The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat on Friday passed a bill in the assembly that earmarks 27 per cent seats in local bodies like panchayats, municipalities and civic corporations for Other Backward Classes.
Now, in Gujarat, it's either vote or face a penalty.
The Gujarat high court on Friday stayed the implementation of a law that makes voting compulsory in the civic body elections in the state.
On Monday, Gujarat Governor OP Kohli signed the Gujarat Local Authorities Laws Bill, hereby making voting in civic polls a must.
The Narendra Modi government in Gujarat has made a decision to bring into force an amendment bill during the forthcoming assembly session in the state, that would make it compulsory to vote during local body elections.
Much drama is likely to continue in the coming year, within the Sangh Parivar as well as involving the Opposition parties and, of course the BJP's allies, predicts Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought response from the Centre and the Election Commission on a Public Interest Litigation seeking a direction to them to frame of guidelines to ensure that more citizens cast their votes in the polls.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
They realised that the Portuguese were better prepared to defend Daman than Dadra and Nagar Haveli. If reinforcements from Daman were to reach Silvassa, there was no chance of defeating the Portuguese. They decided that cutting Daman's communication lines would have to be their top priority before attacking Silvassa. A fascinating excerpt from Neelesh Kulkarni's new book, Uprising-The Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has released a draft to amend the Indian Ports Act, 1908, which aims to bring in sweeping reforms in the sector by bringing non-major ports into the national fold, creating a new mechanism for resolution of disputes, and empowering maritime state development council (MSDC). The draft bill will see comments from stakeholders before being tabled in Parliament. "The Indian Ports Act, 1908 is more than 110 years old. It has become imperative that the Act is revamped to reflect the present-day frameworks, incorporate India's international obligations, address emerging environmental concerns, and aid the consultative development of the ports sector in the national interest," the shipping ministry said.
The apex court also pulled up the Gujarat government for extending the deadline till July next year for hospitals to rectify the building by-laws violations, and said the "carte blanche" notification was in teeth of its order of December 18 last year and people will continue to die in fire incidents.
Medical seats for under-graduates and post-graduates remaining vacant in the NEET era, together with the Centre 'freezing' the number of medical colleges and seats in (Dravidian) Tamil Nadu and the launch of the PM's 'Vishwakarma Scheme' for the nation's craftsmen, are all seen as a bid to further reverse the state's progressive socio-economic agenda of and its achievements of the past hundred-plus years, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The UPA was the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The NDA is the gang that can't stop shooting. They (the Modi government) are shooting at anybody, everybody, all directions, shooting themselves in the foot.'
Though the list of superstitious beliefs is long, often dissolving distinctions of class, caste, religion and education, Karnataka's anti-superstition bill is seen as a big step ahead.
'Most Hindus believe in living in peace with their Muslim neighbours and vice versa.' 'It is this India we have to preserve.'
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
Around 700 migrant workers, women and children have lost their lives in this reverse migration. But what is happening today with the migrant labour is only a continuation of the policies pursued by the Modi regime during the last six years. It is not for nothing that India was ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women in 2018 by the Thompson Reuters Foundation poll, points out Rashme Sehgal.
Inter-ministerial programmes have run into obstacles as rules written by bureaucrats hamper rather than promote investments.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
Out of these, no balance has been found in case of 289 accounts
The government has decided to ban Indian women from being surrogate mothers to foreigners to stop 'commercial surrogacy'. How will this decision affect surrogacy in India?
'Kejriwal has taken a leaf out of Modi's campaign of 2014 and improved upon it.' 'That suit will haunt Modi till he exits politics.' 'Of all the factors that favoured Kejriwal, the biggest was the arrogance and over-confidence of the Modi-Shah led BJP.' 'What the Congress could not do in the last two decades in Gujarat, Kejriwal did it in no time in Delhi.' 'The BJP has behaved exactly like the Congress in decoding Kejriwal's politics.'
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