Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday inaugurated the first phase of the Kashi Vishwanath Dham in Varanasi, a project which is spread over five lakh square feet and connects the temple premises to the River Ganga besides providing several facilities to devotees.
The mega corridor, whose foundation stone was laid by Modi on March 8, 2019, connects the main temple with Lalita Ghat via a corridor, and grand gateways and ornamental arches have been built in heritage architecture style in four directions, facing the ancient temple at its core.
BJP leaders and devotees across India are performing pujas and havans for the speedy recovery of Captain Smit Machchhar, who was stabbed while thwarting an alleged attempt to crash a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight. Temples like Kashi Vishwanath, Kedarnath, and Somnath are holding special rituals, honouring his courage in saving 174 lives.
The Allahabad High Court has ruled that the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, prohibits only the conversion of religious character but does not prevent the state from acquiring such properties for secular and public purposes. This observation came while dismissing a petition challenging the widening and beautification of the Dalmandi area in Varanasi for the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham corridor, which involved the proposed demolition of six ancient mosques.
Modi got the jute footwear procured and sent over to the dham so that those performing their duties don't have to stay bare-footed in the chilling cold.
Kailashanand Giri Maharaj of Niranjani Akhara, along with Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, visited the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.
Taking to Twitter, Modi said that the Kashi Vishwanath Dham project will add to Kashi's spiritual vibrancy.
The inauguration of the state-of-the-art infrastructure surrounding the historic Kashi Vishwanath Temple near the iconic Dashashwamedh Ghat comes ahead of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh early next year.
The main architectural lesson demonstrated by this project is how sacred spaces that have immense spiritual and heritage value, located in dense urban settings, can be transformed in a respectful and sensitive manner.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, ventured out on the streets of Varanasi in the early hours of Tuesday and visited the just-inaugurated Kashi Vishwanath Dham and the Banaras railway station.
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Shops in Varanasi's Muslim-dominated areas remained closed and the police sounded an alert in the entire district ahead of the Friday namaaz, following the district court order to allow Hindu prayers in a cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque.
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Modi is on a two-day visit to his constituency, which began on Monday with the inauguration of the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor.
The newly-inaugurated Kashi Vishwanath Corridor in Varanasi is being largely hailed as a symbol of resurrection of India's spiritual consciousness but a section of people here claims that the mega project is being showcased so that the ruling party gets a "political edge" in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said that after fulfilling Bharatiya Janata Party's poll promise on Ram Temple construction in Ayodhya, work has begun in Mathura and Vrindavan as well.
Modi lauded the civilisational heritage of Varanasi, and said many sultanates rose and collapsed but Benaras remained.
The defence ministry said Maharashtra was voted as the best tableau among the states/union territories in the popular choice category.
More than 51,000 diyas were lighted on Friday on Dev Deepawali at a Varanasi ghat to form 'Batoge to Katoge' -- a slogan given recently by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a call apparently to Hindus to stay united.
"It is heartening to see us, common people, being acknowledged. 'Achha lag raha hai'," Ram Chand Kumar, a mason who hails from Bihar and has been working on the site for the last 5-6 months, hailed the prime minister's gesture.
He said those making jokes on cows and buffaloes forget that the livelihood of crores of people depends on "pashudhan".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi witnessed the spectacular Ganga 'aarti' in Varanasi on Monday evening while on board a river cruise with chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and other Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a two-day visit to Varanasi to inaugurate the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor project.
Eleven chief ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states will offer prayers at the makeshift temple at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya on Wednesday.
The Cabinet meeting and the holy dip comes on a day that marks the first anniversary of the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Tharoor questioned about the alleged hacking of phones using spyware Pegasus, to which the officials responded that the matter is subjudice.
Modi also accused previous government of neglecting the pilgrim city and said criminals had a free in the state.
Few in Varanasi expect the result to be different from 2014 and 2019. The only point of interest is whether Narendra Modi will increase his winning margin against his rivals.
For Yogi Adityanath the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy.
Justice PV Kunhikrishnan said the prime minister was elected to power by the people of the country and therefore, what was wrong with having his photograph on the vaccination certificate.
'In his first speech in Parliament, Modi spoke about the slavery of 1,400 years, and though he didn't say in so many words, the meaning was that he had come to re-establish a Hindu Rashtra.'
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com tracks Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi's project-launching spree with just about three months to go for the assembly election in India's most populous state.
MV Ganga Vilas will begin its journey from Varanasi and sail around 3,200 km in 51 days to reach Dibrugarh in Assam via Bangladesh, traversing across 27 river systems in the two countries, it said.
It said there is no part of the country that he did not visit during the 125 days between December 25 and May 1 as he crisscrossed from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Jamnagar to Silchar, while speaking to students to scientists, farmers, entrepreneurs, foreign heads of state and political workers.
The survey was stalled last week amid objections by the mosque committee, which claimed that the advocate commissioner appointed by the court for the survey did not have the mandate to film inside the premises.
Adityanath has earned a new sobriquet "bulldozer baba" due to raging of properties of criminals and mafias built through illegal means.
