The Centre has imposed a ban on the Popular Front of India (PFI) and several of its associates for their alleged terror activities.
Officials said PFI has been under the radar of security agencies for its alleged role in violent protests in different parts of the country.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's comprehensive defeat to the Congress in Karnataka where the two parties ran a campaign of contrasts has left the ruling party much to ponder as the two rivals are facing a direct contest in three more state polls this year in the run-up to the all-important 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
With an eye on assembly elections after severe drubbing in Lok Sabha polls, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government on Wednesday approved 16 per cent reservation for Marathas and five per cent for Muslims in government jobs and education institutions.
'Shows of PK will continue all over Maharashtra and we will provide necessary protection to ensure smooth screening of the film,' Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said.
The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has asked Maharashtra's chief secretary and director general of police, Mumbai police commissioner and the Union home secretary to appear before it on January 31 for an in-person hearing on former Narcotics Control Bureau zonal director Sameer Wankhede's 'harassment' complaint.
Singh held the day-long meeting to review the situation arising out of some Indian youths getting attracted towards the IS, also known as ISIL or DAESH, and how to deal with the emerging challenge.z
The Popular Front of India (PFI) has been extensively using social media for recruiting youths for anti-national activities and one of the modules of the now-banned outfit even had prepared to attack foreigners, especially Jews visiting Vattakkanal, a hill station in Tamil Nadu, officials said.
The Janata Dal-United supremo, however, also appeared annoyed with parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha who had recently jumped the gun with the insinuation that the RJD could be trying to 'further the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda' by refraining from taking action against the minister.
Protests broke out in some states on Friday, including Delhi's Jama Masjid and stone-petling at policemen in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj and Saharanpur, over the controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad by two now-suspended Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries with demonstrators in Jharkhand injuring a few policemen while authorities in Jammu imposed a curfew in few areas and parts of Kashmir observed a shutdown.
It appears that the party has some kind of political death wish, observe Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
'The BJP's solo aim in Mumbai and Maharashtra is to finish off the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP.'
Continuing his tirade against Nartocits Control Bureau's Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Friday said he would expose some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and their alleged connection with the officer in the winter session of the state Legislature to be held in December.
'The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think.' 'That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.'
Unlike other top police officers, A A Khan spoke boldly --- be it while defending 'encounters' in many of which he was involved, or in tracing the cause of the ghastly Radhabai Chawl incident, recalls Jyoti Punwani. Encounters were useful, he said, because hardened criminals who were targeted were beyond reform and no good for society.
Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com reports from Shivaji Park and the MMRDA ground to sense the mood of Shiv Sena workers -- from the Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde camps.
While everyone says that in terms of actual contribution to Nanded or in moral authority, Ashok Chavan cannot compare with his father, in terms of contact with his voters, he beats S B Chavan hollow. 'Sab ko sambhaltey hain.'
Has Owaisi's MIM become an albatross for Imtiaz Jaleel, former journalist and the party's candidate in Aurangabad?
'Fixing accountability in the Congress must be addressed on a war footing.' 'It is impossible for Sonia Gandhi to know each and every party worker, so she has to rely on advisors.' 'If they guide or misguide, the blame should go to them.'
Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud's first 100 days in office saw the Supreme Court take a giant leap towards reforms, especially making courts more technology-friendly, and ensuring relatively fast judicial appointments including those of eight judges to the apex court.
Owaisi's five seats in Bihar's Muslim-majority Seemanchal region ought to ring alarm bells, observes Virendra Kapoor.
So who stands to benefit the most by a weak Opposition? What's behind the sudden public spat between the two parties?
'If any party talks too much about Muslims, it will lose.'
Social media posts and messages related to the marriage ceremony were widely circulated on WhatsApp groups and the woman's family members also received telephonic threats, he said.
With several suspected terrorist being nabbed in the state for alleged links with ISIS, the Shiv Sena on Monday urged the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis-led Government to make proactive efforts to curb the expansion of the deadly terror outfit.
Since 2014, India has left its moorings as a pluralist, modern, secular State because that is how the BJP wants it to be, notes Aakar Patel.
'I welcome Droupadi Murmu as the first Adivasi woman President of India, but her track record has not been good as a politician and governor of Jharkhand when it came to helping Adivasis,' points out activist Gladson Dungdung.
Students and social activists held a protest against the act and the NRC at the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, while a large number of people gathered for a pro-CAA rally at the historic August Kranti Maidan, where a massive protest against the Citizenship Act was held last week.
The NCP chief said that representatives of minority communities had conveyed they would not mind if his party joined hands with the Shiv Sena, but the BJP must be kept away from power in Maharashtra.
'Whenever Dalits have agitated on the streets, the government has blamed Naxalites.'
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AIMIM's Maharashtra unit chief and Aurangabad MP Imtiyaz Jaleel said, "Our party does not support the statement made by Waris Pathan. The party will seek an explanation from him over the remarks."
On legal front, Wankhede, who the NCB asserted has an impeccable service record, failed to get any relief related to an affidavit on the sensational extortion claims made by the independent witness, Prabhakar Sail, with a special court saying it cannot pass a blanket order barring courts from taking cognisance of the document.
'We were expecting death sentences, but now the court has acquitted them, despite Aseemanand himself admitting to his crime in front of a judge.' More importantly, it seems the tag of 'Hindu Terror' coined by the United Progressive Alliance government was wrong all along. Amjedullah Khan, spokesperson for the Majlis Bachao Tehreek, has been tracking the Mecca Masjid blast case from day one and was also involved in securing the release of more than 100 Muslims youths who were falsely accused in different terror cases in the aftermath of the blast. He spoke to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com about the acquittal of Swami Aseemanand and what it means.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha on Saturday announced a nationwide 'yatra' (tour) to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register. The yatra will start at Mumbai's Apollo Bunder on January 9, pass through Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Harayana and Delhi and cover a distance of over 3,000 km, Yashwant Sinha said. It will culminate at the Raj Ghat in Delhi on January 30, Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary.
The police do not have it in them to confront the Hindutva groups in a country ruled by a Hindutva party. No wonder Munawar Faruqui feels this is the end for him, asserts Jyoti Punwani.
'Maybe the BJP believes, in the post-poll scenario, it will have the might to foist, anybody endorsed by the RSS, upon Bihar,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
Vaibhav Raut, a member of 'Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti', was apprehended from Bhandar Aali in Nallasopara west on Thursday night.
'It was a reaffirmation of his party's unrelenting defiance of its erstwhile ally, the BJP; an attempt to forge a new relationship with the community the Shiv Sena had always targeted; and a pointer towards the political imperative of taking everyone along if the fight against the ruling party had to succeed,' notes Jyoti Punwani.
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