Campaigning came to an end on Saturday for the single-day election in Uttarakhand and Goa, two states known for political volatility where the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting to retain power, and for the second phase of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh on February 14.
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
The assailants fired indiscriminately at the temple built by the local Hindu community on Sunday, prompting a police unit led by Kashmore-Kandhkot SSP Irfan Sammo to reach the scene.
Union ministers Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal and Nityanand Rai and farmer leaders from Punjab will meet on Sunday for the fourth round of talks.
The detailed three-page advisory of the Union Home Ministry came days after the alleged gangrape and murder of a woman at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh sparked nationwide outrage.
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
According to the officials, the three-storey coaching institute, surrounded by residential and commercial establishments, had permission to use the basement as a store room, but it was being used as library in violation of the rules.
While about 8,000 people are in the long list of invitees, the select list features 506 A-listers, including prominent politicians, leading industrialists, top film stars, sportspersons, diplomats, judges and high priests.
The three assailants who killed gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf posed as journalists, carrying video cameras, mics and media identity cards, the Uttar Pradesh Police said on Sunday.
'The central BJP has worked out an arrangement -- Yogi manages the state while Modi manages the Centre.'
Habib operates more than 850 salons and around 65 hair academies across 115 cities across India.
Governor Ram Naik and UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav greeted people on the occasion at Eidgah.
Nine more people have died as heavy rains lashed Uttar Pradesh for the third day, taking the death toll to 28, while a red alert has been sounded on Tuesday in six districts including the worst-hit Barabanki and Gonda.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday termed the cancellation of over 25,000 school jobs as 'gross injustice' and alleged that it was a ploy by the Bharatiya Janata Party to stop these job losers from being deployed in poll duty.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
"Unlike in UP, the governments of Punjab and Rajasthan are not denying that the girl was raped, threatening her family and blocking the course of justice. If they do, I will go there to fight for justice," he tweeted.
The party's decision to announce the first list of candidates so early underlines the significance it has attached to five state elections, the last round of assembly contest before the all-important Lok Sabha polls.
In a terse message to the ruling party, Priyanka in a Hindi tweet said, 'The goons of the BJP involved in 'cheerharan' of the democracy should hear that women will become pradhans, block pramukhs, MLAs, MPs and prime minister, and defeat the government, which gives patronage to those committing atrocities against women.'
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.
"One can understand when a woman is raped once. But what if she repeatedly says it. A woman with self respect will either die by suicide after she is raped or try not to be sexually assaulted again."
The incident occurred at Sindupur village under Bihar police station area. The victim has been shifted to a government hospital in Lucknow and is in a critical condition.
Professor ON Singh said he was "taking moral responsibility" of the recent incidents of molestation and violence inside the premises of the university.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday demanded the immediate removal of National Women's Commission chief Yasmeen Abrar. The demand came in the wake of Abrar's allegations that women were disrobed and paraded naked by the UP police in Bhatta Paraul village of Greater Noida. Bhatta Paraul has been in the eye of a storm since the villagers clashed with the police to demand better compensation for the land acquired by the state government.
Addressing BJP workers at a felicitation function after the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in Bihar elections and various bypolls, he asserted that the only mantra for his party's victory was 'Sabka saath, sabka vikas and sabka vishwas' and also launched a veiled attack on the West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress, saying those who cannot challenge the saffron party democratically have resorted to 'murdering' its workers to realise their goals.
Polling started at 7 am and closed at 6 pm and there were reports of technical snags in EVMs at some places, but voting was peaceful, Election Commission officials said.
A station house officer was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl who was left outside his police station in Uttar Pradesh's Lalitpur by four men after they raped her for three days, officials said on Wednesday.
To help the country emerge as a true welfare State, political parties must put the country's interests first before strategising to win elections and short-term goals, argues Ramesh Menon.
Kejriwal asked whether the BJP-led central government was waiting for the Lok Sabha elections to make a move in this direction.
The move bears significance in the wake of November 9 judgement of the Supreme Court which allowed construction of a Ram Temple in the disputed site in Ayodha.
A team of the National Commission for Women (NCW) on Sunday met the family members of a woman who died after being brutally raped, and also visited the crime spot as well as the hospital where she was treated, a police official said.
The National Human Rights Commission on Tuesday issued a notice to the UP government over the Noida killings.
Rahul Gandhi on Thursday joined his sister Priyanka Gandhi in attacking Narendra Modi over snoopgate controversy, saying the Gujarat government has no regard for women as it gets their phones tapped.
Irked over the notice sent to him by the National Commission for Women over his remarks on rape, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday accused the NCW of insulting him.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal said this was not a matter to be mentioned before it since the National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Women were looking into it.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
He said the Congress party might give a surprise or two in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh 'about what the party is capable of doing and to mobilise people'.
Even as in a belated move, the State Human Rights Commission in Monday issued notice to the Mayawati government on the issue of rising crime against women, yet another rape of a minor girl was reported from Sitapur district, about 90 km from Lucknow, giving Uttar Pradesh the dubious distinction of a graph of six rapes in a single day.
Extensive arrangements have been made due to the COVID-19 pandemic including personal protective equipment kits for election staff, more polling booths, thermal screening, sanitisers, masks and gloves for voters and markings to ensure social distancing, officials said.
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
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