Political watchers say the caste survey report was made public to play the OBC-EBC card and stall the BJP's campaign to win most of Bihar's 40 Lok Sabha seats.
The report states that while the national government sometimes spoke out against incidents of violence, local political leaders often did not, and at times made public remarks that individuals could interpret as condoning violence.
Religious freedom and related human rights in India are under ongoing threat, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom alleged on Tuesday in an unusual year-end update of the status of its assessment of religious freedom in the country.
Hundreds of RSS cadres are helping the Saffron party counter Lalu-Nitish's campaign on the reservation issue in Bihar polls, observes M I Khan
'What of Modi? They are willing to take their chances. Maharashtra's Muslims recall how the Congress scared them with the Bal Thackeray bogey for decades, yet, when it came to using all the might of the State to protect them from Shiv Sena goons, be it in 1970, 1984 or 1992-1993, it did nothing. For them, the Congress's secularism is a cruel joke.' 'This argument that we ('seculars') must vote for the 'winning secular candidate' has one more implication: Those who are against Hindutva must forever be stuck with the same corrupt, cynical and tired old parties, who are not even secular,' says Jyoti Punwani.
'Outside the core voter base of upper caste Hindus, there is a large section unhappy with the performance of the BJP.'
Former Bihar MP Anand Mohan, who is serving a life sentence in the killing of Indian Administrative Service officer G Krishnaiah, is to be set free along with 26 others who have been lodged in different prisons of the state for more than 14 years.
This is a brief background of the new Cabinet Ministers.
"The JNUSU rejects the punishment handed down by the administration on the basis of a farcical committee!" Kanhaiya tweeted.
A special court in Moradabad has acquitted all 74 accused, including UP Cabinet minister Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and local Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Ritesh Kumar Gupta, for allegedly attacking policemen during the protest in Kanth area of the district in 2014.
'Parties which supported me were all threatened. This could hardly have been called a fair election.' 'This is Modi's India.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party's historic Lok Sabha election success in Uttar Pradesh has influenced its two main rivals in the state, the Samajwadi Party and Congress, to field fewer Muslim candidates for the 11 assembly seats that go to the by-polls on Saturday.
"Crores of Muslim women had always demanded that triple talaq should be banned, as it is also banned in Islamic countries," he said.
'The Constitution, which talks about democracy and equality, is something that will be applied in this country, and not Manusmriti in which the RSS believes.'
'The Congress should have accepted our demands.' 'Gone are the days when it could decide how many crumbs to throw at us.' 'Now, we make the demands.'
Modi hit out at the Congress for its president Mallikarjun Kharge's attempt to play down his party's poor show in the polls by describing it as "small state elections".
'Some of his ministers have performed abysmally, and Bommai has faced an unwanted campaign of religious polarisation imposed by national BJP leaders.'
The future challenger to Narendra Modi would be somebody who can bring the Hindus and Muslims together again. The Hindus as Hindus, not broken caste groups, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution urging the Centre to extend the benefits accorded to Scheduled Castes also to those among the SCs embracing Christianity.
'How long can you keep a person in jail using false cases?'
Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi talks about the Bihar polls with M I Khan/Rediff.com
'...a more capable State -- one that operates with greater capacity, greater efficiency, and greater clarity of purpose.' 'But I also see a more despotic State -- one that places more constraints on speech, assembly, dissent, and critique.' 'It may run 'better', but on the regime's rules.'
In renaming TRS and repositioning it as a 'national' party, KCR is also eyeing a pole position in opposition politics ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
'Why potentially anybody, not only Muslims and Dalits, can be subjected to custodial death?'
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
'Education played the most significant role in entrenchment of Hindutva ideology in coastal Karnataka.' 'Teachers of most of the schools, junior colleges, degree colleges and universities are active agents of Hindutva propaganda.'
Pilot said "opportunist" people are ruling at the Centre after taking votes on emotions but they have failed the country on all fronts.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
'These charges of the prosecution will fall to the ground and I am 100 per cent sure of that.'
A 25 year-old Hindu man was brutally killed in broad public view in Hyderabad by his Muslim brother-in law and another person in a case of suspected "honour-killing," with the incident sending shock waves after the gory murder that was caught on camera went viral.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam deputy general secretary A Raja stoked a controversy over his Shudra remark and drew the Bharatiya Janata Party's ire with the saffron party accusing him of spewing hatred against a community to appease others.
'The sadhus and sanyasis of UP are not for any economics.' 'They only know the religious agenda and the RSS will support them.' 'Modi does not have full control of the party at the ground level like Indira Gandhi had.'
'If the Opposition does make a dent, it could encourage the efforts of regional parties to come together for the larger battle in 2024 and mark the beginning of a new anti-BJP politics.'
'We have made a pledge; those who kicked Rahul Gandhi out of the house he had lived for 19 years, will be kicked out from the corridors of power.'
'If you persist in opposing the government, they set the ED or the NIA on you. And the courts have not given us much hope.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat is hoping to make a clean sweep in the Dalit and tribal-dominated Sabarkantha district comprising four Assembly constituencies even as unemployment has become a major issue that the ruling party hopes to negate with Hindutva and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charisma.
The BJP and Congress have already launched spirited campaigns for the elections.
How did Arvind Kejriwal, a one-time votary of secularism, turn into a bargain-basement version of Narendra Modi, wonders Vir Sanghvi.
No one in the India of 2020 should be vulnerable and unprotected because of the caste they have been born in, says Dominic Xavier and no child should ever suffer a horrific fate like the Dalit teenager in Hathras village.
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