Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday laid the foundation stone of a grand memorial to Babasaheb Ambedkar at the Indu Mills compound in the heart of Mumbai, a function boycotted by Shiv Sena after its chief Uddhav Thackeray was not invited.
Stoking yet another controversy, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala on Friday described social reformer and Dalit icon Sree Narayana Guru, who belonged to the backward Ezhava caste, as the greatest "Hindu sanyasi" the state has ever seen.
Modi said social justice is not a lip service for the government but a commitment.
The Ambedkar statue that was vandalised in Badaun's Dugraiyya village on April 8 was repainted saffron on April 9.
The spectacles on the Gandhi bust in Kannur were broken while the Ambedkar bust had red paint splashed across it.
The order soon got mired in political controversy with the opposition Samajwadi Party crying hoarse that the move smacked of politics ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
In Tamil Nadu, though reformist spiritual giant Sri Ramanujacharya was a crusader against discrimination who nurtured equality almost a millenium ago, the broad canvas of social justice had only an occasional place for him.
Making it clear that there will be no change in the reservation policy for Dalits, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asserted that nobody can snatch their right even as he accused his opponents of spreading "untruths" on the issue.
Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot said the manifesto was prepared after taking opinions through multiple platforms such as social media.
Naidu 'disturbed' by media reports that Opposition parties will now be more emboldened to unite and stall the government's Parliamentary agenda for the Winter Session.
In Bundelkhand, support for Narendra Modi seems to cut across the caste barriers; even so, a vigorous and 4-cornered tussle is on the cards. Sahil Makkar reports
'Modi is now the biggest messiah of OBCs and Dalits as V P Singh once was.'
Bhim denotes Dalit icon Bhimrao Ambedkar, while Mim denotes the letter 'M' in the Urdu alphabet; the party used the slogan effectively in the 2014 Maharashtra assembly elections
The discussion will prove Gandhi has more knowledge about religion and spirituality than these persons, Kamal Nath said.
The event was attended by representatives of the London-based Federation of Ambedkarites and Buddhist Organisation, UK, which had launched a campaign a few years ago to urge the Indian government to purchase the property as a historically relevant monument.
Sober by temperament and nature, Kharge has never landed in any major political trouble or controversy.
Though he did not name anyone, the prime minister's attack appeared to be directed against Congress and its vice president Rahul Gandhi, who recently made two trips to Hyderabad Central University to join protests over the suicide of a Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula.
Priya Rajan is Chennai's third woman mayor, and at 28, its youngest.
Sharing the "pain" of quake-devastated Nepal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hoped that the "beloved brother" bounces back quickly from its current crisis even as he observed that the task of recovery was long and arduous.
The 124th birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar on Tuesday was observed with traditional fervour across Maharashtra.
'He is a BJP man among Dalits, not a Dalit man in the BJP.'
He told them wryly that he can do a lot of things but cannot be present in the Houses on their behalf.
Nearly 1,500 akansha petis (boxes of aspirations) have been placed in colleges for students to reveal what they expect from a BJP government. While demonetisation figured high in villages, BJP strategist Siddharth Sikka says city youth were "more concerned" about law and order and sanitation.
Stepping up his offensive against the Congress, he asked the party to "repent" for what it has not done in the last 60 years.
'His biggest contribution as defence minister was to change the rules of bringing martyred soldiers' bodies home.'
'These guys who are running away -- they are running away from all that the BJP stands for.'
Seeking to blunt Bharatiya Janata Party's efforts to 'appropriate' legacy of Ambedkar, Sonia said, "Congress had given Dr Ambedkar his dues by appointing him as chairman of the Draft Committee of Constitution."
Two Central Reserve Police Force jawans were killed and three others injured when Maoists triggered an explosive, when they were on way to a polling station in Jamui parliamentary constituency of Bihar early morning, the police said.
Invoking the imagery of Goddess Sita and her father Janaka, the king of Mithila of which this north Bihar town became the capital later on, Modi said those who used to taunt the BJP over the delay in construction of Ram temple were now forced to applause.
Modi, who inaugurated the centre in the heart of the national capital in Janpath, also took a jibe at Rahul Gandhi's comment on being a Shiva devotee and said some parties talked more of Baba Bhole (Lord Shiva) than Babasaheb.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
Opposition parties have closed ranks to target the government on a range of issues from intolerance to rising prices as the winter session begins on November 26.
Political observers are keen to see if the BJP will now be guided by its more firmly entrenched ideological dominance in picking a face solidly identified with its core planks, or if it will choose a person tilted more to its electoral calculations. Or, whether its pick will be an ode to its core supporters or a outreach to relatively new groups of votaries.
In a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'fakir' remark, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday said his note ban decision has turned a majority of the country's people into pauper but not him, and it will lead to Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in Uttar Pradesh.
He launched the "cleanliness is service" exercise to push for greater public participation in one of his government's centrepiece programmes launched on October 2, 2015.
'I bow to the great freedom fighters born in Andhra Pradesh. We have not forgotten our freedom fighters, we will not forget and we will move forward by taking inspiration from them,' the prime minister said
The moustache protest is the latest blot on the face of a nation that has failed to ensure even the safety of the Dalit community, says Veenu Sandhu.
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.
While everyone says that in terms of actual contribution to Nanded or in moral authority, Ashok Chavan cannot compare with his father, in terms of contact with his voters, he beats S B Chavan hollow. 'Sab ko sambhaltey hain.'
Ram V Sutar, 89, has already created more than 200 distinct statues, many of them massive. Now, he is a leading contender for the commission to produce the world's largest statue: A 597-foot tall rendering of Sardar Patel, an independence leader who played a crucial role in uniting India's fractious states.
