Jat protesters who are demanding reservation in government jobs under the Other Backward Class quota on Monday ended their 23-day-long agitation following an assurance from Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Behind its high-decibel campaign, powered by well-organised party machinery, the BJP also appears to have made a slight departure from its 'next generation' approach to stay ahead of an aggressive Congress and enhance its prospects of securing a majority of seats.
Both the eight-time MLA Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have made no secret of their ambition to become CM and had been involved in a game of political one upmanship in the past.
Former Uttar Pradesh bureaucrat P K Jain was arrested on Thursday by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with alleged irregularities in utilisation of funds allocated under National Rural Health Mission scheme.
The Congress on Sunday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'redistribution of wealth' remarks targeting the party, saying after facing 'disappointment' in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, the PM has now resorted to 'lies' and 'hate speech' to divert people from the real issues.
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.
Four Delhi University colleges were exempted by the Delhi high court on Monday from reserving 27 per cent of their seats for the Other Backward Classes students for admission in academic year 2012-13 on ground of being minority educational institutions.
The Union government has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Andhra Pradesh high court order quashing the 4.5 per cent reservation for minorities within the 27 percent Other Backward Classes quota in central educational institutions such as IITs. The apex court will hear the government plea on Monday.
'The Maratha versus OBC friction will increase. A huge chunk of the Shiv Sena's social base consists of OBCs.' Dhaval Kulkarni reports.
The Centre will challenge in the Supreme Court the order of the Andhra Pradesh high court striking down its 4.5 per cent sub-quota to minorities within Other Backward Classes reservation in central educational institutions and jobs, saying the decision was based on religious grounds. "We will go to the Supreme Court by way of a Special Leave Petition against the Andhra Pradesh high court order," Union Minister for Law and Minority Affairs Salman Khurshid told reporters.
The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre on a petition challenging the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes in central educational institutions
In its bid to end the age-old practice of untouchability and ban on entry into temples in certain pockets of the state, Orissa government has prepared a strategy to deal with such situation.
Announcing sops for minorities ahead of the panchayat elections next year in the state, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said that her government has ordered a survey for ensuring job reservation for Muslims and would also bring a bill for 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the State Election Commission of Maharashtra to notify 27 per cent seats in the local body, which were reserved for the Other Backward Classes, as general category so that the poll process can be taken forward.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Kejriwal asked whether the BJP-led central government was waiting for the Lok Sabha elections to make a move in this direction.
Why did Karnataka's economic prosperity fail to influence the nature of electoral promises made by political parties in the run-up to the assembly elections? asks A K Bhattacharya.
Promising sops for every section of society in its manifesto for Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday opposed 4.5 per cent reservation to minorities from the 27 per cent quota of backward classes even as it said it was committed to the construction of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
He accused Modi of reducing the cabinet to a 'rubber stamp', 'betraying' backward classes and giving Bihar only 'jumlas'.
The Centre has appointed senior IAS officers Vumlunmang Vualnam and Neeraj Mittal as new secretaries in the ministry of civil aviation and the department of telecommunications respectively in a major secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, a government order stated.
The Bahujan Samaj Party on Thursday claimed that Election Commission decision of covering statues of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and party symbol elephant is one-sided and unjustified and was a violation of Article 14 of the constitution.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday expressed strong resentment to the proposal of giving underprivileged Muslims reservation under the Other Backward Classes category.
Terming the decision of carving a sub-quota for minorities within the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes s as a "dangerous political game" of the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said it could lead to a "civil war" among different communities. "The quota within quota is Congress party's dangerous political game, which can lead to a civil war among the different communities and castes," said BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
Ultimately quotas kill talent and true meritocracy, argues R Jagannathan.
It is only the apex court that can decelerate, though not stop, the march of casteism. Politicians have not opposed and will not oppose the expanding scope of reservations
Excluding the Bharatiya Janata Party, which ardently opposed the bill both inside and outside the assembly, the entire Opposition supported the Backward Class, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Reservation Bill, 2017, which will be now debated and passed by the state legislative council.
In an obvious move to woo the minorities ahead of the 2012 state assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has shot off yet another letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to draw his attention to withholding of funds earmarked for the welfare of minorities and Other Backward Classes by the central government.
While the Apna Dal said it was 'free to make its own decision', the SBSP went a step ahead asserting that its option to join the SP-BSP alliance.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the Centre's review petition on the Jat reservation issue which demanded a review of the apex court's previous order scrapping Jat reservation.
The Supreme Court will hear the Centre's plea over the 4.5 per cent sub quota for minorities, in New Delhi on Wednesday, after the government presented 'relevant' data before the apex court on Tuesday that formed the basis of creating such a quota.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has directed the ministries and government departments not to duplicate official estimates and sought strict compliance to ensure that data and statistics collected are consistent.
The Parliamentary by-polls in Hisar, Haryana, have made headlines thanks to the war of words between Team Anna activists and Congress leaders. But the different communities which inhabit Hisar have other issues on their mind. The most important issue for the Jat community is reservation in government jobs under the Other Backward Classes quota. Members of the community had paralysed rail and road traffic in many parts of northern India for several days.
The Uttar Pradesh police on Thursday arrested five people, including a man who they claimed to be the personal secretary of former minister Swami Prasad Maurya, for allegedly duping unemployed youth on the pretext of giving them government jobs.
Disgruntled Janata Dal-United leader Upendra Kushwaha on Monday resigned from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party, less than two years after returning to the party, and announced formation of the 'Rashtriya Loktantrik Janata Dal'.
"You cannot just pick Rs 8 lakh out of the thin air and fix it as a criteria. There has to be some basis, some study. Tell us whether any demographic study or data was taken into account in fixing the limit. How do you arrive at this exact figure? Can the Supreme Court strike down the criteria, if no study was undertaken?" the Supreme Court asked.
Is Salman Khan trying to jump on the desh bhakti bandwagon that Akshay Kumar is making a career of?
The Maharashtra government has moved the Supreme Court seeking recall of its order by which it had directed the State Election Commission (SEC) not to re-notify the poll process to 367 local bodies, where it has already commenced, in order to provide reservation to OBCs.
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