The principal of a private school in Goa has been suspended after a right wing organisation filed a police complaint that some students of class 11 were allegedly taken to a mosque for a workshop and made to perform religious rituals there.
At the 'Sarva Jatiye Mahapanchayat', participants from Palwal, Gurugram and other nearby places took part, and it was decided that the yatra will resume from Nalhar in Nuh and then pass through Firozpur Jhirka's Jhir and Singar temples in the district.
Jammu and Kashmir unit of Vishwa Hindu Parishad termed the invite by Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit to Kashmiri separatists as "strange and ironical," saying the neighbouring country is playing with the sovereignty of India.
Sensing the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's attempts to rekindle Ayodhya sentiments, the Akhilesh Yadav-led government in Uttar Pradesh has banned a meeting to mark the 25th death anniversary of brothers, Ram and Sharad Kothari, who fell to police bullets while performing the symbolic kar sewa on November 2, 1990 -- two years before the Babri Masjid was brought down.
Markets are now open in the violence-affected areas and people are visiting them.
If the government plan goes through, the trustees will have no say in temple affairs.
As the temple is inaugurated, unfortunately for Advani but unsurprisingly for the rest of us, the architect of the party's rise will not lead the ceremony and claim credit for his achievement, notes Aakar Patel.
At a function in Salem on Friday, Karunanidhi had stated that Lord Ram was an imaginary character.
Activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal staged a demonstration in New Delhi on Saturday against the ban on their leader Praveen Togadia's visit to Orissa's Kandhamal district. The Orissa government has imposed a ban on VHP leader Togadia from entering the communally sensitive Kandhamal district."The state government didn't stop foreign missionaries from going to tribal areas of Kandhamal and other parts of Orissa," said a VHP leader.
"I am being targeted for a decade-old case, there is an attempt to suppress my voice. Rajasthan Police team came to arrest me. Someone told me plan was being made to kill me in an encounter," the VHP president claimed.
The Maharashtra police on Thursday registered a case against Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia for making a hate speech in the Nanded district of the state last week.
In doing so, it further cemented the community's determination to support the opposition. But at the same time, it consolidated its Hindu vote bank like never before.
Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Yogi Adityanath and 24 others accompanying him to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's 'Sankalap Diwas' rally in Ayodhya were on Friday arrested at the railway station in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, as a preventive measure, police said.
The VHP is trying to gain political mileage through its October 17 programme in Ayodhya, Gyan Das, mahant of the Hanumangarhi Temple, said.
Sonal Shah, the first Indian-American to be inducted in United States President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, has formally renounced her affiliation with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which has been accused of fomenting violence against Muslims and Christians in India.Shah, former member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has said if she could have anticipated the outfit's role in the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat, she would have never associated with its US branch.
After Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat's remarks that rapes were prevalent in India and not in Bharat, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad blamed the 'western model' of lifestyle for growing incidents of sexual assault on women including rape, saying cities were losing the values.
Amid escalating tensions over the Sinjauli mosque in Shimla, a Muslim welfare committee on Thursday urged the municipal commissioner to seal the unauthorised portion and also offered to demolish it in accordance with a court order.
Shops were open and bus and train services were unaffected.
In yet another case of conversion since last week in Kerala, eleven persons belonging to three families embraced Hinduism near Kayamkulam in the District on Wednesday under an initiative of Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
The 'deliberate attack' on a Hindu temple in Canada sparked strong condemnation in India on Monday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking the Canadian government to ensure justice and uphold the rule of law.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Tuesday said it was disappointed by the Gujarat court's decision to award death penalty to only 11 convicts in the Godhra train burning case and asked the state government to appeal against the verdict.
The controversy has sparked reactions across states. The famous Mankameshwar temple in Uttar Pradesh has now banned offerings of 'prasad' bought by devotees from outside and said they can offer homemade 'prasad' or fruits.
At the same time the Congress government in Rajasthan is contemplating a ban on the distribution of the tridents by Sangh Parivar activists.
"Whether it is Togadia or (VHP president Ashok) Singhal's statement... the entry of VHP leaders should be banned in Rajasthan if communal harmony is to be maintained," he said.
Once Ram temple is built it will become a 'ghoshit (declared) Hindu Rashtra', a VHP leader told the gathering.
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Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia on Tuesday said the outfit's controversial yatra would continue as planned.
Two officers, including a deputy commissioner of police, were on Friday removed from field posting within 24 hours of a lathi-charge on Bajrang Dal activists staging an anti-drug mafia protest at a busy intersection in Indore.
The Gujarat high court has stayed the release of Maharaj, Aamir Khan's son Junaid's debut film, on Netflix after followers of Pushtimarg, a Vaishnava sect of Hinduism, claimed that it would hurt their religious sentiments.
The charges under the UAPA have been imposed against Khan, the MLA from Ferozpur Jhirka, in a case registered at Nagina police station in Nuh.
In an apparent backlash to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments that cow vigilantes were trying to create tension in the society and that they should be exposed and punished, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has said that the prime minister will have to pay a price in the 2019 national election.
As a precautionary measure, the Nuh district administration has already ordered the closure of educational institutions and banks on Monday, suspended mobile Internet and bulk SMS services, and imposed prohibitory orders in the communally-sensitive district.
With a massive crackdown by the UP government to enforce its ban on VHP's yatra in Ayodhya, BJP condemned the arrest of Ashok Singhal and other religious leaders and said Samajwadi Party will face the wrath of people for its actions.
'Shankaracharyas look at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP through a political prism. This temple is not built on politics but on religion. Ram is our God'
Mobs killed a cleric in a late night attack on a mosque, torched an eatery and vandalised shops as communal violence that began in Haryana's Nuh spilled over into Gurugram, taking the death toll to five, the police said on Tuesday.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Saturday dismissed a petition against the Uttar Pradesh government's ban on Vishwa Hindu Parisha's proposed Yatra from Ayodhya.
It then went on to ask whether a lion could be named after Swami Vivekananda or Ramakrishna Paramahansa.
VHP general secretary Pravin Togadia claimed the Gujarat elections had proved that 'Hindu bashing is not profitable in India.
There are communal organisations among all religious groups, but the ultimate goal of religions and such outfits is different, Geevarghese Mar Yulios, the metropolitan of the Kunnamkulam Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, told reporters in Thrissur.
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court over alleged "blatant hate speeches" calling for killing Muslims and their social and economic boycott delivered at rallies in different states, including Haryana where recent communal clashes claimed six lives.
The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a sister organisation of the Bajrang Dal, said its workers carried out the act to register their protest against Gujarat Congress president Jagdish Thakor's recent statement regarding minorities.
