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 CRPF has raised its first-ever contingent of 32 women commandos in its VIP security wing and they will now be tasked to guard its protectees, based in Delhi, who receive the top Z+ cover.
"Manmohan Singh Ji (former Prime Minister) tried many times but could not do. Today when it is implemented, propaganda is being spread," Tomar said.
About 20 Punjab Congress leaders met in Ludhiana on Tuesday, with some of them batting for a key role for Navjot Singh Sidhu, the former state party unit chief who was among the participants.
Soon after meeting, Raut hinted at a pre-poll alliance with the Congress in UP and Goa, stating that the parties are thinking of working together in both the states that are scheduled to go to assembly polls early next year.
Reacting sharply to the development, BJP lodged a protest with Governor K K Paul and alleged it was "abduction" of its MLA.
No matter how smug they sound on the surface about the potential of the dissenters to disturb the proverbial applecart, the Congress and the BJP know that their electoral calculations are precariously hinged in a seemingly tight contest.
The first part of the session will conclude on February 11. After a month-long recess, the part two of the session would begin from March 14 and conclude on April 8.
The Devasthanam Board was assigned the management of 51 temples of the state, including the four famous Himalayan shrines of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.
Amid ongoing uncertainty over the fate of Harish Rawat government which will face floor test in Uttarakhand assembly on March 28, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday claimed that at least five more MLAs from the Congress led alliance are ready to jump over to its side.
According to sources, the filters were applied on Saturday night soon after the poll schedule was announced.
The Uttarakhand high court on Tuesday ordered a floor test in the assembly on March 31, giving a new turn to the political events in the state where President's Rule was imposed on Sunday.
"Our party is stronger than the Congress in the state. While the Congress won 40 seats in panchayat polls, we scored a victory in 83 panchayats. AAP got over 40 lakh votes in these polls, where 1600 party candidates contested," Singh, AAP's UP in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said.
Political parties fielding candidates with criminal cases will have to mandatorily upload on their website details of such persons as also reasons for selecting them to contest the polls, the Election Commission said on Saturday.
Yogi Adityanath's aura is no longer limited to Uttar Pradesh. At the age of 49, his journey to the higher echelons in the BJP has well and truly begun, predicts Sudhir Bisht.
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
Punjab's 117 assembly seats are going to be a keenly-watched contest with the Congress, the AAP, the SAD-BSP alliance, and the BJP-PLC-SAD (Sanyukt) battling to form the government in the state, with a probable entry of farmers' front in the form of Sanyukt Samaj Morcha.
The ambit of the G-23 grouping increased this time as some more leaders -- Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma -- joined them.
"A call, 'No Vote to BJP', will be given during the Vidhan Sabha elections if assurances made by union leaders, including the Prime Minister, are not fulfilled shortly," samiti national president Yashpal Malik on Thursday said.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appears to have shed the maximum sweat among top leaders for over the last 45 days in the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign.
Assembly elections to five crucial states will take place in a few months and the results will be decisive for the BJP, which is eyeing a third successive term at the Centre, in the forthcoming the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
From invoking the 'Saptarishi' (Ursa Major) constellation, seven basic notes of Indian classical music to 'saat phere' (seven circumambulations) -- parties give different reasons and logic to claim that they will emerge victorious in the polls.
"Congress state in-charge Harish Rawat is my good friend but who gave him the right to take such a big decision about Punjab at his level? What is the meaning of Captain's leadership now after the Kharge committee's decision to contest elections under Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi?" Congress MLA Pargat Singh said.
As the new year arrives, the Bharatiya Janata Party's finds itself on the cusp of the most consequential cycle of state polls since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as the results will tell if the road ahead in its bid for a third straight term at the Centre is getting any bumpier or a strong opposition challenge remains elusive.
'The BJP while being in government in Gujarat continues to campaign like an Opposition party whereas the Opposition does the opposite.'
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
The AAP on Thursday said if it is voted to power in UP, it will provide 300 units of free electricity to domestic consumers, waive 'inflated' bills and ensure 24-hour power supply.
The Congress Working Committee, the party's top-decision making body, would soon meet to deliberate further on the Chintan Shivir plans, the sources said.
RSS leader Indresh Kumar termed the 'politics of hate' as 'corruption' and called all political parties and their leaders to refrain from indulging in hate-mongering and pitting one section of the society against the other.
'He has been made CM of Uttarakhand because everybody thinks he is not a challenge to anyone.'
The EC had cautioned that the video van events should not cause inconvenience to the people and should not be a hindrance to smooth flow of traffic.
The BJP's 2022 assembly election win may have further consolidated Adityanath's stock within the BJP. The saffron party is now set to win the UP state polls twice in a row, a feat achieved by no other party in three decades.
International oil prices jumped to the highest level since 2014, topping $87 a barrel but domestic petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged for the 74th day in a row - a freeze that may be linked to ensuing assembly elections in states like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Brent - the key global oil benchmark - soared to $87.7 per barrel mostly due to rising geopolitical tensions and supply-side disturbances due to Yemen's Houthi group's attack on oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates. Also, global inventories are waning. The attack, some analysts believe, may lead to more hostile behaviour between the two power centres in the Middle East - Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The chief minister Harish Rawat has been asked to prove his majority on April 29.
The curtain came down on rumbustious electioneering over the last two months when assembly polls were also held in four other states - Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur.
IPL can be truly said to have come of age. It is now more Indian than ever before. Teams often fielded fewer than the four allowed foreign players. Indian batters and bowlers were simply better in performance, consistency and reliability, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
For the post of deputy chief minister, the names of Swatantra Dev Singh, Baby Rani Maurya, Brijesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya are in talks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held deliberations with Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda amid speculation about a reshuffle in the Union cabinet, an exercise Modi has not undertaken since forming the government for a second time in May 2019.
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