Singh also defended Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath over the latter's comments on 'Hindu Rashtra.'
'Revanth Reddy mounted a spirited campaign in Telangana which turned around the fortunes of the Congress in six months.'
The Income Tax Department has notified ITR forms 1 and 4, which are filed by individuals and entities with annual total income of up to Rs 50 lakh for FY 2023-24 (AY 2024-25). Individuals, besides Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs), firms having income up to Rs 50 lakh and those having earnings from business and profession in the current fiscal (April 2023-March 2024) can start filing returns for the income earned this financial year.
'Nehru remains central to the polemic between the Congress and the BJP, or stated ideologically, between secular and Hindu nationalism.' 'The reason is that Nehru represents what is optimally possible as a secular politics along with liberalism and democracy in a country like India.'
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Even those who are the supporters of India's 'cultural nationalism' seems to be unaware of the footprint of Shri Ram in South East Asia, observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
...close to the 2024 general election. The BJP calling the Congress 'seasonal Hindu' is as laughable as the saffron party sparing itself the title of 'seasonal extreme Hindu.'
How else should one describe its election campaigns of the past years?
It was typically obsessive religion and personality cult with economic development for fig leaf, asserts Shyam G Menon.
Wouldn't it be better to join the celebrations with the vast Hindu majority while at the same time criticising Mr Modi/BJP/RSS for politicising it? notes Shekhar Gupta.
'...by directing these draconian provisions against political and ideological opponents of the ruling group, minorities, and those who dare to dissent through and selective prosecution and prolonged incarceration as undertrials.'
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was sent to Tihar Jail after a court remanded him in judicial custody till April 15 in the excise policy case, will remain under 24x7 watch with CCTV cameras in his cell and could watch TV and read books, officials said.
Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena has recommended an NIA probe against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly receiving political funding from the banned terrorist organisation 'Sikhs for Justice', Raj Niwas sources said on Monday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday claimed that the Congress and Samajwadi Party will run a bulldozer over the Ram temple if elected to power, and asked them to take 'tuition' from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath 'where to run bulldozers'.
This theory of 'Hindus vs the rest' sees the two communities as two separate blocs. Isn't that the two-nation theory? What of the deep bonds that the communities have on the ground? asks Jyoti Punwani.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
A Hindu ashram was attacked in Pakistan's Sindh province by about four persons who also stole a 'trishul', triggering protests and a partial shutdown of businesses at several places, a media report said on Monday.
'Bharat is a name that is 7000 years old.' 'We are not saying the name of the country should be changed from India to Bharat; we only recommended that the stress should be on Bharat.'
Wayanad will continue to support Rahul but not to the same extent as in 2019, when his margin of victory had been enormous. Articulate, to the point and speaking in fluent Malayalam, CPI's Annie Raja, had the people who gathered to see her, listening in rapt attention, notes Shyam G Menon.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
The New York Times said in a report on Wednesday that in the lawsuit filed in New Jersey federal court and amended last month, BAPS has been accused 'of luring labourers from India to work on temples near Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, as well as in Robbinsville, New Jersey, paying them just $450 a month'.
The Allahabad high court reserved its judgment on Friday in a petition challenging the maintainability of a suit seeking 'restoration' of a temple at the site of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi.
They all seem to forget that the Music Academy is as much an independent institution as T M Krishna is an individual musician. In drawing those red lines for the Academy management, they do not even seem to recognise that they too have crossed a red line themselves, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Hegde said NDA winning more than 400 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls would eventually help in mustering a similar majority in the Rajya Sabha, and coming to power in two-third of the states.
'Kejriwal took political steps and micro level care at every level not to allow the consolidation of Hindu votes behind the BJP,' observes Sheela Bhatt, the distinguished political commentator.
'The problem of a Hindu rashtra is that it has no text which can be adapted to the modern world.' 'The most prominent element of the Hindu way of organising society and the State is through caste.' 'This is not acceptable to most Hindus.' 'Because a Hindu rashtra also erodes the power and the rights of the majority of Hindus, we can be assured that this is not something that the BJP, or any other force can do,' argues Aakar Patel.
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
The point made by sociologist M N Srinivas, that it represented a Sanskritic act that was linked to caste, is never raised in Indian debates and the disapproval of drink is almost universal, notes Aakar Patel.
BJP sources suggest that the upcoming elections will likely revolve around the renewed enthusiasm for the temple unless another theme with religious and nationalist undertones emerges.
He is among several leaders of Indian heritage who have ascended to the highest echelon of public service globally.
Various Hindu families, including children and women, from the interior parts of Sindh, reached the Wagah border on Tuesday for going to India on the visas for religious pilgrimage, The Express Tribune reported.
Prabowo was accused in the late 1980s of making a number pro-democracy activists mysteriously disappear and for human rights abuses in the provinces of East Timor and Papua and was denied a visa to the US.
Interestingly, the choice of August 5 as the day of the bhoomi pujan coincides with the abolition of Kashmir's special status on the same day a year ago. Perhaps the RSS-BJP wants August 5 to be remembered as the date on which the foundation stone of their cherished Hindu rashtra was laid, notes Amulya Ganguli.
Destiny had decided that a grand temple of Lord Ram will be built in Ayodhya and it chose Prime Minister Narendra Modi for this, BJP stalwart L K Advani has said in an article to be published in a special edition of the Rashtra Dharma magazine next week.
The effort is to make the PM's interaction with the diaspora at Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Zayed Sports city stadium on February 13 the largest he has addressed.
rediffGURU and financial planning expert Colonel Sanjeev Govila (retd) answers your personal finance-related questions.
The Supreme Court on Friday deferred the hearing for January 4 2024, of the habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of Nikhil Gupta, accused by the United States of conspiring to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a India designated terrorist, against his arrest and ongoing extradition proceedings in the Czech Republic.
The main litigant in the Gyanvapi-Shringar Gauri complex case has sought "permission for euthanasia" from President Droupadi Murmu, alleging that her fellow petitioners are spreading false propaganda to defame her.
Narendra Modi has proved through execution of this event in Ayodhya that amongst all his contemporaries in politics he knows ordinary Indians like none other, notes Sheela Bhatt.
'Are we supposed to look the other way as Islamists go on a rampage against Hindus and the Hasina government pay lip service to secularism?' A revealing excerpt from Avishek Biswas and Deep Halder's book, Being Hindu In Bangladesh: The Untold Story.
The Left leader said the NCERT, which was set up on the basis of the 2005 National Curriculum Framework, has been demolishing the very goals of the NCF through the removal of such passages from textbooks.