Prime Minister Narendra Modi's maiden speech from Red Fort last Independence Day outlined some grand programmes. Shehzad Poonawalla does a quick check on the progress made.
Mohammad Sajjad raises important questions about the response to lynchings.
A look into the state of Dalit entrepreneurship in the country.
The government told the HC that 'Maratha community comprises people belonging to various castes and since the country doesn't conduct caste-based census anymore,' it was proving rather 'difficult' to get hold of the requisite data.
The Union home ministry is expected to forward the proposal to the Registrar General & Census Commissioner for a detailed examination and suggestions, a ministry official said.
'The nominations were not meant to last permanently, but depended on the government of the day.' 'There was no question of revoking it during Congress, Janata Dal or even Vajpayee's NDA rule.' 'But Modi is different.'
'The corporate world and the private sector economy take notice of the monstrous and apartheid like division that exists in our offices. The jobs we so casually take for granted in the upper class have come to us on the back of denial to others,' says Aakar Patel.
Bhagwat presented Sangh's views on a number of contentious issue while answering wide-ranging written questions on the last day of the three-day conclave, including on matters like inter-caste marriages, education policy, crimes against women, cow vigilantism.
'How many Indian parents, still alive, really have documents of, their parents's date and place of birth? Not more than 27% of still alive Indians have got birth certificates,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
The renaming of Mewat comes within weeks of an RSS-supported think tank issuing a 'study' about the growing population of Muslims in the Mewat region.
It also provides that no preliminary enquiry will be required for registering a criminal case and an arrest under this law would not be subject to any approval.
'Our children score very high marks, but do not get admission in good colleges. They get top rank, but they do not get jobs because they belong to the so-called forward caste.' 'What can we do when a boy or girl from the community with first rank is considered only at the 6th or 7th position for a government job just because those with reservation get precedence over us?'
'The Jharkhand government is increasingly intolerant of voices of dissent.' 'Recently 20 persons, including activists, writers and academics, were booked for sedition.' 'Many of them have been critical of the government's apathy towards Adivasis,' notes Siraj Dutta.
Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh could have voted in significant numbers for the BJP, endorsing its stand on issues like women's rights.
'The CAA should be kept in abeyance, without making it a prestige issue.'
'Laying down a clear policy on the future of illegal migrants will dispel anxieties and help in implementing the CAA, NPR and also the NCR,' suggests former Union home secretary Dr Madhav Godbole.
Among the most deprived communities in India live and work under asbestos roofs. The National Institute for Health and Family Welfare estimates exposure to asbestos has resulted in higher incidence of cancer among those living under asbestos roofs, points out Gopal Krishna.
'For the sake of the nation, and the preservation of its polity, it is high time the country's largest political party and the country's largest religious minority make peace between them,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The announcement was made by AIADMK coordinator and deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam and Union Minister and senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal, party election in-charge for Tamil Nadu, who described it as a "mega alliance".
He said it was due to the degradation of moral values that social evils such as rapes, cow slaughter and other evils are happening in the society.
'Mulk questions the very principle, of good-Muslim exceptionalism.' 'That, of course, we adore Abdul Hamid, A P J Abdul Kalam and Bismillah Khan and if only more Muslims were like them.' 'Anubhav Sinha sticks his neck out to say that these are no exceptions.' 'Most Muslims are like them. It is the terrorists who are exceptions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'To treat a Hindu fleeing persecution and certain death in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan on par with a Muslim voluntarily sneaking into India for economic reasons or otherwise is callously cruel, blatantly perverse and grossly unjust.' 'The concept of equality cannot be invoked to perpetuate a historical wrong that needs to be righted,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in mankind's history has such an idea taken the concrete shape in form of a law. The National Food Security Bill, which will come via ordinance and not after the debate in Parliament, is an incredible economic tool to tackle the hunger of poor Indians. Also, it has already been condemned widely as a political gimmick.
Akbar is rumoured to have once asked the navratnas of his court what the greatest pleasure in the world was. The stock answers came back: wealth, power, women, food, wine and so on, with the emperor's own contribution being hunting. Birbal was the outlier; he asserted that the greatest pleasure in the world was surely a good bowel movement.
The verdict in the right to privacy case is historic and of global significance because it establishes dharma, righteousness and destroys adharma.
The verdict in the right to privacy case is historic and of global significance because it establishes dharma, righteousness and destroys adharma.
'I have grown up in an environment where the dominant narrative of Indian sporting achievement was -- We can't.' 'These achievers have fought hard, built on each other's body of work and knowledge, and have today changed the script to -- We can,' notes Rahul Dravid,cricketing legend.
The main culprit in vitiating the inter community/caste/class relations has been the so called 'targeted' approach. This is nothing but discrimination on the basis of faith/caste/class. When an equally poor and deprived child is denied scholarship, despite equal merit, resentment begins to brew, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
India's demographic dividend may not automatically give rise to tangible economic gains -- at least not with immediate effect -- but it is likely to have a big impact on the coming Lok Sabha elections, Mayank Mishra
With nearly a million identified slums, UP urgently requires housing for the poor
'The BJP will never do anything substantial to empower Dalits.'
The film is a romantic thriller that has all the necessary twists and turns which will definitely entertain the audience.
'The BJP can kill two birds with one stone by wresting back control of the message; and the steps are fairly obvious. Once the media is neutral, there is a level playing field,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
Former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa will be up against Geetha Shivrajkumar, the daughter-in-law of actor Dr Rajkumar and daughter of former chief minister S Bangarappa. Vicky Nanjappa reports
Let us see the problem for what it actually is: Illegal Immigration plain and simple, confined to the northeast with a definite communal slant that poses a national security risk and one that needs to be dealt with firmly and promptly by stringent identification (and deportation), says Vivek Gumaste.
'If anyone is able to understand the importance of Modi's endeavours to revive the economy -- even against opposition from sections of his own saffron brotherhood -- it is the former prime minister,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'The loose use of words like foreigner or Bangladeshis obscures the fact that the post-Partition migration to Assam has been of both Hindus and Muslims.'
Sheena Bora may be the latest of India's 'gone girls' but the list is too long to enumerate, says Sunil Sethi
'Did Islam kill those five people in London?' 'Or did one wacko individual do them in?' asks Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
'Slightly more than 50 per cent of all Keralites are Hindus. If we can unite as many as we can, we can create a huge difference in the political scene in Kerala.'
India is experiencing jobless growth and skepticism abounding that the country may not be able to cash in on its demographic bonus