Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers from Animal.

Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal starring Ranbir Kapoor, Rashmika Mandanna, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and others, arrived in cinemas today. The action thriller unveils a father-son story. Towards the end of the revenge-fueled action, the film drops two post-credits scenes. And it looks like a sequel is in the works.

What happens in the post-credits scenes of Animal?

Animal ends with Ranbir Kapoor’s Ranvijay or Viijay Singh finding out that Bobby Deol’s Abrar Haque was the one trying to get his father – Anil Kapoor’s Balbir Singh, murdered. Vijay defeats Abrar but there is a larger scheme in motion to take the Singh family down. One of Abrar’s brothers, Aziz, has been getting surgery to look exactly like Vijay.

In the first post-credits scene, Aziz enters with two butcher knives. He looks at Triptii Dimri’s Zoya to confirm if he looks like Vijay before he proceeds to violently kill one out of two of Vijay’s men who are tied up in a bathroom. In reaction, Zoya rushes out to vomit. A blood-drenched Aziz tells Zoya that her vomiting might mean she is pregnant. He tells her that if the child doesn’t look like him (and Vijay) that means he is the father. After this exchange, Aziz returns to kill the second man. We then see text that reads, “Animal Park” appear on the screen along with a “visit soon” hinting at a sequel. It looks like Sandeep Reddy Vanga has future plans for the characters in Animal.

The next scene is a black-and-white shot that sees an aged Vijay talking to a crowd during a celebration of the Singh family business’ milestone. Gesturing at the camera he points towards his crotch, referencing a story he narrated at the start of the film. Fans who have watched the film will know what it means.

So far, news of an Animal sequel film has not been announced. But the unveiling of Animal Park hints at a return where Vijay and Aziz might go up against each other, continuing the violent family feud.

Animal is currently in theatres.

The Election Commission of India has revised the date for counting of votes in Mizoram Assembly elections. The results were earlier scheduled to be announced on December 3.

The date for results has been pushed by a day to December 4. The decision to revise the counting date comes amid protests in the state organised by Mizoram NGO Coordination Committee (NGOCC).

The group earlier expressed displeasure over December 3 as the counting date falls on Sunday, a sacred day for Christians, who form a majority in the state.
 

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Friday raised concerns over overwhelming barrage of speech that distorts the truth with the advent of troll armies and organised disinformation campaigns across social media platforms.

“Traditionally, freedom of speech and expression was deemed to be an essential part of civil rights activism because of the fear that the government would prevent certain kinds of speech from entering the marketplace,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said at the 14th Justice VM Tarkunde memorial lecture.

“With the advent of troll armies and organised disinformation campaigns across different social media platforms, the fear is that there is an overwhelming barrage of speech that distorts the truth,” the Chief Justice said.

“This epistemological battle of sorts was explained eloquently in the New York Times in 2020, where it said ‘the spewing of falsehoods isn’t meant to win any battle of ideas. Its goal is to prevent the actual battle from being fought’. Therefore, we cannot fall back on traditional notions of free speech and must find new theoretical frameworks to locate free speech on the internet,” he said.

Chief Justice Chandrachud said the intricate interplay between surveillance by the state and an individual’s right to privacy has been a subject of compelling debate within Indian jurisprudence. The first case that dealt with privacy was R Rajagopal vs State of Tamil Nadu, he said, adding the court determined that a magazine has the right to publish an autobiography penned by a prisoner, even in the absence of the prisoner’s consent or authorisation.

“Despite efforts by prison officials to hinder the publication by compelling the prisoner to request its non-publication, the court underscored the need to maintain a delicate equilibrium between press freedom and the right to privacy,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said.

On Justice Tarkunde, the Chief Justice said the core emphasis of the civil liberties movement that Justice Tarkunde championed is mirrored by digital rights activism today.

Chief Justice Chandrachud, looking back on Justice Tarkunde’s dedication to civil liberties, said he inspired him as a young lawyer.

“…It continues to inspire me as I serve as a judge of a constitutional court. That Justice Tarkunde is regarded as the ‘Father of the Civil Rights Movement’ is no surprise. In every role he donned – as a senior advocate, High Court judge, and activist – he was steadfast in his commitment to democracy, radical humanism, and civil liberty,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said.

“… No book, academic article or chronicle of the internal emergency imposed in the 1970s is complete without a reference to Justice Tarkunde’s spirited defence of personal liberty and democracy, both inside and outside the courtroom,” the Chief Justice said.