'There is something in our desh ki mitti that has held us together.'
'So many conquerors, colonisers, cultures came and went, but we withstood them and rose up again.'
The discriminatory CAB was passed by the Lok Sabha late into the night on Monday, December 9 and is currently being discussed by the Rajya Sabha.
'The entire brouhaha with regard to the CAB smacks of blatant Hinduphobia, a duplicitous exercise, morally corrupt in its construct and aimed at divesting deserving Hindus of basic human rights by raising the bogey of Muslim discrimination, and must be called out for what it is,' says Vivek Gumaste.
It is going to be a rough and brutal 2020 for India as its government pushes on with its ideological agenda, and the citizens do whatever they can to protect themselves, notes Aakar Patel.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen said any 'uncertainty' over the issue in India is likely to affect its neighbours. The minister asserted that his country trusts India.
The Congress had dubbed the BJP's election manifesto a "Jhansa Patra" (deception document) and a "bubble of lies" on Monday and said it would have been better had the saffron party issued a "maafinama" instead.
'One is happy. The moment one starts criticising the BJP, ED, IT and CBI comes to one's house.'
Setalvad said working on a deeply polarising issue among the public is not an easy one and added that the impact of social media on polarization is also overwhelming.
On compilation of six crucial documents, it was found that around two lakh of them from one crore were forged.
"India cannot be the refugee capital of the world," the Solicitor General said, adding there was a need to re-look the draft NRC list through sample verification.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought data on the beneficiaries of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act in Assam, saying there was no material before it which could indicate that the effect of granting Indian citizenship to Bangladeshi immigrants between 1966 and 1971 was so great that it impacted the demographic and cultural identity of the border state.
Shah also challenged Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to show one clause in the CAA under which anyone is going to lose Indian citizenship.
The PM is seen as slipping up in confidence levels as aired by his 'exposure' of the BRS on a crucial issue as alliance negotiations, which is not done under normal circumstances, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
An Indian national, who went missing in Pakistan's restive northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in 2012, was taken away by intelligence agencies from a police station before his disappearance, police has said.
'Most Assamese don't understand a word like ghuspethiya and its insulting connotation.'
'There is a design of fundamentalists that the north east must become an Islamic country.'
Shah said police used force as the protesters indulged in violence, set blaze vehicles. He also said the NRC was not a religion-based exercise.
Overall, the record of the second term reveals a contradiction between the image and the reality. The image, especially on media and social media, is one of the man at the height of his power, and unstoppable. The reality on governance is someone who has found it difficult to get things implemented and unsure of what to do next, points out Aakar Patel.
Heavy security has also been put in place at the Chepauk area ahead of the protest as protesters proposed to lay siege to the Secretariat and the District Collector's office against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
They would call US citizens and demand their financial and bank details, failing which they would allegedly threaten them with dire consequences, including legal action and jail term
Seven men who allegedly barged into a hotel room and attacked an interfaith couple during their stay in Haveri district of Karnatka have been charged with gangrape after the victim complained that she was sexually assaulted by them, the police said on Friday.
A group of artists held a protest in Mumbai on Saturday against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act by creating paintings around the theme of 'Save Constitution'. The protest was organised by the Secular Movement and the Secular Artist Movement at the Azad Maidan in south Mumnbai. Some 90 artists from across the state, including Prakash Bhise, Sudharak Olwe, Prabhakar Kamble and Nandkumar Jogdand, created several canvas paintings against CAA.
To facilitate the appeals, 200 new FTs will be functional from Monday, in addition to 100 already existing.
'We expect to get the approval in the next few weeks,' says Deepak Sapra, CEO, API and pharmaceutical services, Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL).
In a tweet, TMC national spokesperson and Rajya Dabha MP Derek O'Brien detailed the circumstances under which the arrest was made.
There is confusion around the registration guidelines and the cut-off dates for acquiring the degrees.
Congress leaders targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party government for conferring the Padma Shri on singer Adnan Sami, saying that an Indian Army soldier Mohammad Sanaullah could not find his name in the National Register of Citizens in Assam, but the son of a Pakistan air force officer had been selected for the civilian award.
'We are facing a crackdown for more than a year. Our permission to collect funds was cancelled. Our bank accounts were frozen.' 'We believe that our work in India is very important. We want to be the environment watchdog. We do not want to waste time fighting legal battles.'
'The central and Assamese governments want to get 35 lakh to 40 lakh Bangladeshis (Hindus) to come to Assam and make the Assamese people a minority.' 'They want to make Assam a Bengali state.' 'Bengalis by nature are BJP supporters whereas Assamese people don't support the BJP.'
Padukone has been drawing flak from right wing leaders and trolls for expressing solidarity with the students on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in New Delhi who were protesting against the January 5 violence.
'It is a sad day when social activists, environmental campaigners, anti-corruption workers are singled out as anti-nationals and then criminalised.'
Two people, one legally assisting the affected people because of their exclusion from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and another whose relative has been declared a 'foreigner' by the quasi-judicial Foreigners' Tribunal (FT), talk to Rediff.com about the issues on the ground that people excluded from the NRC are facing and how it can turn into a long-drawn legal process.
Setting aside their political differences, the ruling CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front and Opposition Congress headed United Democratic Front, once again came together to launch a joint fight against the Centre on the CAA, which has seen unprecedented protests all over the country.
The list showed the total number of applicants was 3,29,91,385 out of which 40,07,717 names, which is 12.15 per cent, were not included.
'We cannot accept that this incident was not in the knowledge of the home ministry.' 'If they had no knowledge about this incident, then it is a big intelligence failure as the Union home ministry has no idea what is going on in Manipur and what the state police is doing.'
The home ministry said only asymptomatic people would be allowed to travel and it would be arranged by aircraft and naval ships, and the facility will be available on a payment basis.
He questioned why only migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will be given citizenship under the amended law and not the Sri Lankan Tamils.
'It is because of our close relationship with the government of India that we are able to discuss difficult issues with them'
The rules under the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which was enacted over a year ago, are under preparation, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
United Against Hate started as an on-and-off campaign against lynching; today, with the passing of the Citizen (Amendment) Act, its members are on the street, protesting.
