Keshav Prasad Maurya's election from Sirathu in Kaushambi will be among the keenly watched contests in UP. If he and the BJP win, will he be luckier this time?
The chargesheet, filed by the State Investigation Agency, has highlighted several instances where parents were taken across the border using valid travel documents but were later compelled to pay extra money for their wards' admission to universities and colleges there.
'If Mayawati had performed better, then the BJP would have had a much tougher time to win UP.' 'The present gap in number of seats between the BJP and SP would have got reduced.'
Curfew was on Friday extended to several areas of Kashmir to foil a planned march by separatists to Eidgah in old city area as normal life continued to remain paralysed for the 49th consecutive day in the Valley in the wake of violence following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani last month.
'All parties are engaging in polarisation to strengthen their political vote banks, which is very unfortunate because these are young, impressionable, students.' 'These students are our future.' 'What kind of a society are we banking upon if we are planting such poisonous seeds into their minds?'
There were no reports of anyone getting hurt in these clashes.
Thousands of people, using all modes of transport, have started converging on the vast Eidgah Grounds in Srinagar, after the state authorities decided to allow the 'Eidgah Chalo' march called by separatists. This is the fourth march called by the separatists in the last 12 days and all of the marches have received tremendous response.The authorities have ordered security forces to exercise restraint. They have also appealed to the marchers to maintain peace.
In a video circulated on social media, Doval can be heard enquiring about the price, weight and diet of the cattle -- mostly sheep on sale at the market.
Security forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to track down the assailants but no arrests have been made so far, the officials said on Monday.
Here are glimpses of how the festival was marked all across the country.
Subdued celebrations marked Eid-ul-Fitr in the country on Monday with people keeping away from mosques and celebrating the day in the confines of their homes.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Environment Minister Gopal Rai visited the Eidgah in Mustafabad and interacted with locals besides taking stock of facilities being provided by the government at relief camps.
All Delhi government, aided, private and schools run by civic bodies will remain shut, said Sisodia.
Protests rocked parts of Kashmir Valley including Srinagar on Saturday where Pakistan and Islamic State flags were yet again displayed by masked youths after Eid prayers.
Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq was placed under house arrest on Wednesday, a day ahead of his proposed rally to commemorate the death anniversary of his father who was assassinated by gunmen in 1990, the conglomerate said.
At least 12 people were injured on Saturday in fresh clashes between protesters and security forces, following death of a 16-year-old boy due to alleged poisoning in Eidgah area of the city.
The days of a thousand cuts are over. These mini wars will remain under the threshold of undeniable war, but will escalate closer to that threshold when their big brother pushes in. Chinese aggression has changed the matrix, the strategies, and surely the objectives too, warns David Devadas.
Terrorism has to be fought at its root of origination. Today we are just removing cobwebs but not killing the spider, asserts counter-insurgency expert Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
Bakri Id was celebrated across the Muslim world on Wednesday with devotees offering special prayers in eidgahs and mosques and sacrificing animals.
A strict curfew blanket spread across Kashmir valley ensured a peaceful Friday and stymied the call for a march to the Eidgah ground in Srinagar to attend a rally against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru at Tihar Jail in Delhi last Saturday.
Authorities have mounted a severe security bandobast to maintain law and order on Friday, even as the curfew continued for the sixth day in the old city and some major areas of the valley.
In Aligarh, District Magistrate Chandra Bhushan Singh told reporters that Kafeel Khan's speech at AMU was instrumental in triggering violent incidents at the university on December 13 and 15.
The scare of the pandemic, lockdown restrictions, as well as mass exodus of migrants from the city have deprived Eid of the usual festivity.
Major mosques and idghas, which see tens of thousands of people offering namaz on Eid and then embracing each other, remained mostly empty perhaps for the first time on the festival as the government has prohibited all kinds of religious gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The Muslim parties on Thursday took a U-turn on questioning the authorship of the 2003 report of the Archaeological Survey of India and apologised to the Supreme Court for wasting its time in the Ayodhya land dispute case.
Curfew-like-restrictions were imposed on Tuesday in Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar and other towns to scuttle the separatist called marches.
Moderate separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) chairman Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq on Friday categorically denied that "any quiet dialogue was going on between them and the Centre".
"When lakhs of Muslims will assemble at the Eidgah on Saturday for the Eid namaz , they will also pray for peace and communal harmony across the country after the special high court bench declares its judgement in the long-pending Ayodhya case", Lucknow's Naib Imam and head of the city's oldest Islamic seminary, Firangi Mahal said on Friday.
Around 400 to 500 people gathered near the city Eidgah to protest against the amended Citizenship Act amid a bandh call, he said.
Several areas in Srinagar observed a shutdown on Monday to protest the death of a 16-year-old boy in clashes with the police, even as authorities suspended an assistance sub-inspector for acting in a "negligent and careless" manner.
People, who have been virtually been kept indoors because of heavy security deployment in the wake of removal of special status for Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcation of the state, were allowed to go to mosques in their localities without being asked any questions by security personnel.
A general shutdown called by All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) headed by Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq on Thursday affected normal life across summer capital Srinagar and other district headquarters of the valley.
'Muslims have been observing namaaz for so many years.' 'The BJP wants to divide Hindus and Muslims for political gains.' 'This is happening in Haryana even though Muslims are only present in one district of Haryana.'
Clashes broke out between youths and security forces in several areas of Srinagar and Anantnag districts after Eid prayers on Friday even as separatist leaders including Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were put under house arrest as a precautionary measure.
Chairmen of both factions of Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq addressed the gathering at Eidgah while chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Mohammad Yaseen Malik addressed the gathering at the TRC.
Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the culmination of the fasting and holy month of Ramzan, is being celebrated across the country on Thursday.
Professor Abdul Gani Bhat, the chief spokesman of the separatist conglomerate, said APHC's 'self governance was not something of a concession like autonomy.'
A number of Union ministers including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad reached the residence of Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in New Delhi to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr on Wednesday.
While Mirwaiz Farooq was assassinated inside his Nageen residence in capital city this day in 1990, Abdul Gani Lone, the founder of Peoples Conference (PC) fell to assassin's bullets the same day in 2002.
The city's main mosque will have a section especially dedicated to the women.
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