Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Friday said he has sought appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demand special category status for Bihar.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday announced his intent to raise quotas for Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the state, saying a legislation to the effect is likely to be brought in the ongoing assembly session.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
'In Western UP, last time a lot of Dalits voted for the BJP.' 'This time, there is a rethink among Dalits about the extent of their support for the BJP.'
Amid a fresh wave of protests in Maharashtra over the Maratha quota demand, authorities in Dharashiv district of the state on Wednesday started distributing Kunbi caste certificates to the eligible Maratha community members, paving the way for their inclusion in the OBC category.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence over caste based census and Bihar's special status is likely to put the BJP in a tight spot ahead of upcoming state assembly polls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party sealed its alliance with the Telugu Desam Party on Saturday for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, with former chief minister of the southern state N Chandrababu Naidu asserting that the combine will sweep the polls.
'We are not secessionists, we want to coexist with our countrymen but not on the terms that will strip us off our dignity and a right to peaceful existence.'
Leaders at an all-party meeting on Maratha quota chaired by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday passed a resolution asking activist Manoj Jarange to call off his indefinite fast.
The assembly also witnessed a brief adjournment after the ruling alliance members pointed to remarks of Jarange and alleged there was a conspiracy to create unrest in the state.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi claimed on Saturday that he will become a 'supporter' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi if the PM would grant special category status to Bihar.
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.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday called for a daylong 'Bihar Bandh' on March 1 to protest against denial of special category status to the state by the Congress led UPA government.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are getting more and more restless over Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's bonhomie with the Congress regarding the special category status to his state.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati dismissed as "drama" Samajwadi Party's demand for special category status for Uttar Pradesh, saying they are raising the issue with an eye on the forthcoming general elections.
The home-grown biscuit brand looks to get inside the customer's mind as it steps outside the boundaries of its mass-market identity
The youngest in the CWC is 31-year-old Neeraj Kundan, who is an ex-officio member of the body as the president of the National Students Union of India, the students' wing of the party.
With an eye on upcoming assembly elections after the drubbing in Lok Sabha polls, Maharashtra's Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government will take a decision next week on the Rane committee's recommendation for 20 per cent quota for Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions.
Once more women assume leadership roles and join the nation-building process, he said, adding they will become a guarantee of the country's bright future.
If we get a chance to form the next government at the Centre, all backward states will get special category status, Kumar said.
Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) have been given 10 per cent quota in admissions and jobs out of 50 per cent general category seats for the first time without eroding the "totally independent" reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The Congress, desperate to make a comeback in Gujarat, which has been ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party for over 20 years, has tried to reach out to various sections of society in its blueprint unveiled.
The decision to grant 10 per cent EWS quota in admissions will not impact the availability of seats for the general and reserved categories as 2,13,766 additional seats will be added to those already existing in higher educational institutions, the Centre Tuesday told the Supreme Court while defending the 103rd constitution amendment.
Jarange appealed to Shinde and his deputies to come together and resolve the issue of Maratha quota, an emotive issue which has been dominating the state's political discourse for the last few months.
The Centre's decision to grant 10 per cent quota for the EWS category in admissions and jobs violates the basic structure of the Constitution on multiple counts including that it breaches the 50 per cent cap on reservation, the Supreme Court was told on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas challenging the validity of the 103rd Constitution amendment providing 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker sections (EWS) persons in admissions and government jobs.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today slammed the Congress saying it has put the issue of special category status for Bihar on the "back burner" under the influence of its "natural ally".
The bold decisions are part of the Congress 'Nav Sankalp' declaration that was adopted at the end of the three-day 'Chintan Shivir in Udaipur, indicating that the party has chosen to put its weight behind the young leadership after a prolonged old-versus-new tussle.
After a spirited eight-hour debate in which 60 members participated, the Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, with 454 members voting in favour and two against it.
The SBSP can impact around 10 Lok Sabha seats and 40 assembly seats in 7-8 districts in Uttar Pradesh, according to poll analysts.
"The Congress did not behave properly with my grandfather. I campaigned for the BJP during the Madan Lal Khurrana days in Delhi. My grandfather wanted me to join the BJP. He had introduced me to late Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani," he said.
Rather than a blind reproduction of the government template, a more productive way of enforcing affirmative action in the private sector could be to emulate an American model, suggests Kanika Datta.
'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
Medical seats for under-graduates and post-graduates remaining vacant in the NEET era, together with the Centre 'freezing' the number of medical colleges and seats in (Dravidian) Tamil Nadu and the launch of the PM's 'Vishwakarma Scheme' for the nation's craftsmen, are all seen as a bid to further reverse the state's progressive socio-economic agenda of and its achievements of the past hundred-plus years, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
'Had it not been for the complicity of the state and Biren Singh's leadership, these riots would not have spread this far and for so long.'
The Congress steering committee on Friday approved several amendments to the party constitution, one of which is to give permanent membership to former prime ministers and former party presidents in the all-powerful working committee.
The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar came under fresh attack on Monday from state Bharatiya Janata Party president Sanjay Jaiswal whose party seems annoyed with junior ally Janata Dal-United's shrill demands for special assistance from the Centre.
The court further held that the state's legislative competence is not affected by the amendment to Article 342(a) of the Constitution of India.
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