'...if elections were to be held today.' 'The problem is Akhilesh is not very aggressive.' 'Had he started his campaign aggressively six months ago, the picture in UP would have been very different.'
Asked about the family's consent for the funeral of the victim, the brother said, "No, they did it on their own. We are scared. Police forced us to take the body to the cremation ground."
In the recent past, Adityanath and the RSS seem to have come closer. The warmth is more on the part of the RSS. And even now, not all requests from the RSS are accommodated by the UP government, points out Aditi Phadnis.
Toomey said he has personally witnessed the spirit of Sikhs and has come to better understand the Sikh tradition that is founded on equality, respect, and peace.
Though the Patidar-dominated Morbi Assembly seat in Gujarat is considered a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the poll equations this time may change due to many factors, including the recent bridge tragedy which claimed 135 lives, political observers say.
The Congress and BJP are apprehensive that AAP might eat into their votes among the Patel community, Kshatriyas, a section of minorities, and Dalits, thus delivering a fatal blow in the closely-contested seats. But the local BJP is elated over the entry of AIMIM as there will be a contender for minority votes apart from the Congress in seats like Bhuj and Mandvi, which have considerable Muslim electorate.
A Muslim man's beard was allegedly shaved off in Gurugram.
'There are moments, and the hanging of Yakub Memon was one, where all of the gathered injustices are crystallised. Those gathered at the graveyard were not there to protest. They came to sympathise because they are also victims,' says Aakar Patel.
'Muslims have been exploited for 65 years. They have been reduced to a community of committees and commissions. Nothing happens. Since 1947 they are worse than Dalits.' 'Muslims voted en-bloc once upon a time. Not now. Muslims are fragmented everywhere. They have the same choices as the Hindus in that area.' 'Muslims are not alienated. The alienation is between the haves and have-nots. Poverty in India has both Hindus and Muslims.'
Vast experience in running the government and mass appeal across the state have favoured Siddaramaiah in the tightly contested race for Karnataka chief minister.
'They must take the bull of conservatism within their own ranks by its horns as much as they need to speak out against the fallacies of the non-Hindutva (or 'Muslim-friendly') political forces as well,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Family members of the victims say they have been denied justice even 16 years after the incident in which 58 Dalits were butchered allegedly by upper-caste Ranvir Sena men. M I Khan reports
'There are around 400 Lok Sabha constituencies where Dalits and Muslims combined constitute 30% of the electorate.' 'Also, 90% to 95% of Dalits and Muslims go out and vote.' 'So, if they are come together, they become significant electorally.'
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.
These Muslim women are poor and illiterate but, with the devotion they display as they create handmade earthen stoves for Chhath, they strengthen the social fabric, says M I Khan.
SP leader Akhilesh Yadav has successfully poached a number of OBC leaders from the ruling party, including Swami Prasad Maurya, in his efforts to broaden his party's social base beyond the traditional Muslim and Yadav votebank to take it on this time round.
The Centre has appointed a commission headed by former CJI K G Balakrishnan to examine the matter of giving Scheduled Caste status to new people who claim to "historically" have belonged to the Scheduled Castes but have converted to a religion other than those mentioned in the presidential orders.
'Muslims are depressed and disillusioned.' 'The safety valve is that we still have a multicultural mosaic in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.'
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.
Amit Shah's sustained campaigning against slaughterhouses has unnerved UP's leather and meat export industry.
A Ganesh Nadar visits the village in Tamil Nadu that shot into national prominence in 1981 when half the Dalits there converted to Islam. He spoke to the Hindus and Muslims and came back with two very different stories.
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.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Thursday allotted six constituencies to ally Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi for the April 6 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
This is a brief background of the new Cabinet Ministers.
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.
The SC, however, rejected NIA's request for immediate stay to the order.
The legislator from West Bengal claimed that there were several incidents where people across the country had been attacked by "cow vigilantes" over rumours of eating beef and smuggling cattle.
'Some of his ministers have performed abysmally, and Bommai has faced an unwanted campaign of religious polarisation imposed by national BJP leaders.'
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".
'...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.'
'The BJP is the most progressive force within Hinduism today.'
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.
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.
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.
'How long can you keep a person in jail using false cases?'
'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.
The Union home ministry on Thursday recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the affairs of the Indian arm of the global NGO Oxfam for alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, sources said.
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."
"Crores of Muslim women had always demanded that triple talaq should be banned, as it is also banned in Islamic countries," he said.
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.
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