Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday accused the opposition Congress of harassing and insulting the Other Backward Classes during its rule at the Centre, and asserted that it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that gave the first OBC prime minister to the country in the form of Narendra Modi.
A constitutional amendment bill to restore the powers of the states to make their own OBC lists was passed by Parliament on Wednesday, with the opposition and treasury benches joining hands in the Rajya Sabha to approve the legislation.
The Centre has appointed senior IAS officers Vumlunmang Vualnam and Neeraj Mittal as new secretaries in the ministry of civil aviation and the department of telecommunications respectively in a major secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, a government order stated.
The controversial decision of the United Progressive Alliance-II government ahead of general elections to include Jats in Other Backward Classes category came under judicial scrutiny with the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking explanation from the Centre for allegedly ignoring the advice of a statutory body to keep the community away from reservation benefits.
Once more women assume leadership roles and join the nation-building process, he said, adding they will become a guarantee of the country's bright future.
A total of 1,016 candidates -- 664 men and 352 women -- have qualified in the examination and have been recommended by the Union Public Service Commission for appointment to various services.
'The moment the BJP loses a state, it announces some policy which never takes off.'
'Arithmetic could decide the Haryana election given the presence of multi-cornered contests.'
Instead of harvesting the wrath against the BJP and using it to their advantage by opting for a collective form of leadership, the Congress decided once again to bestow their trust in the Hooda family who were given a free hand in the distribution of tickets. This turned out to be the biggest blunder and this faulty selection was the single over riding factor in the Congress defeat, explains Rashme Sehgal.
The Bombay High Court on Friday stayed implementation of the controversial decision of the erstwhile Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government in Maharashtra to provide reservation to Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions announced ahead of the state assembly election.
Hundreds of members of the Jat community led by Harayana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday met Rahul Gandhi to thank him after the Cabinet asked the backward classes commission to expeditiously take a call on providing reservation to the community in central government jobs.
'The common belief in political circles is that if you provide reservation to somebody, s/he will automatically come up.' 'This is a very faulty understanding.'
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
BJP president J P Nadda on Wednesday announced an alliance with Apna Dal and Nishad Party, two parties that draw their support primarily from sections of backward castes, for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
The National Judicial Commission Bill, 2022, was introduced after the majority of voice votes were in its favour.
Seen by political watchers as the favourite to retain power for a third straight term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set itself an ambitious target of winning 370 Lok Sabha seats, a goal aimed as much at projecting its strength as at diminishing the opposition in popular imagination.
Rather than a blind reproduction of the government template, a more productive way of enforcing affirmative action in the private sector could be to emulate an American model, suggests Kanika Datta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to thwart alleged attempts to rob Dalits and backward classes of reservations by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) which he accused of 'enslavement' and performing 'mujra' for Muslim vote bank.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided it would not adopt the path of appeasement and vote bank politics.
Petrol price cut by 50 paisa a litre; diesel by 46 paisa.
Brand India's societal divisions and distortions have remained as much relevant in 'liberal' America and Europe as it still is in the structurally stratified Indian society of the 21st century, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If you solve it in one day, it will go after a day.' 'If it is there for 100 years or 1,000 years, reservation has to continue.'
He blamed 'bad elements' encouraged by ruling Telugu Desam Party for the violence that erupted at Tuni in the district on Sunday, and alleged that the TDP government tried to suppress his agitation by creating obstacles to the public meeting.
There are concerns within the Congress with respect to the articulation of the party's demand for the caste census, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently accusing the grand old party of attempting to divide Hindus through its push for the Other Backward Classes.
Prasad also attacked the previous United Progressive Alliance government for letting the women's reservation bill, introduced by it, lapse.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers in the first list of 195 candidates.
The government told the HC that 'Maratha community comprises people belonging to various castes and since the country doesn't conduct caste-based census anymore,' it was proving rather 'difficult' to get hold of the requisite data.
The Congress seems to be heading for the Karnataka polls so far on the strength of its local leadership and focusing on issues concerning the state, making corruption a central theme of its campaigning.
She lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, holding them responsible for the lack of jobs and migration from the state.
Hitting out at the ruling Congress in Karnataka, he said the party failed to confer the Bharat Ratna on Ambedkar when it was in power.
After lying low for some time now, veteran congress leader Arjun Singh, who created a nationwide furore after asking for reservation for backward class students in higher education, is once again out to create trouble for the party leadership.
Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
Garima Lohia, Uma Harathi N and Smriti Mishra secured the second, third and fourth ranks respectively in the examination, results of which were declared on Tuesday.
The Child Protection Services programme under the Integrated Child Development Services was increased to Rs 1,500 crore from Rs 925 crore.
Pawar said, "I will meet PM Narendra Modi on July 18. During the meeting, I will take up various issues related to farmers with him. (NCP leader) Praful Patel and I will attend the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) meeting."
"You cannot just pick Rs 8 lakh out of the thin air and fix it as a criteria. There has to be some basis, some study. Tell us whether any demographic study or data was taken into account in fixing the limit. How do you arrive at this exact figure? Can the Supreme Court strike down the criteria, if no study was undertaken?" the Supreme Court asked.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
For the first time in more than 70 years, a sample count of the Other Backward Classes has been made with an official survey.
Senior state leaders of the two parties pointed to propping up of the "new set of leaders not having much political stature" and lack of communication for the failure to reconcile differences.
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