Rumours about senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan's resignation from the Akhilesh Yadav cabinet kept doing rounds here Tuesday afternoon, soon after his abrupt departure from SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's residence.
Sensing the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's attempts to rekindle Ayodhya sentiments, the Akhilesh Yadav-led government in Uttar Pradesh has banned a meeting to mark the 25th death anniversary of brothers, Ram and Sharad Kothari, who fell to police bullets while performing the symbolic kar sewa on November 2, 1990 -- two years before the Babri Masjid was brought down.
Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, whom Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav earlier gave a berth in the Rajya Sabha, was the surprise entry even for senior ministers who were seen asking each other about the background of the man from Punjab.
Even though Mulayam Singh decided which ministers to drop and which ministers to lose their portfolios, the reshuffle is being projected as a reflection of Akhilesh Yadav's assertive self.
The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of the appointment of controversial Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission chairman Anil Yadav, who was accused of turning the state's highest recruitment body into a private fiefdom by handpicking largely Yadavs for all top jobs.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav made it a point to welcome and felicitate popular Pakistani ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali, who was forced to cancel his show in Mumbai following protests by Shiv Sena.
While refraining from naming any one of them, he said, "I will disclose their names once the investigation is complete," he said.
'I have tried to draw the UN's attention to the very obvious attempt of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convert a secular India into a theocratic Hindu State.'
Congress MLA Ajay Rai was on Tuesday arrested along with 50 others in connection with violence and arson in Varanasi on Monday as the administration cracked down on miscreants in the holy city where the situation was peaceful amid continued police patrolling.
Azam Khan, the Uttar Pradesh minister for urban development and minority affairs, has sought intervention of the United Nations to what he terms as "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bid to turn India into a theocratic majority nation."
family of the 50-year-old Mohammad Ikhlaq who was brutally lynched to death by a Hindu mob over beef-eating rumours in Dadri last week were flown in to Lucknow for an audience with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav at his official residence in Lucknow Sunday morning.
Sharat Pradhan secures exclusive access to the Justice Vishnu Sahai report and discovers it blames two BJP MLAs, a former BSP MP and his cohorts, local intelligence officials and the media for the horrific Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, but attributes no blame to the Samajwadi Party government in the state.
The National Security Act is likely to be invoked against killers of the Mohammad Akhlaq, who was brutally beaten to death on Monday night after locals suspected him of storing and consuming beef.
A one-man judicial commission headed by former high court judge Vishnu Sahai is understood to have indicted government officials more than politicians for the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and four adjoining districts in 2013.
A court dropped criminal proceedings against Ketan Desai after the CBI failed to obtain the mandatory permission from the government to prosecute him.
The applicants included at least 255 people with doctorates and 150,000 graduates.
Maulana Kalbe Sadiq was told explicitly that it would be possible for him to enter the club premises only if he changed into a shirt-pant or a suit. The organisers' pleas fell on deaf ears and Maluana Sadiq had no choice but to leave the club, much to the embarrassment of the arrangers.
Akhilesh Yadav is now seeking to devote the remaining 18 months of his tenure in casting the state in a new mould.
Sheela Bhatt meets Bharti Patel, a truly exceptional mother of our times whose son Dr Vikram Patel was recently ranked among Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2015, to find out her recipe for a remarkable upbringing.
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav was in his elements once again on Monday when he chose to run down ministers in his son Akhilesh Yadav's government at a public rally in Mau.
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