agriculture, will soon start regular monitoring for presence of heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury, in soil–food crops.

“The presence of heavy metals, especially lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury, is an area of concern that we aim to check through regular monitoring, like in case of pesticides,” FSSAI CEO Pawan Agarwal said. In a recently released result of the food and beverages samples analysed, the FSSAI found that 4% of the 100,000 samples analysed by states and union territories were unsafe. FSSAI has commissioned another pan-india survey to understand the extent of the problem. “A person would usually suffer from chronic condition rather than symptoms related to acute metal toxicity,” said Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, senior consultant, internal medicine, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital.