The BJP senior leadership is putting together a case for the continuance of Amit Shah as party president despite the humiliating defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
Close on the heels of the much-hyped '84-kosi parikrama' on August 26 last, yet another 'fixed' match between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Samajwadi Party was witnessed in Ayodhya on Friday when blatant posturing by the two sides ended in a damp squib.
The rift between Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his party colleague Azam Khan, who also happens to be a prominent minister in the state cabinet, appears to be widening.
The court granted bail to Advani, Joshi and Bharti after they appeared before it.
'How can the monument where the prime minister unfurls the flag on Independence Day, in a ceremony broadcast and telecast nationally, be maintained by a private entity?' asks Jyoti Punwani.
The Sangh Parivar forgets that not only is there no scriptural prohibition, venerable authorities in India held beef as both a desirable and an essential food, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray
The efforts by the organisers to show that the reception for Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison Square Garden was an event organised by all sections of the Indian community has led to deep divisions and heartburn among Sangh Parivar organisations in the US.
The twin towns of Ayodhya and Faizabad were on the edge on Saturday as tension mounted on the eve of VHP's yatra with the UP government cracking down on the saffron outfit arresting some of its leaders and over 350 activists.
A generation has passed and the demolition appears to be a story of an era gone by, says Sharat Pradhan, who shares his experience as a witness in court in the Babri Masjid demolition case. On the 25th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, we republish this 2011 special.
The 1992 Babri Mosque demolition was an "act of planned sabotage" and not a by frenzied mob of Hindu outfits, a news portal claimed on Friday on the basis of a sting operation it had carried over a period of two years.
The apex court, however, noted that Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh enjoys Constitutional immunity and can be tried only after he ceases to hold the office.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's maiden speech from Red Fort last Independence Day outlined some grand programmes. Shehzad Poonawalla does a quick check on the progress made.
Notwithstanding Congress' reprimand, Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma on Saturday intensified his attack on his friend-turned foe Mulayam Singh Yadav accusing him of conniving with the Bharatiya Janata Party to flare up communal passions and dared the Samajwadi Party leader to a public debate on Babri issue.
If Modi and Shah did not project Adityanath as CM, it was out of expediency, says Radhika Ramaseshan.
'The spread of barbarity in Muzaffarnagar's villages makes administrative complicity so very evident that your government is rightly alleged to be imitating what the Modi-led administration did in Gujarat in 2002,' Mohammad Sajjad tells UP Minister Azam Khan.
In the past four years, neither the BJP nor the VHP has shown any interest in the mandir or Lord Ram. Now that elections are nearing, it is attempting to whip up communal passions, says Minister of State for Home R P N Singh in an interview to Anita Katyal
'This is an emotional issue and cannot be resolved by law alone.' 'This can be resolved only by creating trust again.' 'So much bloodletting has taken place, there is no point in going on and on.' 'Let us sit together and negotiate'
'Like 2014, 2017 was also Modi's election.' 'Every voter you met, apart from those who are BJP cadres, everybody said they would vote for Modi, not the BJP.' 'The one and only factor is the Modi juggernaut. He is the one who turned the tide.' 'The wave which he created in 2014, and to maintain it for three years, is a huge task in itself.'
Twenty years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, India is in rebirth mode. Whether there is a Babri Masjid or a Ram temple or not in Ayodhya, India will go on. And it will see many tomorrows, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'If policy-makers hold the lives of animals to be more significant than the welfare of a human populace, I can't believe that they're likely to do anything progressive for India.'
The second part of journalist Rajdeep Sardesai's interview to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
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