In her second cabinet reshuffle, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Saturday inducted six new ministers including a Dalit woman MLA, elevated two state ministers to Cabinet rank and dropped two state ministers.
'Anyone on Indian Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other forms of social media that matter (except elite forums like Instagram) understands instantly that it is dominated by upper-caste North Indian men.' 'Other voices are silenced and attacked,' says Mihir S Sharma.
The sanctum-sanctorum of the Himalayan shrine has been spruced up under the supervision of a team of Kedarnath-Badrinath Committee and administrative officials.
'Are you so scared for your own skin that you will not help a lady or a weak man from attack?' asks an anguished A Ganesh Nadar.
Maharashtra police on Tuesday raided the homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them for suspected Maoist links. Near simultaneous searches were carried out at the residences of prominent Telugu poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Farreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad, and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in New Delhi. Subsequently, Rao, Bhardwaj and Farreira were arrested. Although Navalakha was also arrested, the Delhi high court ordered police not to take him out of the national capital at least until Wednesday. According to unconfirmed reports, others whose residences were raided are Susan Abraham, Kranthi Tekula, Father Stan Swamy in Ranchi and Anand Teltumbde in Goa. The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year. Here are their brief profiles:
The letter says Maoists want to assassinate Modi the way former PM Rajiv Gandhi was killed, say Maharashtra CM and the state police.
'It is a concocted letter and we suspect the IB (Intelligence Bureau) to be behind this game.' 'All the investigation agencies should have quietly gone about finding more about this alleged plot to kill the prime minister.' 'Why are you leaking such a letter that reveals the plot to the press as well as to BJP spokespersons?'
'Haven't you heard of the magical EVM machines? They can negate all our votes.' 'There is no hope. Modi is India's Putin.'
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
Epic Retold has the mighty Bhima tweeting his story as he lives it -- in first person, from the day he first meets his arch enemy Duryodhana, all the way through the Kurukshetra war and beyond.
Beyond welfare politics, the BJP has assiduously worked to appropriate regional icons.
'To ascribe motives to the actions of the state government at such an early stage of police investigation will be counter-productive,' says former Union home secretary Madhav Godbole.
Till recently there was no monument to the Maratha victory or the great Maratha General Mahadji Shinde. It was a defeat, such as never suffered by the British in India.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a fourth straight term in the tribal-dominated state as the opposition Congress seeks to return to power after 15 years.
Fathers and sons have had a vexed relationship throughout myth, says Arundhuti Dasgupta.
'We often assume that Ayodhya is Ram's property and Hastinapur is Yudhishthira's property when, in fact, it is their responsibility.' 'A king exists, as per Hindu philosophy, only to ensure that other people's property is safe,' explains Devdutt Pattanaik.
The Haryana 'incident is a manifestation of a far greater malady -- mobocracy -- that continues to afflict our society,' says Vivek Gumaste.
'To selectively look at the operation of certain laws -- in a manner that ignores the realities of caste and gender injustice in India -- and conclude that they are being particularly misused, is plain wrong,' says Aakar Patel.
'I don't think you have anything to say to me and I certainly don't have anything to say to you.' Bharat Bhushan recalls his encounters with V S Naipaul.
Mythological and historical shows are lapped up not just by the young, but equally by grown men and women.
'When they disappear -- and disappear they will -- they'll take with them some of the joyous vibrancy of our social fabric.' 'All we can do is enjoy them while they last,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
For Mahendra Karma's wife, the November 11 election is a battle to redeem the legacy of the 'Bastar Tiger' who founded the Salwa Judum and was considered a symbol of the tribals' fight back against Maoists before he was killed along with top Chhattisgarh Congress leaders in May.
Why Dalit leaders cross over to the BJP
Invoking the age-old cultural bonds between India and Iran, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said it was time for the two countries to "march together" by regaining the "past glory" of historical ties
A mere pair of shoes sets off the kind of harsh condemnation Indrani draws in these corridors of justice. That she being a woman who killed her daughter -- never mind that she is an undertrial and the crime has not yet been proven -- apart from making her an object of curiosity, also makes her, by perception, more evil than the men that flood these corridors, facing trial for similar or worse crimes.
'It is very hard to get the police to file a report against someone from an upper caste.' 'Things are so bad that sometimes we have to sit on a dharna with the body of a Dalit victim to get the police to file a complaint.'
Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu likely to be India's most water-scarce states this summer
This time however, the poll panel did not share the overall polling percentage at its briefing.
'My God, what do I say? It's shocking!' 'They had 27 MLAs in 2012. And now they have just seven.' 'My party (the Apna Dal-S) contested 11 seats and won in nine.'
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