Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday asked political parties to refrain from taking advantage of communal strife and said states should crack down on elements fanning such violence irrespective of their political affiliations or influence.
'If Haider petitions the court and the government for legitimate rights it is called minority appeasement, but when Hardik orchestrates violence he is lionised, romanticised and given huge media space that ends up both legitimising and oxygenating his movement, no matter how contrary it is to the Rule of Law,' argues Shehzad Poonawalla.
The BJP doesn't want to focus entirely on an anti-Mamata campaign.
'The bad dream can turn into a ghoulish nightmare for the BJP if the Gujjars in Rajasthan and the Patels in Gujarat, both BJP-ruled states, were to fish in troubled waters and relaunch their respective agitations for quotas in government jobs,' warns Rajeev Sharma.
Describing himself as a "son of soil", Congress candidate Ajay Rai says the poll battle in Varanasi will be mainly a contest with "outsider" Narendra Modi and dismisses any challenge from "deserter" Arvind Kejriwal.
While there is no denying that certain sections of the community deserve aid, the politics of reservation can be suicidal for India.
The prime minister highlighted the gains made during his last four years vis-a-vis the previous governments to suggest that he has lived up to the promise of hope he had offered to the electorate in 2014.
Govt assurances fail to cut ice with Jat leaders as agitation intensifies, Maruti halts production at two plants; highways, railway lines blocked
Shops, schools and other commercial establishments were closed in parts of Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab but the shutdown call by anti-reservation bodies had little impact elsewhere in the country.
Rahul Gandhi has set out to revamp the Congress party after the recent drubbing it received in the assembly elections. Renu Mittal reports
Hamid Anasari's was not talking of reservation for the whole religious community to which he too happens to belong. Yet, sections of media chose to put words into his mouth and then subject him to the criticism he never deserved. This does not augur well for our media or democracy, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Apart from the chief minister and deputy chief minister, 13 cabinet and 10 ministers of state were allocated portfolios.
'Look at the aggressive way in which a campaign against Friday namaz is going on in North Indian cities.' 'Even the Union home minister is part of this vicious campaign.'
'I don't believe in jumlebaazi.' 'Kahan hua hai sabka saath, sabka vikas?'
'My immediate concern is restoring prestige and decorum of Rajya Sabha...'
'Banning conversion would harm Hinduism by taking away the need for reform.'
'The Congress will not make a difference in the life of a Patel, but only to teach the BJP a lesson we will vote against it.'
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Go to any village, you'll find a Dalit 15 years and above wearing jeans.' 'Earlier, Dalits were not allowed to wear a dhoti till the ankles. Jeans does not have this kind of restrictions or design. It is universal. So Dalits have also entered a caste neutral clothing zone.' 'Wherever you see Dr Ambedkar's statue in this country or abroad, he is always wearing a suit and with that English comes naturally. The Dalits' veneration of Western dress is very intense,' Dalit thinker Chandrabhan Prasad tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com
'Young Dalits are looking for better educational opportunities, more job avenues in the private sector, which need not necessarily mean job quotas, but a more welcoming corporate world that offers a liberated social environment, essentially a new India.'
70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Indians ought to be all Indian nationalists first and those talking about Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian nationalisms are really anti-national, Press Council of India Chairman, Justice (retd) Markandey Katju said in Nagpur on Friday.
'Modi knows he will fail if he does not afford Muslims, Christians or even other backward Hindu classes the opportunities and means to improve the quality of their lives. Prosperous and educated people are less prone to rioting,' says Maneck Davar.
'This is India, bhai. This kind of country does not exist anywhere in the world.'
Political observers say that except for a strong anti-incumbency sentiment, there is little that might go against the BJP.
Mahesh Londhe, son of a Pune bhel vendor cleared CA in first attempt. Londhe, who was sponsored by Thermax CEO MS Unnikrishnan, now wants to take up a corporate job in a manufacturing firm
'It did not start as a Hindutva slogan.' 'It started to tease the TMC and slowly it got internalised and the BJP started countering with Jai Shri Ram slogans because Mamata was getting provoked.'
Why was everyone wooing Vijayakanth and why was he playing hard to get?
'The BJP has lost 5 states and Lok Sabha elections are due in less than 90 days.' 'The reservation bill is a jhunjhuna (lollipop) for the upper castes.'
Under siege, Nitish plans to tweak Bihar's anti-booze law
Haryana remained on the boil on as the Jat stir unleashed fresh incidents of violence and arson even as the Army had to use choppers to reach parts of blocked Rohtak.
Mayawati has accused 'Ravan' of being a BJP agent who is dividing the scheduled castes.
Vidarbha region has gained notoriety for a high number of farmers' suicides and the multi-crore irrigation scam. Sanjay Jog reports
'For the BJP, development is nothing more than a jumla,' says Tejaswi Yadav.
It's that time of the year when love blooms in the urban heart and ardent swains agonise long and hard about gifts for their beloveds. Yet, in other parts of India, where men see every woman walking alone on the streets as fair game, Valentine's Day seem to have little relevance, says Geetanjali Krishna
'He is just a 22 year old who has no knowledge of India's laws or Constitution. How will such a man handle a discussion on reservations in an intelligent, lawful manner?' 'Let me alert everybody that he is using the 1985 formula. Back then they opposed reservations based on caste for OBCs and now they want to be included in the same category. This clearly tells us what their intention is. They don't want reservations; they want reservations to be cancelled altogether.'
'The reopening of the petition shows that there was something that was flawed in (the earlier) Supreme Court judgment, and this means another step forward.'
From corruption to communalism, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's Rs 70 lakh Hublot watch to United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, the electoral potboiler had it all.
Muslims constitute 20% of UP's electorate. Currently, Muslim voters are divided between Akhilesh's SP and Mayawati's BSP. What will tilt the balance? Can Muslims back the winning party? Mohammad Sajjad explains the mysteries of UP's Muslim politics.
'In Bihar, the Dalits are not a consolidated socio-political constituency,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
