Social media giant Twitter on Saturday removed the blue verification tick from the accounts of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat and other senior functionaries only to restore it after a lot of hue and cry by Sangh sympathisers on social media.
Several BJP leaders in the past have raised a demand for changing the name of the country from "India" to "Bharat".
'The BJP used Shinde and Shiv Sena to decimate Uddhav Thackeray, humiliate him by taking away his party as well as party symbol.' 'The Shiv Sena and Eknath Shinde have served their purpose.'
The five-day event, to appraise and train RSS volunteers on how to propagate nationalism and promote Swadeshi along with other such issues among the masses, is held every fifth year in different cities and states of the country.
Addressing an event in Jaipur, the RSS leader said, "The term 'Hindu' has already entered our Constitution and country. It is a fact of history. Hindu is an identity and a culture to which people belong."
Bhagwat also expressed concern over Bitcoin and OTT platforms and asked the government to take efforts to regulate these things.
He also said if Hindus want to remain Hindus then Bharat has to be made 'akhand' (undivided).
The organisers were told by "government sources" that security issues could arise due to Dhar's presence
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday reviewed the performance of public sector banks (PSBs) on various financial health parameters and their resilience in the wake of the current global financial scenario emanating from the failure of some international banks in the US and Europe.
Bhagwat further emphasised that no Muslim will face any loss due to the citizenship law.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind chief Maulana Arshad Madani on Sunday stoked a controversy when he claimed that "Om" and "Allah" were the same God worshipped by 'Manu'.
One of cricket's greatest players passed into the ages on Monday. Rediff.com salutes the legend.
A photograph of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat sitting with Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has set tongues wagging in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, with the Congress taunting that the S in SP means the Sangh.
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend.
A release issued by the RSS on Thursday had said the agenda of the four-day meeting included a discussion of Sangh volunteers' response to the coronavirus pandemic and preparations to face a possible third wave, among other things.
Citing that many Muslims fought in Mewar king Maharana Pratap's army against Mughal emperor Akbar, Bhagwat suggested that in India's history people from all faiths stood together whenever there was an attack on the country's culture.
Maharashtra Shiv Sena MLA and minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday moved the Supreme Court against the disqualification notice issued by the deputy speaker to him and 15 other rebel legislators.
Speaking at the RSS's annual Vijayadashami rally in Nagpur which was broadcast online and attended 50 swayamsevaks (volunteers) due to the COVID-19 guidelines, Bhagwat said when the Sangh says Hindustan is 'Hindu Rashtra', it does not have any political or power-centered concept in its mind.
"He was an icon of the Indian history and will remain so. There can be a difference of opinion about him, but to look down on him as inferior is not appropriate and justifiable. He was a freedom fighter and a staunch nationalist, but people who follow the Marxist and Leninist ideology are the ones who accuse Savarkar of being a fascist...," Singh said, adding that the hatred towards Savarkar is illogical and unplaced.
Thursday was the day results from the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections and by-elections in Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh were out, so what were some of our leaders up to?
The gau rakshak stated that the famine-stricken people were suffering because of their past karma and nothing could be done for them. The reply apparently infuriated Vivekananda, who told the gau rakshak bluntly that he had no sympathy to spare for societies which would not lift a finger to help human beings but wasted piles of food on birds and beasts. A fascinating excerpt from Govind Krishnan V's book, Vivekananda The Philosopher of Freedom.
Other ministers who have presented five straight annual financial statements include Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha, Manmohan Singh and Morarji Desai.
Scheduled commercial banks have written off loans amounting to over Rs 10.09 lakh crore in the last five financial years and the process of recovery of dues from the borrowers continues, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the Lok Sabha on Monday.
He also said four of the eight constituencies had been contested by the Shiv Sena in 2019 and staked claim to those constituencies.
Chhatrapati Yadav, the MLA from Khagaria Sadar, has shot off a letter to Congress high command, demanding that he be considered, by virtue of his caste, for a berth in the new cabinet headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's action against its two members for their controversial comments against Prophet Mohammed cap a series of statements from its top brass and also Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat that sought to distance their organisations from shrill and combative religious rhetoric, even as it has brought to fore the conflict within their wide sphere of support.
The opinion piece added that the party combines the most striking principles of three major political entities in the world -- the Likud Party of Israel, the Communist Party of China and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
Esha's baby turns five... Sayani is festive-ready... Ram Charan takes RRR to Japan...
Much depends on the BJP's electoral performance in next year's assembly elections. If the party fares well in UP and some states like Goa and Gujarat, it will be able to fob off the attempt at a reappraisal of its Hindutva doctrine, observes Amulya Ganguli.
What some of our leaders were up to on Thursday and Thursday.
RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale met with the leadership of the UP BJP, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, state BJP President Bhupendra Chaudhary and state BJP General Secretary (Organisation) Dharmapal.
Eknath Shinde is appearing to be holding a tight grip on the Shiv Sena, as the strength of MLAs supporting him is expected to cross 50 as more legislators are likely to reach Guwahati on Friday thus further deepening the political crisis in Maharashtra.
Rediff readers tell us how they are celebrating Ganeshotsav this year.
Addressing the annual Dussehra rally at the iconic Shivaji Park ground in Mumbai, Thackeray lashed out at Shinde, whose rebellion in June this year brought down the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government in the state.
'The BJP has ordered the AIMIM to defame the Shiv Sena, to raise questions on Shiv Sena's Hindutva'
Thackeray said people should be aware of how religious issues are raked up to distract their attention from core issues.
The temple trust took the decision to stop using the loudspeakers on Wednesday.
What were our political leaders up to on the weekend?
Amidst the fanfare over Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's plans to celebrate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's birth anniversary in Kolkata on January 23, his daughter Anita Bose-Pfaff has said that the organisation's ideology and the nationalist leader's ideas of secularism and inclusiveness are 'poles apart and do not coincide'.
Amid outrage over personal accounts of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat losing verified blue tick marks, Twitter on Saturday said the blue badge and verified status could be automatically removed from an account if it is incomplete or inactive for six months as per its rules.
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