Shabana Azmi diagnosed with swine flu after Jantar Mantar protest, misses Mumbai demonstration; says she stands in solidarity with students

Veteran actor Shabana Azmi has revealed that she has been diagnosed with H1N1 (swine flu), forcing her to miss the student protest held at Mumbai's Shivaji Park on Friday. The actor shared the health update on social media, saying she has been advised to remain in isolation for the next five days. Azmi has been one of the most prominent public figures supporting the student-led protests over the alleged NEET paper leak. Over the past three days, she actively participated in demonstrations at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, where she marched alongside students, joined the "Chalo Sansad" rally and extended support to those on hunger strike. Shabana Azmi shares health update Informing her followers about her absence from the Mumbai protest, Azmi wrote that she had planned to join demonstrators but was unable to do so after being diagnosed with H1N1. She wrote, “"My dear Mumbaikars, I was meant to join your protest yesterday, but I've come down with H1N1 and need to rema...

‘It has become a sort of silver bullet’: why are rap lyrics being put on trial?

In compelling documentary As We Speak, a controversial legal practice that uses rap lyrics to secure convictions is explored

In September 2001, McKinley Phipps Jr, also known as the rapper Mac, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for manslaughter. It had been a year and a half since gunfire erupted outside a club where he was slated to perform in Slidell, Louisiana, resulting in the death of 19-year-old Barron Victor Jr. Phipps, then 22, maintained his innocence, and the case against him was weak – there was no gun linking him to the crime, several witnesses recanted their testimony and another person confessed to pulling the trigger. And yet, prosecutors had their trump card: Mac, a former New Orleans rap prodigy who began releasing music at the age of 13, had rapped about murder.

“Murder, murder, kill, kill”, Phipps recites in As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial, a new documentary on the criminalization of rap lyrics. Prosecutors spliced that line with one from a different song – “Pull the trigger, put a bullet in your head” – to create the portrait of a killer; Mac’s art was the evidence that DNA, solid confessions, or a missing weapon couldn’t provide. An all-white jury bought it. Phipps served over 21 years in prison before being granted clemency in 2021.

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