Reverend Filipe Neri Ferrao, has urged the central government to "immediately and unconditionally revoke the Citizenship Amendment Act" and stop quashing the "right to dissent".
The death toll on Wednesday climbed to 68 in the series of attacks by suspected Bodo militants belonging to the National Democratic Front of Bodoland faction in Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts of Assam while the Centre was rushing additional forces to the state.
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday appealed to different communities in Assam to live together. Referring to recent clashes between Bodos and minority immigrant settlers in the state, he said Assam is a typical example of a pluralistic society where communities like Bodos, minorities, Bengali Hindus, Adivasis, Rajbongshis and others live.
A villager suspected of indulging in sorcery was lynched in a remote Adivasi-inhabited Kalabasi hamlet of Narayanpur tea estate in South Assam's Lakhipur sub-division by fellow villagers.
'People accused of mass murder and worse are let out on medical grounds.' 'Saibaba is now 100% handicapped, and has committed no murder, yet he is not allowed to come out.'
'When you have a village which is controlled by the BJP, who are the people likely to perpetrate the attack?'
Hours after the Chhattisgarh government offered to hold talks to secure the release Sukma district collector Alex Paul Menon, Maoists on Monday night named three mediators, including lawyer Prashant Bhushan, for negotiations.
Biju Janata Dal member of Legislative Assembly Jhina Hikaka was kidnapped as his party did not honour a "secret deal" struck with the Maoist-backed Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha during the recent Zilla Parishad elections, opposition Congress Chief Whip Prasad Harichandan alleged on Tuesday.
Dr Sen, 62, who is currently facing charges of sedition in India, came to England, with his wife Illina, to receive the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award 2011. Naomi Canton caught up with him in London during his trip.
The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday struck down a public interest litigation seeking directions for covering of statues of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in various parts of Uttar Pradesh as they may help Congress "derive" political mileage during the assembly polls.
A bench of Supreme Court judges, Justices Altamas Kabir and Jasti Chalameshwar, has directed the Chhattisgarh government to produce the Adivasi teacher, Soni Sori, in All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi within one week.
Congratulating Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for the massive surrender, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram assured those who surrendered that they would be treated with honour and dignity. K Anurag reports.
With the Maoists dropping the name of a hardcore ultra from the list of their 30 jailed associates and extending the deadline, the Odisha government on Monday expressed hope that Biju Janata Dal MLA Jhina Hikaka could be released on April 18.
'Adivasis are a critical national treasure, so we need to protect them.' 'The fight for the tribals of Chhattisgarh needs people from all political parties. It cannot be about any single political group.'
Bowing to Maoists' demands, for securing the release of a Biju Janata Dal MLA and an Italian from the captivity of ultra-Left activists' captivity, Odisha government on Wednesday said it would facilitate the release of 27 persons, including 8 Naxals, from jails.
The Congress chief alleged that in the 2016 demonetisation exercise, black money became white, nobody went to jail and contrary to the BJP's promise, no one received Rs 15 lakh in their bank account.
Adivasi teacher and alleged Naxal sympathiser Soni Sori was admitted to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Thursday afternoon. AIIMS had refused to admit Soni Sori on Tuesday, in spite of directions to do so by the Supreme Court.
"Today, I want to tell you that before the 2024 polls the NRC will be conducted across the country and each and every infiltrator identified and expelled."
Two youths on Saturday raised black flags and shouted slogans against corruption when Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was addressing a poll rally in tribal-dominated Duddhi in Sonbhadra on Saturday.
Three days after the Odisha government invited it for talks for the release of abducted Biju Janata Dal Member of Legislative Assembly Jhina Hikaka, Maoist-backed Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh on Monday said it was willing to do so if certain conditions were fulfilled.
Former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma, who is considered an underdog in the Presidential race, on Saturday pinned his hopes on the "big number of hidden votes". "We have (the case of) Barack Obama. Nobody thought a black man would ever occupy the White House. If a black man can become the President of America, why can't an Adivasi become the President of India," said the Nationalist Congress Party leader, whose party has refused to back him for the Presidential race.
Mamata said the saffron party could not build even a small Ram temple in the last five years.
Professor Nandini Sundar who won the Infosys Prize 2010 in social anthropology speaks about the apathy of Indian bureaucracy.
'The CM seems to have forgotten that she is dealing with the Gorkhas, people known for their valour and loyalty to India.' 'It is shameful that Mamata Banerjee and her administration treated them like insurgents, choosing to use live bullets instead of other ways and means to control crowds.'
The development is being seen as a blow to the opposition Congress which was planning to forge a grand alliance in Chhattisgrah to unseat the ruling BJP.
'I am here to look after people's needs.' 'I am not bothered about who is a Maoist or who is not.'
'The home minister of India has given his assurance to the MP of Lakshadweep.'
Seeking to allay citizenship concerns of a large number of people, government sources said on Thursday that one can prove Indian nationality by submitting any document related to his date of birth and its place, and there will be "absolutely no compulsion" to submit any document by his parents during any such exercise. An explainer shared by official sources said no document will be required for anybody's pre-1971 genealogy as such a condition was specific to the NRC exercise in Assam and asserted that it will be sufficient to provide one's details of birth like date and place in any future nationwide NRC.
From carrying portraits of their sons and husbands who have committed suicide due to agrarian distress to picketing to doing sewa 24x7 at langars, women have shown a rare determination not to capitulate before the government.
Asma Khatoon said it is not biryani that has attracted women to the protest at Shaheen Bagh, while holding that such vilification campaigns will have no effect on the agitation.
'The corporate world and the private sector economy take notice of the monstrous and apartheid like division that exists in our offices. The jobs we so casually take for granted in the upper class have come to us on the back of denial to others,' says Aakar Patel.
Yoginder Sikand shares memories of his trip to Gurez
Pegasus, which is capable of attacking both Android and iOS, has been around for three years and is considered one of the most sophisticated spyware in the market.
'The message has gone loud and clear (among the people of Assam) that the BJP is only interested in polarising (the country) and they are basically interested in (capturing votes in) the Hindi heartland and they don't bother much about rest of India.'
'I hope that by seeing us in such huge numbers the government will get scared and agree to our demands.'
'The Congress didn't win elections only on soft Hindutva.'
She also alleged that police has been forcing some people to name them in someway since May.
Working for the adivasis' well-being through means that secure their rights, honour their dignity and build a shared prosperity will make the Maoists irrelevant, says Rajni Bakshi.
He also alleged that the Congress toyed with national security and actively and covertly supported Naxalism in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand for political gains.
After laying siege over Lalgarh in West Midnapore district of West Bengal, Maoists have now targeted Orissa's Narayanpatna region.
