The objective of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, enacted in 2019, is to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim persecuted minorities -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
A prominent Islamic shrine in Bareilly has issued a decree banning religious conversion by force or allurement, endorsing Uttar Pradesh's recent ordinance aimed at curbing inter-faith marriages as an alleged ploy for conversion.
Kumar had recently dumped the 'Mahagathbandhan', of which the Rashtriya Janata Dal was a key constituent, and returned to the NDA fold to form the government with support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'It is an existential crisis. We cannot recover lost ground through social media. We need to forge alliances and reshape our ideological contours.'
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
On Tuesday, yoga guru Ramdev Baba became the first non-Muslim cleric addressed the annual convention of Islamic seminaries under the guidance of Islamic organisation Jamait-e-Ulema Hind at the historic seminary in Deoband, about 500 km from Lucknow, which is known for its sweeping influence over majority of Sunni Muslims in the country.
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
In the 2020 edition of its annual report on International Religious Freedom, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) alleged that religious freedom in India witnessed a drastic downward turn.
'The Congress wants to eat the cake, but does not want to share it.'
The reports of Sachar and Ranganath Misra committees on minority welfare on Thursday generated heat in the Lok Sabha, with RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his SP counterpart Mulayam Singh Yadav charging the government with being anti-Muslim and leading walkout by their party members.
Interim Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi has put forward a proposal to legally dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood.
'Why do sections of Muslims seem to prefer Lalu and Mulayam who symbolise wilful neglect of governance and development? In this election, secularism is less at stake. What is more at stake is the degenerative, cynical, opportunistic, and discredit-worthy misuse of secularism by the non-BJP leaders and their social constituencies,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The Assam government wants to ban polygamy as "a component of the Uniform Civil Code" and will form a committee to examine whether the state legislature was empowered to prohibit the practice prevalent in parts of the state, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday.
The former external affairs minister said, ""It was a problem of communication. But diplomacy is all about communication and if you are not able to communicate properly, what kind of diplomacy you are having."
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Sunday suspended party MLA Rama Bai for supporting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Rama Bai, who represents Patheriya Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh's Damoh district, on Saturday evening supported the Citizenship (Amendment) Act at a function held in her constituency where Union minister Prahlad Patel was present.
'As CIC, you have the power to comment on policy matters. 'If you have very strong beliefs and you know your rulings will be reported, you will express your beliefs.'
BJP leader Narendra Modi on Sunday attacked Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav accusing them of indulging in vote bank politics and "misleading" Muslims in the name of secularism.
The protests over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act notwithstanding, the players' auction for the Indian Premier League will go ahead in Kolkata as scheduled on Thursday. There have been reports of violence in West Bengal but Kolkata hasn't exactly been affected.
The complainant accused the Consulting Editor of spreading false news about the scheme offered by the corporation and trying to disturb communal harmony in the state.
'They are not affected by ISIS' sentiment of avenging the suffering of the global ummah.' 'They have a huge ummah of their own in India, a huge Muslim population.' 'And because of that, they have to take into consideration the political and social conditions of Muslims in India.' 'They have to express themselves in a more political way and not through terrorism.'
One of the schoolgirls who had disappeared from her home in Britain to travel to Syria has tweeted a picture that appears to confirm she has joined terror group Islamic State.
According to sources, Singh also asked party MPs to be present in large numbers when Home Minister Amit Shah tables the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, as he asserted that this draft legislation is as important as the move to abrogate Article 370.
'I am a Muslim and if my Hindu brothers were to march to my house and if that were to give birth to any controversy, then this government will use it to exploit another issue.' 'I don't want to give BJP leaders a chance to play their communal politics.'
The Tablighi Jamaat avoided confrontation, stayed clear of conversion of non-Muslims, abjured politics and focused only on religious attainment. >A fascinating excerpt from Ziya Us Salam's Inside The Tablighi Jamaat.
Imam Abdul Rauf, who is heading plans to build a Muslim community centre near the site of attacks of 9/11 attacks in New York, asked the followers of all faiths to join hands against radicalism, which he says exists in all religions.
India's secular democracy remains mortgaged to rabid communal politics. Quite clearly, the bloodshed by the religious communities is absolutely political. Even non-BJP political formations have their own Narendra Modis, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'What The Kerala Story is trying to do is take the fake hate propaganda which we saw earlier only on WhatsApp to the big screen now.'
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
Cautioning against the presence of Jihadis, who try to cultivate communalism, religious disharmony, intolerance and contempt across the world, in Kerala also, the Bishop said they were using different means to destroy other religions.
The submission was vehemently opposed by senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, representing deity 'Ram Lalla', who said: "This is totally unwarranted".
The party had supported CAB in Lok Sabha. Sena MP said the govt did not give satisfactory answers to the concerns raised by the party.
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
In a searing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government, Sena leader and MP Sanjay Raut also said that in view of Kashmiri Pandits once again fleeing from the Valley, 'Kashmir Files 2' should be made to show who is responsible for their current plight.
Hashim Amla will make history on Wednesday when he takes the field as South Africa's first permanent non-white skipper, helming a team in transition after the retirements of Test greats Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis.
'The state government does not believe in disallowing non-Hindus to do business outside Hindu temples.'
A right-wing group on Sunday said it had issued a "diktat" barring entry of Muslims at Garba events during the upcoming Navratri festival at Mandvi town in Gujarat's Kutch district to prevent "love jihad" incidents.
'The othering of religious groups inevitably leads to violence.' 'It is sadly a narrative that has echoed through the centuries since man first discovered God.'
'Islam says the person who has been hurt has the right to pardon the accused. So don't ask me on whether I will pardon Narendra Modi or not. Go and ask this question to Gujarati Muslims who have been hurt.' 'Secular and non-secular is not an issue for Muslims. The day Muslims become strong, the non-secular guys will become secular. And if Muslims are weak, the same secular guys will cut the throats of Muslims.' 'The secular character of India can never be finished. India is secular by its nature. Whoever comes to power, he will have to become secular to rule,' Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad Naqvi tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
Have you suffered on account of such restrictions and prejudices? If yes, tell us your story.
At least 200 religious scholars in Pakistan have issued a fatwa terming suicide attacks as "un-Islamic" and said the Islamic governments are bound to crush rebel groups like the Taliban, ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
