'We can't sit back clutching our memories of the riots. The country, the future of our children are more important.' Jyoti Punwani reports on an unusual election meeting in Mumbai.
'We are only going to the Supreme Court to protect the rights (of Muslims) which are given by the Constitution. Nothing more,' says Indian Union Muslim League MP P V Abdul Wahab, explaining why the IUML has challenged the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Supreme Court.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari attributed the party's poor performance in Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal to lack of support from the minority community, asserting that 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' was unnecessary and proposing instead 'Hum unke saath jo humare saath' (we are with those who are with us).
'...We should first look at and acknowledge what we have done to ourselves.' 'To not do so opens us to the accusation of rank hypocrisy and also reduces the stature of our globetrotting peaceniks,' asserts Aakar Patel.
Immediately following its ban being lifted on July 11, 1949, the RSS began debating entering politics in the pages of its house organ, The Organiser. Thus was born the Jana Sangh/BJP, points out Aakar Patel.Thus Was Born Jana Sangh/BJP, asserts Aakar Patel.
The Great Indian Family, observes Sukanya Verma, is a cheerful fable that points out the absurdity of discrimination as a tool employed by power hungry opportunists.
Even a whiff of an incident like the violent 1989 shirt-ripping attack on Krishnamachari Srikkanth by a Karachi spectator would be ruinous. It would set back the ties further, derail an ongoing tournament, and harden Indian attitudes on playing Pakistan anywhere at all, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Opposition had dubbed the directives issued by the three states as divisive and discriminatory against Muslims, and the apex court's order effectively ensured that the Yatra was held without their orders being enforced.
This Muri Ghonto recipe has its origins in former East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh.
Today, hour-long, high-pitched 'debates' at prime time, replete with inflammatory visuals and captions, using half-truths, insinuations and lies, pour venom against Muslims and seek to divide Hindus and Muslims, notes Jyoti Punwani.
True, Azam Khan is being targeted rather disproportionately and also because of his Muslim identity. That must be protested and resisted. But to say that he is a big messiah, and his profit-making educational enterprise is an issue concerning all Muslims of India, is absolutely unjustified, assert Mohammad Sajjad and Md Mohammad Zeeshan Ahmad.
While there is no denying that certain sections of the community deserve aid, the politics of reservation can be suicidal for India.
A group of men from West Bengal were handed over to the police by Vishwa Hindu Parishad members in Shahjahanpur for allegedly offering namaaz on the roadside.
Addressing a health card distribution ceremony in Peshawar, Chief Minister Khan said the government has issued orders to rebuild the temple. The attack on the temple in Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's (KP) Karak district on Wednesday drew strong condemnation from human rights activists and the minority Hindu community leaders.
'The Congress today has lost contact with the Hindu clergy.' 'They go to to Hindu clergy only during the time of elections.'
He was commenting on a video that has surfaced on social media showing some men sporting saffron scarves heckling a woman in 'hijab' and raising slogans at a college in Karnataka.
'What the Hinduisation of Muslim names by the BJP suggests is that the party's anti-Muslim outlook matches the virulence of almost any other far right outfit such as the Ku Klux Klan,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
The Pune police registered a case against Hindu seer Kalicharan Maharaj, right-wing leader Milind Ekbote and four others for allegedly making inflammatory speeches during an event in Pune and hurting religious sentiments, officials said on Wednesday.
'What was said about Muslims was the most important part of the three-day RSS 'seminar'.'
Such is the force of his oratory that many Muslims, even those who don't vote for him, have come to believe that Asaduddin Owaisi is the first and only politician who speaks up for Muslims since Independence, observes Jyoti Punwani
There is a limit to ignoring genuine aspirations of the people and suppressing their legitimate voice in running the affairs of the state, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
In the wake of several Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states using bulldozers to raze the houses of persons accused of being involved in criminal activities, senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Indresh Kumar on Wednesday said this action was not targeted at any particular community, but against those involved in some crime.
'Party workers sit outside polling booths and they know everything that is happening.' 'Besides, as a voter when you push the EVM button to vote there is a paper slip that comes out showing you who you voted for.'
Why not agree that, yes, India is a Hindu country though not all Indians are Hindus? And that for those who are not, our Constitution is sturdily secular and always will be, says Karti Sandilya.
'The problem of a Hindu rashtra is that it has no text which can be adapted to the modern world.' 'The most prominent element of the Hindu way of organising society and the State is through caste.' 'This is not acceptable to most Hindus.' 'Because a Hindu rashtra also erodes the power and the rights of the majority of Hindus, we can be assured that this is not something that the BJP, or any other force can do,' argues Aakar Patel.
Sources said the parties have sought settlement under the provisions of The Places of Worship Act, 1991 which provides that no dispute with regard to any mosque or other religious places, which have been constructed after demolition of temples and are existing as in 1947, would be raised in a court of law.
Bhagwat further emphasised that no Muslim will face any loss due to the citizenship law.
District judge A K Vishvesh on Friday directed the ASI to conduct a detailed scientific survey -- including excavations, wherever necessary -- to determine if the mosque in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh is built upon a temple.
'This poem was written against a fundamentalist called Zia-ul-Haq, a dictator. It is interesting that fundamentalists, all kinds of, don't like this poem'
Protests against the killing of a Hindu school teacher in Kulgam continued to rock several parts of Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts of Jammu and Kashmir on the second consecutive day on Wednesday.
This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
The lawyers said the mediation panel's report was leaked to the media and they do not approve the procedures adopted in the process and the suggested compromise formula of withdrawal of the lawsuit.
'Sri Ayodhyaji will emerge as the greatest centre of cultural togetherness, universal harmony, vasudeva kutumbakam, compassion, and love for every single living being on this Earth.'
Ramdev said one does not need to hide their name, but do one's work with truth and honesty.
The RSS does not mind playing politics with religion-based census data despite knowing well that it is completely flawed, says Syed Firduas Ashraf.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Rana's blistering attack came in response to AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi's controversial speech in 2013 that it would take them only '15 minutes' to balance the 'Hindu- Muslim ratio' in the country if the police were removed.
Aggrieved by the direction, Dhar city's head cleric Waqar Sadiq said they (Kamal Maula Mosque management committee) will challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has honoured Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain refugees by giving them citizenship through Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Union home minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday and maintained there is no provision of stripping of anyone's citizenship in the new law.
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