In Aligarh, District Magistrate Chandra Bhushan Singh told reporters that Kafeel Khan's speech at AMU was instrumental in triggering violent incidents at the university on December 13 and 15.
'Get lost from here, you scoundrel. Nobody in this administration will help you,' the CM shouted at me.
Despite the national capital recording its best air quality on Diwali day in eight years, pollution levels may rise due to low night temperatures and sporadic burning of firecrackers though there is a ban on their manufacture, storage, sale and use within the city.
The tragedy took a political hue with CM Yogi Adityanath suggesting the involvement of SP in 'such mischievous acts'.
On the eve of the sixth and penultimate phase of the marathon Uttar Pradesh elections, Rediff.com's Aslam Hunani reports on what's at stake.
The youth brigade, set up in 2002 by Yogi Adityanath who is now Uttar Pradesh chief minister, filed a complaint against Yohannan Adam, the pastor of the church, accusing him of converting Hindus to Christianity, a charge the pastor denied.
In the same breath, the RPI-A leader said, "No one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- neither Congress president Rahul Gandhi, nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, nor BSP supremo Mayawati."
'In order to stop the BJP actually, you need a party that changes the discourse rather than positing another pole for polarising it further. The answer to this kind of politics lies in refocusing the agenda on development'
'To summarise, PM Modi's failures in the last nine years can be categorised under 'durniti' (bad policies), 'anyay' (injustice) and - perhaps most importantly - 'badniyat' (ill intention)'
Tiwari, who led the Delhi BJP through its impressive victories in civic body polls in 2017 and Lok Sabha elections last year, failed to pass the test of fire as his party suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the AAP managing to win just eight of the 70 assembly seats.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi and general secretary in charge of western Uttar Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, will accompany her.
Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj's comments have once again put the Narendra Modi government in a jam. Though the party swiftly slapped a show cause notice on Maharaj, asking him to explain why action should not be initiated against him for his controversial remarks in the recent past, the man denied it, saying it was the 'BJP's internal matter.'
There is nothing the young Purvanchali wants more desperately than to escape to a place with less hopelessness, and some opportunity, discovers Shekhar Gupta.
Raj said Lankesh was his close friend and in his experience he had not heard such harsh language being used against anyone.
Close on the heels of the much-hyped '84-kosi parikrama' on August 26 last, yet another 'fixed' match between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Samajwadi Party was witnessed in Ayodhya on Friday when blatant posturing by the two sides ended in a damp squib.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh will be reduced to its 2012 tally of 47 or thereabouts as the wind is blowing in favour of the Akhilesh Yadav-led coalition this election, says Swami Prasad Maurya who left the saffron party to join the Samajwadi Party last month.
For Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who continues the Gandhi family legacy of active politics that began several generations ago, the formal entry into politics was two decades in the making.
'It is a well-entrenched belief in the downtrodden, the deprived sections, that Modi cares for them. He has come to occupy their mindspace as their messiah.' 'And it is this deprived, dispossessed section that is powering his electoral performance, breaking ancient shibboleths and shackles like religion and caste and region and language,' argues Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
According to some of those present in the meeting, Mayawati also referred to the family feud in the Yadav clan, saying after Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger brother Shivpal decided to contest separately the community votes were not transferred to the BSP, and the SP could not even save its "family seats".
Around 1.72 crore voters, including 94.60 lakh men and 77.84 lakh women, are eligible to cast their votes in this round to decide the fate of 635 candidates.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who went on a whirlwind tour of the state to ensure the victory of his party candidates, described it as a "historic win". He attributed the victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision and BJP chief Amit Shah's guidance.
'Overnight, with zero qualification whatsoever for the responsibility of prime ministership, Priyanka is being projected as an alternative to Narendra Damodardas Modi!' says Nazarwala who predicted Mayawati's win in the 2007 UP elections, forecast her rout in the 2012 polls, and called right the 2017 UP assembly election result.
After covering several kilometres on foot along with their families, the labourers, who reached Charbagh bus station in Lucknow on Saturday and Sunday, said there was no point staying in Delhi as they have exhausted their funds and it would be better for them to return to their homes.
Sources close to her said she would be staying for a few days in her Gurugram penthouse before shifting to central Delhi, where she has finalised a house.
The Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and some smaller parties will contest the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls together, and an announcement in this regard would be made soon, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Tuesday.
Director General of Police O P Singh said that two people lost their lives in Bijnor and one each in Meerut, Sambhal and Firozabad. But officials reported a death in Kanpur as well.
"Where was the sample sent, who received it? There was nothing objectionable in his house. Every eye is on this matter. Everyone wants that the victim's family should get justice as murder had taken place.
Nothing has been done for Dalits in the last four years, Nagina MP Yashwant Singh wrote in a letter to the PM.
According to an insider, "Winning is all that matters to the BJP. The leaders were warned that he was an undesirable character but they said look at his victory margin."
cution' of the Brahmins in the regime of Adityanath, a Rajput, accused of pandering to his caste's interests. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
Yadav denied any possibility for a post-poll alliance between the BJP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal's Jayant Choudhary.
However, the BJP is sceptical about the SP-BSP alliance as they believe Mayawati and Akhilesh will "finish off after fighting among themselves."
Akhilesh said that the defeat of the Dalit candidate would cement his party's relations with Mayawati-led BSP.
Social activist Niranjan Bhatwal from Maharashtra has moved a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court seeking that the country be called 'Bharat', and not 'India' as the latter is of colonial origin, and that the constitution makers intended that 'Bharat' be used for all official and unofficial purposes, and not 'India'.
How Modi retrieves the situation and how he enlists new allies in the next two years will show if the BJP is fighting fit, report Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
"The government is afraid of oath ceremony of a student leader and is stopping me at the airport to prevent me from visiting Allahabad," the SP chief claimed.
"In May 2014, the BJP won 282 Lok Sabha seats. In four years, BJP government is down to 271, losing its simple majority in Lok Sabha minus its allies - considering the fact that PM Modi has suspended Kirti Azad and virtually disowned their most truthful, fiercely independent Patna Sahib MP," Surjewala tweeted.
'...and the government is suppressing the truth.'
'All statue-building is an exercise in hubris, but Mr Adityanath's enterprise begs a question: Can a state with rampant child malnutrition and 325 children dying in a Gorakhpur hospital afford Rama's benediction?' asks Sunil Sethi.
'Till the time we do not remove fear in the minds of Muslims of India, how will we achieve peace?' asks the Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Gorakhpur, Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, who says he will resign as a member of the Uttar Pradesh assembly if any Indian Muslim of his constituency is evicted from the country during the Citizenship (Amendment) Act exercise.
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