The five-day event, to appraise and train RSS volunteers on how to propagate nationalism and promote Swadeshi along with other such issues among the masses, is held every fifth year in different cities and states of the country.
Online travel portals are flooded with flight and train bookings, hotels teeming with requests for accommodation, and spiritual merchandise on e-commerce platforms is selling like hotcakes. As the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22 draws near, Indians across the country are putting their travelling boots on as the temple frenzy catches on. India's largest travel technology (traveltech) platform MakeMyTrip (MMT) has witnessed a substantial four-fold increase in bookings for Ayodhya compared to the previous year.
Tamil Nadu's Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin has reacted to Andhra Pradesh counterpart Pawan Kalyan's out-of-turn taunts with a one-liner, 'Let's wait', and thereby hangs a tale, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Shatrughan Vishwakarma was deployed as part of the Special Security Force (SSF) set to provide security at the temple premises.
Led by Muslim Rashtriya Manch, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed Muslim organisation, the group started their journey from Lucknow on January 25, Shahid Saeed, media in-charge of MRM, said on Wednesday.
He also said that the BJP's defeat in Faizabad seat of Ayodhya, where the Ram temple has been built, shows the wisdom of voters.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the main "yajman" at the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22, Laxmikant Dixit, the main priest for the ritual, said on Wednesday.
Around five lakh devotees visited the Ram temple complex on day one as it opened its doors to the public on Tuesday, a day after the consecration ceremony, according to officials.
An Indian Air Force plane will bring the bodies of the Maharashtra pilgrims killed in a bus accident in Nepal to Nashik on Saturday, officials have said.
Earlier in 2018, the Yogi government had renamed Faizabad as Ayodhya.
Glance through her Instagram account and you will know that PeeCee loves having fun with her daughter, whether they are vacationing or on set.
'During the election period, Modi did not refer to the government as 'Government of India'...it used to be called Modi Sarkar, Modi's guarantee. Today that Modi guarantee is no longer there'
Ayodhya is decked up for the grand pran pratishtha (consecration ceremony) of Lord Ram Lalla in the newly built Ram Janmabhoomi Temple.
Rammu Guru, the head priest of the temple, said, "Sai Baba was being worshiped without proper knowledge, which is forbidden according to scriptures."
The BJP had registered a one-sided victory on all the 17 SC-reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But in 2019, out of these 17 seats, it lost Nagina and Lalganj seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Lok Sabha constituencies that sprung a surprise in the 2024 polls.
The tableau also depicts the first-ever operational high-speed regional rapid transit system (RRTS) of the country. It was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the priority section of its first corridor in October.
Addressing a public rally in Sabroom in poll-bound Tripura, Shah said that the Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist had put the Ram Mandir issue in the jurisdiction of the court for long, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for it after the Supreme Court's order.
Construction of the Ramayan-based Maharishi Valmiki international airport Ayodhya Dham, in Ayodhya, began in February 2022.
The Opposition's stand on the Ayodhya consecration is puzzling. Their only objection seems to be that the BJP has hijacked a religious event for political benefit. In saying this, the Opposition is either being naive or hypocritical, argues Jyoti Punwani.
The BJP has won just eight out of the 40 zila panchayat seats in Ayodhya, a disappointment for the ruling party in the district on which the Centre and the state government have lavished much attention.
Quite a few film folk attended the pran pratishtha ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Speaking at a virtual meeting, which was also attended by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Modi described Ayodhya as a city that is etched in the cultural consciousness of every Indian.
The first bench of the Madras high court on Wednesday set aside an order of the Tamil Nadu HR&CE department, which appointed a 'fit' person (thakkar) to administer the Ayodhya Mandapam run by Sri Ram Samaj in West Mambalam in Chennai.
Anupam Kher shared a picture with megastar Rajinikanth when they met in Ayodhya.
Is 2024 a done deal for the BJP? It was a done deal five years ago itself, but it did not have a guarantee.
Now, with the temple consecration, it seems to have acquired a Ramji Ki Guarantee, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Ayodhya is decked up for the bhoomi pujan that will be attended at the Ram Janmabhoomi by 175 people, who figure in a select guest list of seers and politicians topped by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Eleven chief ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states will offer prayers at the makeshift temple at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya on Wednesday.
After visiting Ayodhya for the pran prathishta ceremony at the Ram mandir in January, Amitabh Bachchan returned for another darshan.
'You can see both being used in our textbooks already and that will continue in new textbooks'
To me he always symbolised the sincere, confident, face of a Bharat whose rise is unstoppable. Ratan Tata was a Rishi who was unquestioningly trusted by people who never saw him and never met him, asserts Tarun Vijay, the former BJP MP.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
Citing a Tamil daily's reportage, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday alleged that the Tamil Nadu government administered temples have barred puja for Lord Ram on the day of the consecration of the grand temple in Ayodhya, which was dismissed by the state as a false news with ulterior motives.
Amid the huge rush of devotees in Ayodhya, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held a meeting with officials in Lucknow to review the steps taken for crowd management and advised VIPs planning to visit the temple to inform the authorities in advance.
January 22, 2024 has passed into history. Scenes from a day of religious fervour in many parts of India.
The prime minister was spotted in a Swasa N95 mask created by the IIT-Kanpur start-up and incubator team.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Saisuresh Sivaswamy/Rediff.com captures glimpses of the activity around the Ram temple on his iPhone 14 Pro.
BJP sources suggest that the upcoming elections will likely revolve around the renewed enthusiasm for the temple unless another theme with religious and nationalist undertones emerges.
The Kalaram temple, located in Panchavati area of Nashik, is dedicated to Lord Ram.
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