Post 26/11, a section of the Congress leadership was seen playing religious politics after one of its leaders, A R Antulay, implied that Hindutva forces may have been involved in the Mumbai terror attacks, according to a confidential memo by the then US ambassador to India, David Mulford, released by WikiLeaks.
After keeping the appointments of some of the senior level officers on special duty/private secretary on hold for months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally cleared some of them.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to write to state governments to vacate Wakf properties occupied by them, Minorities Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said on Friday.
The meeting is seen as part of efforts by the RSS and the BJP to reach out to the Muslim community and send out a message of peace and harmony.
"There have been regular complaints of illegal encroachment and sale of Wakf properties the country wide. Hence, we tried to amend some provisions of the existing Wakf Act 1995. Now questions are being raised as why Wakf properties is being registered. This is an age in which even births and deaths are being registered. I fail to understand why should there be any objection to registration of Wakf properties," Khurshid said in New Delhi.
He was last month appointed as Secretary in Department of Economic Affairs in place of his batchmate Arvind Mayaram, who was first shifted to Tourism and then to Minority Affairs Ministry.
Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari and Shahi Imam of Fatehpuri mosque Mufti Mukarram Ahmed also said the moon was sighted and the fasting will start from Saturday. They appealed to Muslims to perform all rituals and prayers at home during Ramzan while adhering to social distancing and lockdown norms.
Muslims' enrolment at secondary level of education is less than that of the scheduled castes, a government survey has indicated.
Government is putting into action most of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee and is working out a methodology to provide reservation to backward sections among minorities, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Salman Khursheed said on Monday.
Union Minister for Minority Affairs Salman Khursheed has underlined the need for all educational institutions to be sensitive towards the feelings of all communities and accommodate their customs.
India is in the cusp of a reverse brain drain as the country's great minds are flocking back to the resilient economy that has withstood the global meltdown, Salman Khurshid, minister of state for corporate and minority affairs, has said.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will hold talks with the opponents of Women's Reservation Bill before the government's takes the next step on it, Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said on Thursday.
The resolution of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind asking Muslims not to recite 'Vande Mataram' is "unacceptable" and will be "counter-productive", said Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.
Minister for Corporate and Minority Affairs Salman Khursheed may have done a superb job of handling the Satyam fiasco, but he was put in a spot on Thursday by angry NRIs who wore T-shirts reading: Victims of Maytas.
The Congress on Monday gave a clean chit to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and spiritual preacher Deoraha Baba, whose names figure in the list of those found culpable by the Liberhan Commission, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. "Vajpayee's name was not in the conspiracy (to demolish Babri mosque). His name was only in one of the lists," Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.
The government had earlier issued a notice to Singh, seeking an explanation on whose ordered its office boundary wall to be painted saffron and why it was subsequently repainted.
Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla has rejected the contention that Muslims are feeling insecure under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime and said the community has felt alienated since Independence because of the policies of successive Congress governments.
The fate of Minority affairs Minister A R Antulay continued to hang in balance as Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today grappled with the mess arising out of his controversial remarks on the killing of Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare.
The Plan Outlay of the Ministry of Minority Affairs has been enhanced from Rs 1,000 crore in BE 2008-09 to Rs 1,740 crore in 2009-10,registering an increase of 74 per cent.
Salman Khurshid, who holds the portfolios of minority affairs and corporate affairs, tells Sreelatha Menon that he wants greater public participation in development programmes.
Union Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said on Wednesday that Indian Muslims have failed to show their existence not only in the country but also outside it, underlining it as the reason why US President Barack Obama made no mention of them while expressing his desire to speak to Muslims of the world.
'Regrettably, the UPA government seems to be caving in to pressures from the BJP to adopt a macho, national-chauvinist, to-hell-with-civil-liberties stance to show that it has the will to fight terrorism.'
If Karkare was killed by any other bullet than the ones that came from the terrorists's AK-47 rifles, we would have known, said an officer who added he has seen the post-mortem report of all the three police officers who died that night.
"We would like to know if the Congress will dismiss Minority Affairs minister A R Antulay," asked BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday.
The application has been filed to oppose a batch of petitions on which the apex court had in 2018 issued notices to the Centre and other stakeholders while referring the matter to a 5-judge Constitution bench.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
Former Union Minister Najma Heptulla was on Wednesday made Governor of Manipur while ex-Rajya Sabha MP V P Singh Badnore goes to Punjab in new gubernatorial appointments announced for four states with all of them being associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
But the minority affairs minister would do well to remember that stupid conspiracy theories can run both ways -- and that, carried to the bitter end, his own allegations could leave his party very sorry.
Union Minority Affairs Minister Abdul Rehman Antulay has the last laugh. Neither he was made to apologise and retract his remarks on the doubts he raised over the killing of Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare, nor did he get the boot, much hyped by most of the Media and sought by the BJP-led NDA Opposition.
Union Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay on Wednesday suggested that Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare could have met his end due to his role in the Malegaon blasts investigation. Karkare and two other senior officers of the Mumbai police died on November 26 when Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbai. Antulay said Karkare was investigating some cases in which there are non-Muslims also.
The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday responsibility for the assasination of a prominent Sikh politician who was shot dead by motorcycle-borne gunmen near his home in Pakistan's restive northwest.
The Lok Sabha created a record of sorts with the passage of as many as eight Bills in a span of 17 minutes. Their passage took place on the concluding day of the session and when there was a lot of din in the Lower House.
The longest session of Parliament in recent times concluded on Tuesday in the shadow of the A R Antulay controversy with the opposition unrelenting in its demand for the sacking of the minority affairs minister. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha adjourned sine die after a ten-day sitting in the third and final phase of the Monsoon session of Parliament which had begun way back on July 21 for the trust vote.
Unfazed by the controversy triggered by his remarks on the killing of former ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay today said that he stuck to his stand and that both government and Congress should feel "proud" of his comments.
Caretaker prime minister Mohammadmian Soomro appointed Amar Lal, who has been working as the prime minister's special assistant on minority affairs, to the post, assigning him the status of a Federal Minister.
He pointed out that such a restriction is not prevalent in many Islamic countries.
The report concentrates on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community in the country.
Faced with elections in Uttar Pradesh, home to a large Muslim population, the Centre has already announced that it will implement the Sachar report in toto.
After Rajnath Singh and Uma Bharti, another union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi feels the same.
However, the government may not be ready for a debate on the recommendations in Parliament.
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