'Are we supposed to look the other way as Islamists go on a rampage against Hindus and the Hasina government pay lip service to secularism?' A revealing excerpt from Avishek Biswas and Deep Halder's book, Being Hindu In Bangladesh: The Untold Story.
'Congress leaders who are making strategy for the Congress to win elections have not even won a class monitor elections.' 'When you have not contested school monitor elections, what will you know about the ground reality?'
Batting for minority rights, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday cautioned people against forces weakening the country's secular ethos and said communal harmony should not be disturbed over small, local incidents.
'If you post on social media on an issue like power cuts in Tral, the police will come to your home and tell you to remove your social media post.' 'If you don't, then the local police threaten you that they will book you under PSA.' 'This is happening all the time in Kashmir.'
In the Muslim community, views on this Lok Sabha election seem to vary, with some seeing it as crucial for India's pluralism while others feel neglected by political parties.
It is possible to be blind to this and pretend to carry on as if nothing has happened but that will not change the reality, asserts Aakar Patel.
Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after New Delhi abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019. India's decision evoked strong reactions from Pakistan, which downgraded diplomatic ties and expelled the Indian envoy.
"There is no organ in the human body like a criminal kidney or criminal liver or criminal heart! There is no difference between the organ of a person without a criminal antecedent and the organ of a person who has no criminal antecedents. Human blood is passing through all of us," the Kerala High Court said.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the people have given his government a mandate for stability and continuity for the third consecutive term after seeing its work of 10 years and accused the Congress of trying to build a narrative that it has defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha polls.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
The JD-S supremo reiterated that his grandson should be given the harshest punishment under the law "if found guilty".
If Narendra Modi wants to become prime minister, he needs to do better, argues Amberish K Diwanji.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a 'Babri lock' on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
On January 29, the Central government had extended the ban imposed on the SIMI for five more years.
The high-level committee on 'one nation, one election' approached 62 parties out which 47 responded -- 32 in support of holding elections simultaneously, 15 against it.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The opposition INDIA alliance on Friday finalised a 13-member committee.
'... are losing faith in the institutions of government, where people do not believe that the institutions of government operate according to the Constitution, within the confines of the law, where these institutions are seen to be representing a small faction of a particular community against all other (minority) communities.'
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
Widespread violence between supporters of the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party over alleged electoral malpractices in strife-torn Sandeshkhali marred the final phase of Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal on Saturday, resulting in injuries to a number of people.
Presenting the interim budget for 2024-25, she said the government is working with an approach to ensure development that is all-round, all-pervasive and all-inclusive.
Addressing election rallies in the district headquarters towns of Shivamogga and Raichur, Gandhi alleged that the prime minister was in the know about the sex scandal and he could have got Prajwal arrested within seconds but allowed him to flee the country.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd made a number of electoral bond purchases close to the date of bagging crucial projects, including the all-weather Zojila tunnel that is being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 4,500 crore in Jammu and Kashmir.
'Just today a shopkeeper I went to was saying how bad business is. He must have been a BJP supporter.' 'He finally said, "It's a good thing there's an NDA government, not a BJP government, 'they' had become too big for their boots,".'
'The Opposition parties will continue to woo Chandrababu Naidu even though he has said he will support the BJP.'
The foundations of the army's own peculiar secularism are potentially being destabilised
Justice Sen said he does not belong to any political party and does not dream of getting a political berth after retirement. He said he had written the judgment based on truth, history and ground reality "to save the citizens of India, irrespective of caste, creed, religion or language".
A team of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Friday held on-spot inquiries in Sandeshkhali to ascertain facts about alleged sexual abuse by some Trinamool Congress leaders even as fresh agitation rocked the trouble-torn village, where locals torched the property of accused Trinamool leaders and held demonstrations against the delay in arresting the main accused, Shahjahan Sheikh.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
A bench comprising Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Ashutosh Srivastava passed the order on the public interest litigation filed by one Sudhir Kumar who argued that the film, if released/broadcast, is likely to create hatred amongst different religious denominations and thereby destroy the secular fabric of India.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta asked the AIIMS director to constitute the board and submit a report to it in two weeks.
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