Trouble erupted in Godapur village under the Town police station area, where an idol was found vandalised, following which the members of two communities indulged in heavy stone-pelting, District Magistrate Kaushal Kumar said.
The BJP president will have to address issues like scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution, an issue dear to the party and the Sangh Parivar for long and a promise included in the manifesto during the last elections.
'As a student of history, I am no pessimist, but regardless of which party/coalitions comes to power on May 23, the space for secularism, pluralism and minority rights has shrunk significantly,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Going on the counteroffensive, the Congress will be giving privilege motions against Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in Rajya Sabha on Friday
Congress legislators will spend Thursday night inside the Karnataka legislative assembly and council, demanding the sacking of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister K S Eshwarappa and also that he be booked for sedition for his statement about the national flag.
Bindu and Kanakadurga, who broke centuries-old tradition by entering the holy shrine, said there were no objections from the devotees and called those who were protesting riot-mongers.
Prashant Kishor feels that the Congress is a national party that can counter the BJP.
The Shiv Sena on Saturday said that Narendra Modi's "toilets first, temples later" remark show that the Bharatiya Janata Party is not in touch with the views of its prime ministerial candidate.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh perceives the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections to be a fight for its own existence and all that it stands for. Archis Mohan reports
Handing the Human Resource Development ministry to a first-time minister and the talk of repealing Article 370 may be signs that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are working in tandem
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh asked Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to stop playing politics over the United Progressive Alliance government's food security programme.
One of the other key takeaways of the manifesto is setting up a separate maintenance department for the national and state highways, where repairs and other works are currently done by the road construction contractors.
'Strategy is to divide and polarise electorate on communal lines.'
He said the "countdown has begun for Narendra Modi," citing the results of Rajasthan by-polls in which the ruling BJP faced an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Congress which won two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly segment.
'They don't have a political strategy so they are going to try to deal with it purely as a law and order problem.' 'They will try to use the same strategy they have repeatedly used since 2014 in Kashmir.' 'Mr Modi has landed in a situation where he faces the possible prospect of not only being unable to Indianise Kashmir, but his actions may end up making the rest of India a virtual carbon copy of Kashmir.'
Modi's plain-talk on zero tolerance against religious discrimination applies to those who convert tribal and poor Hindus "by deception".
'In enacting the citizenship law, the BJP's focus has been so much on consolidating its Hindu vote bank all over the country to divert attention from the economic downturn that the party forgot that there are Hindus and Hindus and that one group of Hindus may not always be warmly embraced by another,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday slapped a show cause notice on party's Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj asking him to explain why action should not be initiated against him for his controversial remarks in the recent past.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's similar remarks about the need for a review of the reservation policy, just ahead of Bihar polls, had cost the BJP dearly as it saw a massive consolidation of the electorate from the backward classes and weaker sections in favour of Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance.
The Bharatiya Janata Party will tone down its rhetoric on Article 370 and unveil a development-based vision for the voters of Jammu and Kashmir, where the five-phase long assembly elections are due in November-December.
Faced with poll debacle in four states, the Congress is expected to hold a 'chintan shivir'.
Around 75 professors and other academics of Indian origin working at some of Britain's prestigious institutions such as Cambridge and Oxford university and London School of Economics on Tuesday issued an open letter, sharply attacking Narendra Modi and saying, "The idea of Modi in power fills us with dread".
It is this new Muslim who is not burdened by the Pakistan guilt, who is ready to fight it out for the rights enshrined under the Constitution, and who is not defensive about Muslim identity that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are out to crush, argues Mohd Asim.
Sharad Yadav, President of the Janata Dal (United), is one of the architects of the proposed merger of six political parties who trace their roots to the erstwhile Janata Dal. Yadav tells Archis Mohan how the grand alliance with Left parties and even the Congress is the need of the hour.
'What Kamala Harris' rise and rise underscores is that our old ways of identifying the Indian-American Diaspora need to change...' 'None of this detracts from her Indian-American identity, which makes us feel as if we are Americans too,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Sangh's leadership has boxed itself into a tight situation. It now needs to wait and see if Modi can deliver in the Lok Sabha polls, says Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'When economic policies were attacked by people on his own side, he went ahead despite all the criticisms in the coalition, within the party and the Sangh Parivar.'
In his report, Justice Liberhan said the senior police officers were at hand to ensure that their men toed the line and that the demolition of the disputed structure was allowed to go ahead with "military precision as orchestrated by the leaders present at the spot and carried out by their henchmen."
Kerala CM Oommen Chandy said the decision to exclude him from the function of unveiling of former CM R Sankar's statue at Kollam by PM Modi was a "painful experience".
Rajan's departure from the RBI is an end to 'outside interference' in policy making, government insiders feel.
'If the National Conference and PDP make handsome electoral gains in the valley and call for the restoration of the former state's lost status, how will the rulers in Delhi respond?' asks Amulya Ganguli.
The noted screenwriter and lyricist said he finds many commonalities between the mindsets of the Taliban and the Hindu right-wing.
Controlled communal tension is useful in ensuring continued Muslim support. Fear of the BJP is a requirement for both, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, to keep their Muslim vote bank in line, says Saeed Naqvi.
Kerala Minister Saji Cheriyan on Wednesday announced his resignation amidst mounting criticism from various quarters, including the Opposition, over his controversial remarks against the Constitution recently.
Will Malik's worldview, shaped by his years with the socialists, Charan Singh, the Congress and V P Singh, help him govern the troubled state? Or would his rule have the imprint of the party he joined in the latter years of his chequered political career?
Stoking yet another controversy, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala on Friday described social reformer and Dalit icon Sree Narayana Guru, who belonged to the backward Ezhava caste, as the greatest "Hindu sanyasi" the state has ever seen.
'We don't feel that the law and order situation will turn bad because of our agitation.'
"Had there been no demolition, probably the courts too would have ordered status quo," he said then. And his last wish, he said, was to live till the temple comes up.
If Kerala wants to sustain its room for independent thinking and talk back to Delhi when needed, it should put its finances in order. Or - if one takes the North East example - Kerala's political posturing may end up commensurate with its financial dependence on others, suggests Shyam G Menon.
'Evidently, something has gone terribly wrong in the state of the Indian Union.' 'The rulers seem nervous that the pandemic is spinning out of control,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances