Muslims constitute 20% of UP's electorate. Currently, Muslim voters are divided between Akhilesh's SP and Mayawati's BSP. What will tilt the balance? Can Muslims back the winning party? Mohammad Sajjad explains the mysteries of UP's Muslim politics.
Ahmedabad's cultural scene would not have gone beyond the garba, but for Mrinalini Sarabhai's pioneering efforts.
'I had to submit my resignation from the BJP after just two weeks because they were very regressive.' 'There was no space for a free thinking individual.'
In the face of strong opposition to Uniform Civil Code by Muslim outfits, the Congress on Thursday said its implementation would be impossible while the Bharatiya Janata Party asserted that the move is aimed at moving towards a progressive society.
Those who feel the irresistible need to express strong sentiment for our nation and its contents must consider being pro-Indian, whether this Indian be jawan, cobbler, Kashmiri, lesbian, Dalit, protester, pujari, businessman or child.
RSS ideologue and former BJP general secretary K N Govindacharya talks about commemorating the deaths of naga sadhus and sants who were killed in police firing on November 7, 1966.
MUST READ: The speech Nayantara Sahgal was not allowed to give.
Former Miss India Niharika Singh alleged Nawaz grabbed her and told her it was his dream to have a Miss India or an actress wife.
'His selection is to honour the sentiment of the communal majoritarianism, satisfy the upper caste and continue the process of Hindutva.'
'Modi and Shah know their politics. That is why the alarmed switch to reservations, and raising the threat from 'vote bank' politics,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Mayawati urged the Muslim voters to vote for the party, saying her party has given tickets to 99 candidates from the community.
At a time when the BJP is facing a perception battle, is Sambit Patra, its national spokesperson, helping the party's image?
As male bovines today account for only 28 per cent of India's cattle, it clearly shows that it is the bulls and not the cows that are mostly being butchered. This makes it clear that cow slaughter is not a problem but the slaughter of male bovines is whose main utility today is in the value of their meat, says Murad Ali Baig.
'For Nitish Kumar the message is to be democratic. With the support of the BJP, he had suppressed criticism in Bihar. He would also need to change his highly authoritarian way of governance.' 'The Grand Alliance, given the decisive mandate in its favour, cannot afford to fail the people. They have a duty to make it a model for the rest of India,' says Apoorvanand.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mouthpiece 'Organiser' has justified the action taken against a Dalit students body by IIT, Madras, and claimed educational campuses are "afflicted with red ideology."
Among very few woman editors in Kannada journalism, she was a fierce activist, who openly expressed her pro-Naxal and Leftist views.
'In a country like India, it is clear that respecting religions -- in politics or in the kitchen -- is disastrous,' says Amberish K Diwanji.
Reason must triumph over blind faith, says Praful Bidwai in this tribute to murdered rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said there was "some amount" of intolerance in the society which has to be identified and dealt with firmly, instead of generalising it.
Members of all parties condemned the killings in the name of cow.
'The dirt in the Indian Ocean must be less than the abuses Narendra Modi got from secular forces.' 'If you are going to put the blame on the central government and the RSS for every wrongdoing, then it is not going to serve any purpose, rather it will complicate the issue instead of resolving it.' 'There are fringe elements in every society, but for an ideal State it is important to finish off the fringe elements.'
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday launched a scathing attack on opposition BJP over its "double-standard" attitude towards corruption and attempt to "divide the society on communal lines".
'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.
'They call us Punjabis as nashedi (drug addicts). So I also asked him with a smile, 'aaj aap kaunsa kar ke aaye hain (what did you take today). He failed to realise my gesture but only saw me smiling,' Akali leader and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur said.
Jayalalithaa's attack on BJP's PM hopeful a little too late in the coming, says N Sathiya Moorthy
Amidst indications that Samajwadi Party leader and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is warming up to the idea of an alliance with Congress, UP PCC President Raj Babbar on Monday said his party will contest alone in the state and described such talks as "hypothetical".
According to community leaders, Rajnath Singh has filled party posts with Thakurs and pushed Brahmins to the margins. Archis Mohan reports
'The people of the state can be won over by love, and not by swords.'
'Open defecation kills more Indians than any terrorist organisation could, but turning that around will take communicating that all Indians are created equal and that continuing this practice is anti-national,' points out Rahul Jacob.
'The judge said that anybody who does not believe in the RSS ideology is not acceptable to you. You have terminated his contract because he thought differently.' 'The Modi government has no accomplishment to show. Therefore, they are using the tool of nationalism to divert the country's attention from very serious things like farmers suicides and the water crisis.' 'You cannot simply dismiss anyone because they are not willing to raise a slogan and not think like you.'
President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other leaders condoled the death of the seer.
The Congress considers the community to be in its fold without bothering about its representation or welfare while the BJP assumes that the Muslims would not vote for its candidates, says Shafeeq Rahman.
The spread of Modism is in reality spread of a personality cult and not a political ideology, says Vidyut Joshi.
Dharmendra Kumar Singh explains the four major factors that contributed to Modi's win in the 2014 elections.
Given the subdued pre-poll voter-behaviour in the state over the past couple of decades and more, and the inability of individual political parties to cobble together an alliance and announce candidates, or both, to launch grassroots-level campaigns early on, close fights with landslide victory is an equal possibility, N Sathiyamoorthy.
'The real danger in India right now is that identity politics is being stoked in extremely dangerous ways.' 'The narrative you get about churches in the mainstream Indian media and the narrative you get in the social media is very different.' 'Many Americans today want to appropriate Indian culture. They want yoga, but they say yoga has nothing to do with Hinduism. They want Ayurveda, but they say it's got nothing to do with Hinduism.' 'Hinduism has been failed by political constituencies in India -- seculars and the right-wing.'
A total of 1,203 candidates, including 109 women, are contesting for the 140 assembly seats in which a total of 2.61 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah and chief ministers of National Democratic Alliance-ruled States are at the ceremony.
'He is a man whose utterances have been so virulent and communalistic.' 'That's why many people did not look at him as the party's choice for chief minister.' 'UP is the state that reports the largest number of communal incidents every year.' 'Modi may not be using the Hindutva card, but he never condemns the incidents too.'
"Our only solace is that Modi will win Varanasi, but there will be a by-election here. Modi will not be able to cobble 272 seats to become prime minister so he will remain the chief minister of Gujarat. He will resign from Varanasi and then we will ensure Kerjiwal's handsome win." Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reports on how Varanasi's 300,000 Muslim voters are strategising their vote.
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