The government on Thursday approved inclusion of more castes in the central list of OBCs for various states, a move it hopes will especially help it reach out to people in Naxal affected states.
Speaking exclusively to rediff.com he said that the Gujjars did not fulfill any of the conditions that are necessary to get ST status.
The ruling Congress is seeking to retain power in Chhattisgarh by banking on the welfare schemes of the Bhupesh Baghel government, while the Bharatiya Janata Party is hoping to corner it on the issues of alleged corruption, religious conversions and unfulfilled poll promises.
Raut was referring to the recent war of words between state ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Shambhuraj Desai.
Anil Vij on Tuesday skipped Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's swearing-in ceremony where, he would also have been inducted in the cabinet.
After the BRS lost the assembly elections recently, a number of its leaders quit the party to join the BJP or the Congress, which is in power in the state now.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
Quoting Greek philosopher Socrates, Justice Bopanna emphasised that there are four qualities that are expected of a judge -- to hear courteously, to consider soberly, to answer wisely and to decide impartially.
As the 40-day deadline he set before the Maharashtra government to implement Maratha reservation came to an end, activist Manoj Jarange on Wednesday launched his indefinite fast to press for the demand for quota to the community.
The Bihar assembly on Thursday approved a hike in quotas for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Extremely Backward Classes and Other Backward Classes from the existing 50 per cent to 65 per cent.
For the first time in more than 70 years, a sample count of the Other Backward Classes has been made with an official survey.
The party has fielded Parvati Das for the by-election to the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Lijinlal G for the Puthuppally assembly seat in Kerala.
Moily said there would be no change in the bill compared to that passed in the Rajya Sabha and exuded confidence that it would get through the Lok Sabha also in April.
Rahul Gandhi may also contest from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Rae Bareli, a seat which was previously held by Sonia Gandhi.
The opposition on Tuesday termed as an 'election jumla' the women's reservation bill brought by the government with many leaders raising questions over the proposed legislation, contending it doesn't account for reservation for OBC communities and that it will be effective at the earliest by the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.
This will be the first time that the Congress, since its ouster from power in 2014, will get the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. It failed to get the position in the past 10 years as its tally was below the requisite 10 per cent of total seats in the House, both in 2014 and 2019.
The IT major has earmarked $4 million for this purpose.
The decision is expected to provide a push for their development in healthcare, cultural identity, education, financial matters, skill development and women empowerment among others, the Chief Minister's Office said in a statement.
Alleging that the BJP would end democracy if it was not voted out, Kharge said it was because of this democracy that a tea-seller's son could become the prime minister of India and he, the son of a labourer, could become the president of the opposition Congress.
'The Opposition parties will continue to woo Chandrababu Naidu even though he has said he will support the BJP.'
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
Our caste warriors will not even ask these questions, let alone explore better solutions to address the problems of inequality and skewed life outcomes, argues R Jagannathan.
The Bharatiya Janata Party will ensure the swearing-in ceremony of the new Chhattisgarh cabinet under Vishnu Deo Sai on Wednesday will be a 'historic' event which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP leaders and chief ministers, state chief Arun Sao said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday announced the withdrawal of police cases filed against pro-Maratha reservation protesters in Jalna district, the epicentre of the latest round of stir on the issue, and urged quota activist Manoj Jarange to end his indefinite fast.
'The (Maratha) community people have understood that this is the same reservation that they were given earlier also (but was later struck down)'
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
Responding to a query, Mathur said there is no "formula" for electing the chief minister.
The government is considering giving reservation to backward Muslims within the 27 per cent quota fixed for Other Backward Classes and a decision in this regard will be taken soon, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said on Thursday.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav attacked its INDIA block ally Congress on caste census, reminding them that the party did not conduct a caste census when it was in power.
Oriental Bank of Commerce is set to carry out a major manpower restructuring especially at the acquired Global Trust Bank unit, after it gets a report from National Institute of Bank Management.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
As the Congress batted for a national caste census with an assertion that rights should be proportionate to population, its senior leader Abhishek Singhvi on Tuesday created a flutter by saying "it will eventually culminate into majoritarianism", a remark he later withdrew from social media and blaming it on his staff.
The Congress on Monday promised that a government led by it will conduct a nationwide caste census and implement 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies at the earliest, including adequate representation for women belonging to the OBC community.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
Akhilesh Yadav replaced his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav and decided to contest the Kannauj seat himself.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the people have given his government a mandate for stability and continuity for the third consecutive term after seeing its work of 10 years and accused the Congress of trying to build a narrative that it has defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha polls.
Right to apprenticeship, legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a nation-wide caste census and scrapping of Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on Friday.
The Indian Institutes of Management have begun the exercise to sift creamy layer among OBC by asking candidates belonging to the category to give details of their status with regard to 'creamy layer' in keeping with the Supreme Court directive. The move by the IIMs comes in the wake of the HRD Ministry's directive last Sunday to all centrally-funded elite educational institutions, including IIMs and IITs, to implement the OBC reservation from this year sans creamy layer.
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