Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's disguised entry to the troubled spot in Greater Noida, where local farmers are on a warpath against 'inadequate compensation' for their acquired land, has put the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh on the back-foot.
They might have been fighting in the courts for ages to stake their respective claims over the much-debated Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya, but the rivals have heartily welcomed the view taken by the apex court on the issue.
In a frontal attack on the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, the Congress on Saturday pointedly blamed the Mayawati government for the prevailing backwardness and poverty in Bundelkhand area.
Even as a sudden and acute health problem prevented him from coming to Varanasi for a rally, social activist Anna Hazare chose to keep his date with the masses by addressing them via telephone on Friday.
Blaming non-Congress governments for the prevailing backwardness in Uttar Pradesh, Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday urged the youth of the state to get into politics to transform the country's most populous state.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Thursday extended its order for maintaining status quo at the disputed Ramjanmbhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya till August 31.The earlier status quo order was set to expire on May 31.While a special appeal against the high court verdict on the issue is pending before the Supreme Court, an application was moved by the Faizabad commissioner, seeking an extension of the status quo before the special high court bench.
Social activist and Gandhian Anna Hazare has assured local organisers that he would try to fly down to Lucknow for the proposed rally at Jhule Lal Park along the banks of the Gomati river on May 1. Hazare was admitted to a Pune hospital after he complained of excruciating pain in the knees on April 26.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday took the Uttar Pradesh government by surprise when he appeared at the National Rural Health Mission office in Lucknow, seeking information under the Right to Information act.
A probe by the Government Railway Police has found loopholes in the version given by athlete Arunima Sinha, who lost her leg after being thrown out of a train by robbers in Bareilly.Dismissing the investigations, the 23-year-old national level football and volleyball player said she was being "mentally harassed" by the police. "The investigations point out that Arunima was disturbed and she either attempted suicide or met with an accident," said an official.
Accusing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati of not taking any steps for the betterment of Dalits, Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday sought to know details of the measures taken by her for the welfare of downtrodden communities in the state.
Social activist Anna Hazare will kick off his nation-wide campaign against corruption from Uttar Pradesh next week. The renowned Gandhian, whose satyagrah compelled the Union government to concede his demand for a Jan Lokpal bill, will renew his movement in a big way from Varanasi, where he is scheduled to arrive along with his comrade-in-arms former top cop Kiran Bedi, right to information activist Arvind Kejriwal, and activist Swami Agnivesh on April 29.
Tension prevails in the communally sensitive Meerut, following a Sunday evening clash between rival groups belonging to two different communities that left 30 persons, including half a dozen cops injured.
Samajwadi Party President Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday pointedly accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the centre of attempting to grab Waqf properties across the country through an executive order.
"What was even more shocking that even someone like Anna Hazare, who was spearheading the movement against rising corruption in the country, did not care to ensure inclusion of a Dalit on the committee. After all he hails from Maharastra which gave birth to the greatest Dalit icon Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, who led several movements for the upliftment of the downtrodden dalits," Mayawati said.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Digvijay Singh backtracked on his own remarks about retired Supreme Court judge Justice Santosh Hegde, who is currently on the Lokpal Bill draft committee.
While his main attack was on eminent veteran lawyer Shanti Bhushan and his activist son Prashant Bhushan -- both of whom are members of the Lokpal Bill draft committee -- he also trained his guns on Karnataka Lokayukta and former Supreme Court Judge Santosh Hegde and Magsaysay awardee Arvind Kejriwal.
A local court in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich district on Wednesday awarded six months imprisonment, together with a fine of Rs 50,000 each, to three Chinese nationals, including a woman, who had strayed into the Indian territory from the Indo-Nepal border at Rupaidiha.
Alarmed by the latest census report confirming a steep fall in the male-female ratio in Uttar Pradesh a prominent maulana from a Lucknow's oldest Islamic seminary -- Darul Uloom Firangi Mahal -- on Wednesday issued a fatwa against abortion of the female child.
Not more than four officers have come forward to furnish details of their assets so far even though the prescribed deadline by the central government's Department of Personnel and Training comes to an end on April 20.
The decision followed detection of a serious infection for which she underwent a second round of surgery at the King George's Medical College under Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University in Lucknow on Sunday.