On a day Ashok Lavasa's decision to recuse from model code of conduct complaints became public, the EC said the 'full commission' would meet on May 21 to discuss the issue of dissent and 'related matters'.
Railway officials also indicated that possible 'sabotage' and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, led to the Friday accident.
India will either have to create a system in which certain geographical areas will wind up being permanent political outsiders at the Union level or it will have to create a system in which certain votes are weighted more heavily than others, observes Mihir S Sharma.
India has once again pressed for the devolution of powers to the provinces under the 13th amendment (13A) of the Sri Lankan constitution and the system of provincial councils as a meaningful step towards better representation of the island's Tamil minority.
The national scheduled castes panel has sent a notice to IIT Madras over the de-recognition by the premier technical institute of a students' group, several of whose members are from the Dalit community, allegedly following a complaint that it was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Many of the stories, the pictures going out of India worldwide lately with these provocative processions, taunting of Muslims, bulldozers targeting mostly their properties, the sweeping 'othering' of a community of 200 million are painting the front pages and TV screens in the democratic world. That is where most of the friends we covet lie. Soon enough, these will also make our vital friends among the Muslim nations, from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, uneasy. The best time for course correction is now, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and some smaller parties will contest the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls together, and an announcement in this regard would be made soon, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Tuesday.
The demand was raised during a debate on the Constitution (123rd Amendment) Bill 2017 in the Upper House, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 2 superseding the amendments earlier carried out by the Rajya Sabha.
'This is basically aimed at vilifying Nehruvian ideals.' 'Why?' 'Because, Nehruvian leadership is seen by Hindutva forces as the one which did not let them have their Hindu Raj.' 'The Hindutva proponents have always assumed that had Sardar become the first prime minister, India could never have become a secular State,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
"Shouldn't they get Indian citizenship? Shouldn't their human rights be protected?" Shah asked the audience which responded with a resounding "yes".
Complaints to NCM fall down sharply...4,000 Indian women deserted by NRI husbands since 2016...79 districts in India still don't have blood banks...
'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
The protesters carried banners and placards reading "Shame on Pakistan" and "We will expose the real face of Pakistan". Some of the banners and placards urged Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to protect the gurdwara, one of the holiest sites in Sikhism.
It is a difficult problem and will require the Union, state governments and civil society, meaning NGOs, to work together, points out Aakar Patel.
Wang Junzheng, Tibet's new Communist party boss, is on a number of sanctions lists by the US, Britain, the EU and Canada, for his tough role in Xinjiang, aimed at China's Uyghur ethnic minority, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and distinguished China expert.
'Non-separation of religion from politics is India's most daunting challenge'
Eight eminent personalities have appealed to people to "introspect and audit" the working of the Constitution.
The ministry's year-end review is silent on the continued occupation by Chinese troops of territory that India has always claimed and patrolled.
'If Ranil Wickremesinghe starts repressing and suppressing the protesters who represent the people, that will pose a danger for him to continue in office.'
The Olympics were due to begin on Friday with an extravagant opening ceremony in the National Stadium but the Games have instead been delayed until July 23, 2021 because of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
A fact-finding team of National Human Rights Commission, led by commission member Nirmala Sawant-Prabhawalkar, today visited Murwadi village in Lakhani taluka where three minor sisters were found to have been killed after sexual abuse earlier this month.
The girl's mother alleged that her daughter was "inappropriately touched" by a classmate.
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.
The violence in Assam was a result of clashes between Bodos and 'resident Muslims' and not Bangladeshi immigrants, the National Commission for Minorities has said while recommending setting up of an Special Investigation Team to probe major incidents of violence in the state.
Sharad Pawar reckons that the NCP has value as a united, going concern, not as a gaggle of leaders in search of followers, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
The Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to hear a plea filed by the National Commission for Women (NCW) challenging the Bombay high court verdict which said that groping a minor's breast without 'skin to skin contact' cannot be termed as sexual assault as defined under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Vice President Dhankar's and Law Minister Rijuju's recent interventions have the danger of destabilising the Constitutional equilibrium, cautions N Sathiya Moorthy.
Belying all expectations, the Trinamool Congress registreted a landslide victory in West Bengal assembly elections, overcoming the might of the Bharatiya Janata Party after a bitter campaign that had turned into a virtual duel between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
'Was he afraid that his answers during cross-examination would land him in trouble under the new ruling dispensation?'
Tensions remain high across Sri Lanka after the violence broke out following the death of a man from the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority last week.
The new schedule means women's softball will kick off competition at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) in Fukushima on July 21, two days before the Games officially open, with all events taking place a day earlier than the 2020 schedule.
The Centre on Monday earmarked a separate Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres to tackle air pollution and announced the much-awaited voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and polluting vehicles, even as it shrunk the budgetary allocation for the environment ministry from the last fiscal by nearly eight percent. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech for 2021-22, announced a total of Rs 2869.93 crore for the ministry, Rs 230 crore less than the last fiscal. Officials said the outlay has been lesser this time as the economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Polling was held peacefully at the 11,697 polling booths across the state with 65.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes till the close of polls," Chief Electoral Officer Saujanya who does not use a surname said.
It is a record that the saffron party has created, where the majority of its legislators belonged to the minority community.
'It was always anticipated that the return of the Taliban would embolden armed Islamists including anti-India groups like the Lashkar and Jaish.'
The National Commission for Minorities on Thursday sent its report on the Karnataka violence to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, demanding stringent action, including a ban, against the organisations responsible for it.
'Coalition governments, sometimes assumed to mean years of political instability, actually saw key institutions emerging with greater strength -- the Election Commission, the judiciary, the press, and civil society at large, among others.' 'The question now is whether the clock is being turned back in a new political phase,' asks T N Ninan.
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.
The sources said friends of India prevailed over those of Pakistan in the European Parliament on Wednesday.
