Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
Last year, Delhi and other leading states of the Indian Union witnessed widescale protests against the government of India's decision to reserve 27 per cent seats for OBC's in the medical and professional institutions.
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.
The Maharashtra government has moved the Supreme Court seeking recall of its order by which it had directed the State Election Commission (SEC) not to re-notify the poll process to 367 local bodies, where it has already commenced, in order to provide reservation to OBCs.
The Supreme Court, examining whether states can sub-classify the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the grant of a quota within a quota, said on Thursday that the state governments cannot be selective in granting reservation benefits to backward classes as it will lead to a dangerous trend of appeasement.
2019 was the Bharatiya Janata Party's breakout year, when it stretched the boundaries of what was thought possible and ended up with 303 seats on its own steam. Now it is forced to play defence, on a pitch queered by too many variables, asserts Prem Panicker.
Will a caste census make tens of millions desert Mr Modi?, asks Shekhar Gupta.
The city police told the Delhi high court on Friday they have granted permission to Mission Save Constitution, an organisation that claims to be working for protection of citizen rights, to hold an 'All India Muslim Mahapanchayat' at the Ramlila grounds on December 18 subject to certain conditions for safe and smooth conduct of the event.
Wadettiwar said he was not opposed to the idea of increasing the overall quota ceiling to accommodate the Maratha community.
Activist Manoj Jarange, who is observing an indefinite fast for the Maratha quota demand, on Saturday said a series of hunger strikes will begin in every village in Maharashtra from October 29 if the government fails to grant the reservation immediately.
The 10 who put in their papers include nine Lok Sabha MPs, including Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Prahlad Patel, and the one Rajya Sabha member, officials said.
The Congress on Saturday resolved to make the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) an 'ideological and electoral success' to free the country from 'divisive politics' and ensure that people get a government that is sensitive and accountable.
'The BJP has started a war-like situation against farmers and the Jat community.'
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party scored big wins in three assembly polls, talk within the party shifted to the likely chief ministerial picks in these states, with senior leaders holding discussions on Monday.
'The party is breaking stereotypes by not inviting senior leaders to become chief ministers.' 'No other party has had the guts to do this.'
The results mark a defining turn in the fortunes of several regional satraps, especially in the BJP, around whom politics in their states have revolved for decades.
At the core of Nitish Kumar's decision was a cold political calculation. He assessed that the RJD's support base was unlikely to vote for JD-U candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. He was unsure of winning even half a dozen if he stayed with the RJD and the Congress.
'Since September 1, a senior cabinet minister has been to-ing and fro-ing between Jalna and Mumbai by chartered flight every single day with messages from the two deputy chief ministers and the chief minister to get Manoj Jarange-Patil to back down from his agitation.'
The Supreme Court on Wednesday posed a slew of queries to the Centre on the grant of 10 per cent quota in admissions and government jobs to the EWS category, saying the "slice of cake" of 50 per cent open general seats available to OBCs above the creamy layer now stands reduced to 40 per cent.
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.
Regional Institute of Education (Mysore) invites applications on plain paper from eligible candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes.
The Supreme Court on Friday questioned the Bihar government as to why it published its caste survey data but refused to restrain it from making public further data, and said it may examine if the state has power to conduct such an exercise.
Initiating the debate from the opposition's side in the Lok Sabha, Gandhi said, "I stand here in support of Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam."
Any move of the present government to appease the Marathas may boomerang. Eknath Shinde is a worried man with the agitation not having an easy solution, notes Ramesh Menon.
Kumar said that while the rise in percentage of population of the deprived castes has led to increase in the quotas for SCs, STs and OBCs from 50 to 65 per cent, his government also planned to undertake a number of welfare measures for the benefit of "94 lakh families", which according to the survey lived in abject poverty.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the underprivileged need economic and political power and not empty words as he again called for removing the 50 per cent ceiling on quota and demanded reservations for Dalits and tribals based on their population.
'He only promotes those leaders who will never show any resistance to him in future.'
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
A key bill to provide reservation to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Caste under state seats in central education institutes in tribal areas was passed in the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is a challenge, Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday, adding he has requested his party to allow him to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from his home state Odisha.
Anger cannot be an end in itself to Rahul Gandhi's politics -- it must instead catalyse a new political strategy, argues Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The government on Wednesday said it was 'entirely possible' to provide admissions in general categories in elite educational institutions, while putting on hold reservation for OBCs till the court decides.
The Opposition's stand on the Ayodhya consecration is puzzling. Their only objection seems to be that the BJP has hijacked a religious event for political benefit. In saying this, the Opposition is either being naive or hypocritical, argues Jyoti Punwani.
Concealed beneath the feat, which testifies to his political acumen and survival instincts, is the fact that the 72-year-old leader could never remain at peace with his allies which also made him change partners frequently.
Upholding a bunch of petitions filed by aggrieved general category employees challenging the reservation in promotions, the apex court said the state failed to furnish sufficient valid data to justify the move to promote employees on caste basis.
The two Indian banks will make available their combined network of 3,600 branches and a customer base of 40 million.
In the academic year 2007-08, DU will issue three separate lists of seats for general, SC/ST and OBC candidates.
Initiating the debate on the bill from the opposition's side, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said that any delay in bringing the reservation into effect would be "gross injustice" to Indian women.
The development assumes significance as Congress' ally Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar group) had named Jitendra Awhad as the new LoP in the assembly following a split in the party due to Ajit Pawar's rebellion last month.
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