Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Friday took exception to the way the national census was being carried out and demanded that it be held on the basis of caste, to ascertain the number of people belonging to backward classes.Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour, Prasad said there was a 'huge conspiracy' behind the way the current national census was being carried out.
As several political parties make a pitch for conducting caste-based census, the Union Cabinet is set to discuss the vexed issue on Thursday.
Union Minister Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday said the debate in the Union Cabinet over the issue of caste-based census was about the next census and not the ongoing exercise.
Gandhi said he was "waiting with open arms".
Gandhi claimed that Dalits, tribals, and Other Backward Classes were made bonded labourers and their participation was lacking in big companies, hospitals, schools, colleges and courts.
Nitish Kumar wants to assure the BJP leadership that he will continue to be a part of the NDA. But he also wants to secure a larger number of seats for his party in the 2025 assembly elections in Bihar.
Opposition parties Nationalist Congress Party and Samajwadi Party on Wednesday demanded reservation for OBCs in the women's reservation bill and questioned the reason for calling a special session when the bill cannot be implemented before census and delimitation.
Union ministers Prahlad Joshi and Dharmendra Pradhan alleged that Gandhi has been spreading lies on this issue.
When asked about the Uniform Civil Code, Gandhi said he would comment on it only after he knows what is BJP's proposal.
With 12 MPs, the JD-U is the second biggest Bharatiya Janata Party ally after the TDP's 16, and leaders of the saffron party are in touch with allies over ministerial berths and other issues.
As the Congress batted for a national caste census with an assertion that rights should be proportionate to population, its senior leader Abhishek Singhvi on Tuesday created a flutter by saying "it will eventually culminate into majoritarianism", a remark he later withdrew from social media and blaming it on his staff.
Rahul Gandhi said that the ongoing Lok Sabha election is aimed at saving the country's Constitution.
The current census process leaves no scope for duplication, C Chandramouli, registrar general and Census commissioner, tells Saubhadro Chatterji
According to the data released in Patna by Development Commissioner Vivek Singh, the state's total population stood at a little over 13.07 crore, out of which the EBCs (36 per cent) were the largest social segment followed by the OBCs at 27.13 per cent.
He also said that the BJP's defeat in Faizabad seat of Ayodhya, where the Ram temple has been built, shows the wisdom of voters.
While 44-year-old Sunak was at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden on Sunday to promise to keep trying to "make the community proud", 61-year-old Starmer chose another north London Swaminarayan Temple in Kingsbury on Friday to reiterate his commitment to building a "strategic partnership with India".
Rediff.com's Priyanka meets Dr C Chandramouli, the Census Commissioner of India, where he explains what it takes to organise the mammoth exercise.
He claimed that out of 90 secretaries of the government of India, only three are from the Other Backward Classes and control only five per cent of the Budget, which he said was an "insult" to the backward classes.
'BJP leaders ask you not to learn English. We want the tribal youth to learn Chhattisgarhi, English as well as Hindi'
A head count to identify the poor, including their caste and religion, was on Thursday approved by the government, which aims at ensuring that the benefits of the targeted subsidy programme reach them. A meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, gave its nod for conducting a census in rural and urban areas to identify those living below poverty line. The enumeration on the basis of caste and religion would be part of the census.
Hindu population showed a decline by 0.7 per cent at 96.63 crore during the period.
Jan Adhikar Party leader Pappu Yadav joined the Congress on Wednesday and announced the merger of his outfit.
Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, awarded death penalty in the 26/11 attacks case, would be among those who would be counted in the 15th national census, as part of the population enumeration exercise.
What possible answers could Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist convicted in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case, have given to queries on 'reasons of migration' and 'nature of work' by Census officials? Kasab, whose conviction and death sentence for his role in the November 2008 attacks were upheld by the Bombay high court on Monday, was counted for the 15th National Census. He reportedly answered all the questions asked by the enumerators.Kasab's age is 23 and he hails from Pak.
Inaugurating the 'Janganana Bhawan', the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Shah said census is a process that may form the basis of development agenda.
"There are differing views (in the Cabinet), but that does not mean divisions," Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said when asked about the lack of consensus at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday on conducting caste-based census.
The opposition on Tuesday termed as an 'election jumla' the women's reservation bill brought by the government with many leaders raising questions over the proposed legislation, contending it doesn't account for reservation for OBC communities and that it will be effective at the earliest by the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.
Bowing to demands by several political parties, government on Thursday decided to carry out a caste census next year.
Sources within the INDIA bloc said appointing Nitish Kumar as convenor would lend credibility to the INDIA bloc's demand for conducting a nationwide caste census.
Saini's elevation as Haryana chief minister fits in with a pattern that has gathered pace in the BJP after the Congress and its allies like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar began making an aggressive bid to woo the largest group of communities and politically most significant, especially in Hindi-speaking states, by pushing for a caste census.
The bench noted even the high court has said in its judgement that 80 per cent of the work related to the survey has been completed.
The plea filed by Nalanda resident Akhilesh Kumar submitted that in terms of the constitutional mandate, only the Union government is empowered to conduct a census.
The US needs to understand that it could potentially lose out on attracting several Netravalkars in the future if it curbs the influx of such industrious Indian immigrants, argues Vishal Menon.
The Congress on Saturday resolved to make the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) an 'ideological and electoral success' to free the country from 'divisive politics' and ensure that people get a government that is sensitive and accountable.
A census report on religion shows that the Muslim population in the country grew at the rate of 36% between 1991 and 2001. The Hindu rate of growth was 20.3% in the same period.
Embarrassed by the debate on whether its suggestion that a human being can live on Rs 32 a day in urban India, the Plan panel has said those who are not really poor should be excluded from being enumerated as being poor.
Every young diploma and degree holder in the country will have the right to apprenticeships in the private and government sectors, he said.
'What happened to Andhra Pradesh? It is the perfect example of the transientness of Federal Units.' 'Federalism is a transient thing in this country.'
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