The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. A leaked Home Ministry report seems to suggest that sedition charges on Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union President Kanhaiya Kumar may have been the result of "over enthusiasm" from the Delhi Police.
2. The Supreme Court has asked the Reserve Bank of India to furnish it with the names of defaulters after it emerged massive amounts of debt have been written off by banks.
3. Even as the tax case against Vodafone is being arbitrated, the Income Tax department served the company a Rs 14,000 crore tax bill with a threat of seizing assets if it is not paid.
4. The Supreme Court will on Wednesday hear a petition about the breakdown in law and order, including attacks on journalists, in the court hearing the Jawaharlal Nehru University sedition case.

The Big Story:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday finally broke his silence on the Jawaharlal Nehru University matter, where the Delhi Police and the Bharatiya Janata Party has managed to turn a case of students allegedly shouting anti-national slogans into a national issue. Modi convened an all-party meeting ahead of Parliament's Budget Session, at which he sought to listen to the concerns of other parties.

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Reports from the meeting suggest he certainly had to listen to plenty of concerns: The Left and the Congress brought up the JNU matter as well as Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide and even the BJP's own ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal, pointed out that minorities are feeling threatened. Although this angle only shows up in the Times of India, the paper reports that Modi also told the parties that they shouldn't try to foist views on each other.

If true, that's a shocking statement from a prime minister who had for the first time in his tenure convened the all-party meeting himself. This comes at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party, and its affiliated organisations are popping up across the capital, and the country, and insisting that anyone who disagrees with their approach is anti-national.

Indeed, there's no better proof of views being "foisted" than the actions of BJP Member of Legislative Authority OP Sharma outside Patiala House Court Complex this week, where he was caught on video assaulting a Communist Party of India leader. Despite the visuals clearly showing an assault, Sharma is yet to be arrested and he continues to be defiant, saying he would have used a gun if he had had one. While this man is still at large, how exactly can Modi give any other party a lecture on not "foisting views"?

The Big Scroll:
Anita Katyal reports on the inner workings of the all-party meeting. Shoaib Daniyal explains how "anti-national" hysteria is exploding with JNU, SAR Geelani, Rohith Vemula and now Jadavpur students. And Girish Shahane tells us why the BJP's nationalism is like an autoimmune disease.

Policying & Politicking
1. The Bharatiya Janata Party won a bypoll in Muzaffarnagar and, along with allies, grabbed seven of the 12 Lok Sabha seats that went to the polls last week.
2. The Central Bureau of Investigation has charged former media magnate Peter Mukerjea with the murder of his stepdaughter Sheena Bora in a chargesheet filed on Tuesday.
3. A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker was hacked to death in Kerala, with the Bharatiya Janata Party blaming the Left for the murder.
4. The Supreme Court has declined to intervene in the political impasse in Arunachal Pradesh.
5. The Chhattisgarh government has canceled tribal rights over forests to facilitate coal mining.

Punditry
1. Arnab Goswami is a traitor to journalism, writes Parnal Chirmuley in the News Minute.
2. Fali Nariman writes in the Indian Express saying being anti-Indian is not criminal and definitely not sedition.
3. Nationalism for Rohith Vemula and Kanhaiya Kumar was about the welfare of the Indian people over that of the Indian state, writes G Sampath in the Hindu.