'The common belief in political circles is that if you provide reservation to somebody, s/he will automatically come up.' 'This is a very faulty understanding.'
'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.
Mevani, after his meeting with the Gandhi scion, said he would ask his community members to defeat the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the Gujarat polls.
Caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra.
'National unity and acceptance of cultural diversity was never more important than now when the world enters an unstable and dangerous phase.'
It seems that the Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is leaving no stone unturned to make grand the October 31 oath-taking ceremony of its first chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, at the Wankhede stadium in South Mumbai.
''The Congress has forgotten how to mobilise people on political issues,' says Aakar Patel.
Out of the 403 seats up for grabs, the BSP had prepared a final list comprising 97 Muslim candidates (12 more than 2012), 87 Dalits and 106 other backwards castes, besides earmarking 113 seats for upper castes -- Brahmins 66, Kshatriyas 36 and others 11.
'Gujarat is a high turnout state and the BJP, even if it leads opinion polls, must ensure that its base comes out and votes.' 'The Congress can be confident that, even though its base is smaller, their voters will turn out because they are angry.'
The chief minister said any distortion of historical facts will not be tolerated.
The Congress forget Modi has demigod status in Gujarat and there is no way he can be defeated in the state, argues Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and chief ministers of various BJP-ruled states attended the ceremony.
The Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti leader said that reservation formula given by the Congress for his community will be over and above the 50 per cent quota for the Schedule Tribes, Schedule Castes and Other Backward Class.
The electoral bounty reaped by the Congress was nothing more than an ill-gotten gain of a casteist, divisive campaign; nothing to be proud of and certainly not a moral victory, argues Vivek Gumaste.
While over one lakh members of the community converged at a massive gathering at Gandhinagar, thousands took part in the protest march in Surat to raise their demand of staying the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed Bollywood film 'Padmavati'.
While Ahmed Patel staved off the challenge to his Rajya Sabha membership, it leaves the scene wide open for the Gujarat assembly election this winter.
As Bharatiya Janata Party prepared to elect the leader of its legislature party on Tuesday who will be the party's first chief minister of Maharashtra, Shiv Sena appeared resigned to backing it in government formation but there was no clarity yet on whether it will join the ministry.
The Archaeological Survey of India on Sunday installed a couple of close-circuit cameras around the ruins of an 18th century fortress in Daundiya-Khera village of Unnao district (about 140 km from Lucknow), where its teams were busy digging in search of 1000 tons of gold, believed to have been buried there -- as per a dream witnessed by a popular local godman Baba Shobhan Sarkar.
Political observers say that except for a strong anti-incumbency sentiment, there is little that might go against the BJP.
'The myth that the BJP has created that they are an election winning machine has been comprehensively demolished.'
Stock crashes 6.5%; top 5 firms lose Rs 33,883 crore in market cap
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
From being siblings in one film to sweetheart in the other, these actors have done it all.
Deras like Sacha Sauda made the poor feel secure, cared for, loved, provided a support system and gave them dignity, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'The most important aspect of Bajrangi Bhaijaan is the use of humour to touch some sensitive and potentially explosive political-religious and cultural subjects.'
'Politics and religion can be a combustive combination, but this once I am pleased that Pinarayi Vijayan made an issue of a rather innocuous tweet by Amit Shah.' 'It provided the perfect excuse to seek respite from political pronouncements and take (temporary) refuge in the classics,' says T V R Shenoy.
It is unusual to see Narendra Modi highlight his OBC status -- something he has never done in his long political career. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com examines Modi's compulsions for bringing his caste to the foreground
The Magna Carta was not quite a grand demand for equality, freedoms and rule of law but just a narrow demand for restricting the ruler's powers to ring fence the interests of the elite. But its consequences greatly expanded over the centuries into a charter, which guarantees individual liberties, equality and justice to all, irrespective of race, religion and class, says Mohan Guruswamy.
If money allocations, investment commitments are a sign of better things to come, the state can be optimistic.
Fortune favours the brave, and the loyal. And Vinubhai Kanjibhai Jaipal, who served Gajrajsinh Jadeja unflinchingly through thick and thin, will attest to it, having inherited Rs 600 crore from his late employer, says Haresh Pandya.
'The BJP should know that simple caste arithmetic may have ceased to follow the basic law of addition.' 'Adding up seemingly distinct vote banks can even cause overall reduction in numbers,' says Sudhir Bisht.
'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.'
Why this non-BJP MP became a Modi bhakt.
'I have never seen anybody disliked more as prime minister than Modi.' 'What is interesting is in his prime ministership, no matter whatever happens in any corner of India, Modi is blamed for it.' 'Modi has not suspended any Constitutional liberties. No Opposition leader has been put in jail... Modi is not Hitler.'
'The real danger in India right now is that identity politics is being stoked in extremely dangerous ways.' 'The narrative you get about churches in the mainstream Indian media and the narrative you get in the social media is very different.' 'Many Americans today want to appropriate Indian culture. They want yoga, but they say yoga has nothing to do with Hinduism. They want Ayurveda, but they say it's got nothing to do with Hinduism.' 'Hinduism has been failed by political constituencies in India -- seculars and the right-wing.'
'He is just a 22 year old who has no knowledge of India's laws or Constitution. How will such a man handle a discussion on reservations in an intelligent, lawful manner?' 'Let me alert everybody that he is using the 1985 formula. Back then they opposed reservations based on caste for OBCs and now they want to be included in the same category. This clearly tells us what their intention is. They don't want reservations; they want reservations to be cancelled altogether.'
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