Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani felt 'vindicated' about his Ayodhya 'rath yatra' in the wake of the Allahabad high court verdict and preferred a negotiated settlement for building a Ram temple at the place where the makeshift now stands.
Anger cannot be an end in itself to Rahul Gandhi's politics -- it must instead catalyse a new political strategy, argues Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered mediation to settle the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute by a three-member panel comprising of Justice Kalifulla, advocate Sriram Panchu and spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar. The panel has been given eight weeks by the Supreme Court to arrive at a conclusion and four weeks to give a status report. Here's all you need to know about the panel of mediators:
Shah made the announcement while addressing the passing out parade of the first batch of the five newly constituted Assam Police Commando battalions in Guwahati.
"We need more people who do not have a direct interest in the Ayodhya title suit coming up to fight the case out in the Supreme Court to clear the misconception that my client has been set up by someone to defer the verdict," Prashanth Chandra, senior counsel, who represented Ramesh Chandra Tripathi at the High Court and the Supreme Court, told rediff.com.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the proceedings before the Allahabad high court on suits related to the Sri Krishna Janambhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute, saying it will not be fair to interfere with the high court order without hearing both the sides.
The Congress has been in the crosshairs after demeaning remarks on Ranaut and Mandi were posted on the social media handles of its leaders Supriya Shrinate and H S Ahir.
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.
In nearly 100 seats, the BJP stands almost no chance of winning. In 200 seats, it is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress where the BJP has an upper hand. In 243 seats, the BJP is pitted against regional parties and it is not going to be easy. That is why 400 seats may end up as a pipe dream, states Ramesh Menon, author of Modi Demystified: The Making of a Prime Minister.
Prayers were performed in a cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi on Wednesday night following court orders allowing the resumption of a practice said to have been discontinued three decades back, Kashi Vishwanath temple trust president said.
The high court has dismissed the Gyanvapi mosque management committee's appeal.
Attorney General K K Venugopal has refused his consent for initiating criminal contempt of court proceedings against Bollywood actor Swara Bhaskar for her alleged 'derogatory and scandalous' statements against the Supreme Court over the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid case verdict.
'There is no scope for any doubt. This was a scheme designed to enrich the ruling party.'
The issue had cropped up when a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was hearing the batch of appeals filed against the Allahabad high court's 2010 verdict by which the disputed land on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid area was divided in three parts.
A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and P S Narasimha made the important observation during an hour-long hearing of the Gyanvapi mosque dispute and said that it has dealt with provisions of the Places of Worship Act in its 2019 Ayodhya verdict and section 3 does not expressly bar ascertaining of the religious character of the place of worship.
'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.'
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered replacement of "old and worn out" tarpaulin sheet, ropes and other material with new ones.
This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
A revealing excerpt from Mani Shankar Aiyar's fascinating new book, The Rajiv I Knew.
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on September 9 a plea challenging certain provisions of the 1991 law which prohibit filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.
Lawyers for one of the petitioners in the case, the Waqf Board, told Rediff.com that the Supreme Court's decision will be communicated to the high court based on which the date for the verdict will be fixed.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
The court also observed that late Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal wanted to save the structure because Ram idols were inside.
The first of the many appeals in the Ayodhya title suit was filed on Monday before the Supreme Court by the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, the second plaintiff in the case. Challenging the landmark verdict of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, JuH in its appeal has stated that the HC veered away from the facts and law and focused more on the circumstances and the extraneous material.
'Modigate is snowballing into a huge thing with the electorate. The BJP is in for huge punishment by the electorate.'
Their names have been splashed across the front pages of all national newspapers in the last two weeks. An entire nation is waiting with bated breath for their decision on the Ayodhya title suit. And the three judges of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court will walk into court hall number 21 at 3.30 pm on Thursday to pronounce their verdict in the historic case.
The Supreme Court refused to stay Allahabad high court's December 14 order which allowed the primary survey of the Shahi Idgah complex adjacent to the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi Temple in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura by a court-monitored three-member team of advocate commissioners.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Saturday said he failed to understand why the Supreme Court has deferred pronouncement of the verdict on the Ayodhya title suit when the nation has been waiting for a decision on the dispute since decades.
Supreme Court judge, Justice R V Raveendran, gave this order while hearing the petition filed by retired bureaucrat Ramesh Chand Tripathi to defer the title suit verdict.
The accused include former deputy prime minister Advani, former Union ministers Joshi and Uma Bharti, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, besides Vinay Katiyar and Sadhvi Rithambara.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Allahabad high court, in its judgment of 2010 on four civil lawsuits, had partitioned the 2.77-acre disputed land in Ayodhya equally among the three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.
Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut said the Bharatiya Janata Party's national executive should pass a resolution to demand investigation by these agencies in the land case.
Insisting that she was not involved in bringing down Babri Masjid, expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharti -- a prime accused in the case -- on Thursday said she was ready to face any consequence following the submission of the Liberhan Commission report to the prime minister.
