Scholars and students have cautioned that the proposed divisive and discriminatory changes would harm the country.
Actor and social activist Rahul Bose launched a campaign by writing a postcard to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to fulfill the nine-year old promise of tabling The Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations Bill). Bose launched the send to PM postcard campaign as member of 'Justice for All' organisation.
'We are moving away from the path of democracy and towards Hindu religious dictatorship,' scientist P M Bhargava, who announced his decision to return the Padma Bhushan, tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
The home ministry also ordered a probe by the Computer Emergency Response Team-India to ascertain whether there was hacking of government software systems as there have been several instances where licences of NGOs under scrutiny were renewed automatically.
Activist Teesta Setalvad on Monday recorded her statement before the CBI in connection with a case against her firm for alleged violation of FCRA.
The court said that the petitioner can approach a higher court for further investigation in the case.
A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Deepak Gupta said the matter will be heard on November 19, as the court has not gone through the petition in detail.
As opposition parties targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party over the police action on the campus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah spoke to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and asked him to address the issue at the earliest.
An SIT officer probing the murder case said the investigation is in final stage and a chargesheet will be filed in two months.
A special court on Tuesday granted bail to home ministry official Anand Joshi, who was arrested for allegedly issuing Foreign Contribution Regulation Act notices arbitrarily to several NGOs.
'The government is using the Intelligence Bureau to go after NGOs.' 'It is not only the NDA, the UPA also didn't like NGOs.' 'NGOs predominantly work with the poor. So, when you cancel an NGO, the affected are the poor, the Dalits, the tribals, the street children and the marginalised.'
"Whose money is this? From where did the money in these bank accounts have come," a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra asked the counsel for Setalvad.
The Apex court, however, said that the interim order providing protection from arrest to Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand shall be extended till the larger bench takes up the matter.
The various meat bans across the country are an attempt to attack civil liberties, says civil rights activist Kavita Srivastava.
Two worthies were overheard mulling recent political developments
Modi denies the charges and was exonerated in an Indian Supreme Court inquiry in 2012.
A seven-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur, elaborating on the issues weighing on its mind, said "all that we wanted to know was that appeal for votes in the name of religion, means whose religion? Is it the religion of candidates or religion of agent or religion of the third party (seeking votes) or religion of voters or that of all of them?"
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
The court while granting bail to the duo also held that it does not find any possibility of the accused persons fleeing from justice and that their custodial interrogation was not required.
The writers, artistes, thinkers and academics had gathered for a "resistance" meet (Pratirodh) against what they described as "attack on reason, democracy and composite culture".
The apex court is hearing its two-decade-old 'Hindutva' judgement for an authoritative pronouncement on electoral law categorising misuse of religion for electoral gains as "corrupt practice".
We're behaving like frogs in warm water. We swim around untroubled, cooled by our faith in Indian liberal democracy. We are blind to the bubbles popping around us, the bubbles warning of fundamental changes, says Mihir S Sharma.
For the past, blame the Congress. For the present, blame the Congress. For everything, blame the Congress. But for your future, vote BJP.
'Since Modi is walking a tightrope between two worlds -- one of the saffron brotherhood and the other of the proposed smart cities and bullet trains -- it is understandable why he is averse to scrutiny lest he loses his balance by tilting too heavily on one side or the other. But, why has Sonia Gandhi acquired the reputation of a sphinx,' asks Amulya Ganguli.
'To suggest that activists -- and that too 'five star activists' -- are driving the courts, is to betray an ignorance of the functioning of the legal system of the most gross kind,' says Senior Advocate and former Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising.
Religion or caste is a key part of India's political discourse, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday and asked whether seeking of votes on that basis would amount to "corrupt practice" under the election law.
The court said it has decided to award imprisonment for life without any time frame to the 11, who have been convicted for murder, while requesting the state not to use its power to remit the sentence after 14 years of imprisonment.
Of the 24 convicted, 11 have been convicted for murder and 13 for other charges.
An accused D G Vanzara gets bail months after Modi emerges as PM and hails it is as a return of 'Achche Din' while the blind-folded lady justice, almost mocks the rest of us, by suggesting that nobody is guilty for the cold blooded killing of Ishrat Jahan, Kauser Bi and the 2,000 odd innocent people in Gujarat, says Shehzad Poonawala.
The two were arrested for alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum in Ahmedabad.
The activist and her husband have allegedly embezzled funds from riot victims.
A journalist must perform various roles, be passionate yet detached, feels Gopalkrishna Gandhi
'If the State does want to come after you, in India, it can do pretty much anything. And often it isn't as though the orders are coming from the President or prime minister, no, the systems have been built in a way -- or we have allowed them to be built in a way -- that almost encourages crushing of liberties.'
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