'The Maratha versus OBC friction will increase. A huge chunk of the Shiv Sena's social base consists of OBCs.' Dhaval Kulkarni reports.
The top law officer said that even if some people of the community have come up, the stigma of caste and backwardness is still attached to them.
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.
"Have you obtained the permission of the Supreme Court (which had upheld the NEET). Would it not amount to violation of the ruling of the apex court?" were among the questions raised by the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.
A BJP source admitted that a census will inevitably reconfirm the numerical majority of the OBCs. 'That will overturn social equations and consign the upper castes to a twilight zone of marginalisation. The RSS won't accept it.' Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
Prasad also attacked the previous United Progressive Alliance government for letting the women's reservation bill, introduced by it, lapse.
In Gujarat's political circles, the appeal was seen as an indirect call to vote against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday lashed out at opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties over Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Udhayanidhi Stalin's remarks against 'Sanatan Dharma', accusing them of insulting 'Sanatan Dharma' for votebank and appeasement politics.
No PM ever dared to take the decision. It was Modi with his 56-inch chest who made the move, said Shah.
The Madras high court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the Tamil Nadu government constituting a panel on the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), saying it was not contrary to the orders of the Supreme Court on the matter.
Nishad said he will meet senior BJP leaders, including Amit Shah, in Delhi on Monday to finalise the constituencies where the party will field its candidates.
Justice Ghose, the former Supreme Court judge, was on March 19 appointed as the country's first Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided it would not adopt the path of appeasement and vote bank politics.
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
Union Minister Arun Jaitley while releasing the document said BJP's manifesto is particularly aimed at improving the social infrastructure in Punjab, even as he slammed Congress for its policies which he alleged paved way for militancy in Punjab in 1980s and termed its 2002-2007 tenure in power as "most dishonest and corrupt".
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday that religious freedom does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion and that it certainly does not embrace the right to convert an individual through fraud, deception, coercion or allurement.
The BJP and Congress have already launched spirited campaigns for the elections.
As of now, political advertisements are barred in electronic media, including TV, radio and social media platforms.
The government said it would complete the process of quota for Marathas, which had remained incomplete after the high court stayed it in 2014.
Yadav fought hard, but his party was well behind the BJP.
A total of 829 candidates have qualified for civil services, including the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, the Union Public Service Commission announced
The events that unfolded after Advani's arrest not only benefited the BJP, whose political clout grew exponentially, but also catapulted Lalu to the forefront of the anti-saffron camp.
The panchayat polls will be seen as a kind of verdict from the hinterland for Yogi Adityanath ahead of the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections.
The party also rejigged its Central Election Committee and included former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, Om Mathur and its women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Our legal team is doing their best to argue the matter in the court.'
'The government and corporate sector must join hands to implement action which allows all of India to develop. It would be good for the corporate sector in the long run.' 'It is not that talent is a monopoly of a few castes who have been privileged over centuries. Talent also exists in other groups. They need opportunity and exposure,'
Former West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was on Thursday sworn in as the 14th Vice President of India.
'The BJP's target could be the Kolis, Thakors and other numerically strong OBC communities to negate the shift of the Patel vote bank.'
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Saturday said that those seen at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's roadshow in Varanasi were "mere spectators" brought in from other states and districts in Uttar Pradesh where voting had already taken place.
The Lokpal chairperson, all of its eight members and support staff are being allocated space in the hotel premises.
The bench said that the only question is that determination of the category should be in a scientific manner and it appreciates that the Centre has taken a decision to revisit the criteria earlier fixed.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra which completes two years in power on November 27 has survived against all odds amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance released its manifesto for the February 20 Punjab polls on Saturday, promising a slew of sops for various sections, including 75 per cent reservation in all government jobs for youngsters from the state, an unemployment allowance, 35 per cent reservation for women in government jobs and massive infrastructure development.
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.
With several political stalwarts of Uttar Pradesh no longer on the scene, it will be keenly watched how their children lead at the hustings this time without their formidable presence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday slammed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for seeking en bloc voting by Muslims for the Trinamool Congress and said had his party made a similar appeal to Hindus, it would have been criticised and censured.
The govt said that once the apex court clarifies the issue, then it can frame rules for the benefit of transgenders.
Delhi-based Jasmeet Singh Sandhu, an Indian Revenue Service officer, has secured third position in the test.
