It is unusual in democratic countries two decades into the 21st century for laws to become regressive instead of progressive. But that is clearly what is happening in India today and more of this is ahead, asserts Aakar Patel.
The court had warned a "very difficult situation" will emerge if proselytisation through deception, allurement and intimidation is not stopped.
The 91-year-old expressed his joy, saying he never thought that he would sit in a new Parliament building in his lifetime.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on September 9 a plea challenging certain provisions of the 1991 law which prohibit filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.
Congress partly vehemently opposed the bill, calling it "anti people", "inhuman", "anti constitutional", "anti poor" and "draconian", and urged that it should not be passed for any reason and should be withdrawn by the government.
'What you need is a credible Opposition, a credible platform to persuade people to believe that it can replace this government.'
The contentious anti-conversion bill was cleared by the Karnataka Cabinet on Monday and it is most likely to be tabled in the legislative Assembly on December 21, official sources said.
'When there was no crime committed, everything had to be fabricated. They see it as a war, and everything is fair in love and war.'
'Your constant reiteration on the lack of religious freedom in India has sown doubts about the kind of information that you are being fed and based on which you seem to be making adverse references to India and its tradition of religious tolerance.'
Notably, Pakistani journalist Ali, cited the BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots and said he "regretted" that no US official had criticized it, while the US State Department highlighted the close relationship between the two countries, especially over shared values.
The Centre on Thursday disputed in the Supreme Court the figure pertaining to alleged attacks on Christian institutions and priests, terming the data "wrong" and claiming the petitioners wanted to keep "the pot boiling" to sully the image of the country abroad.
'You can't pull down the nation's builders and architects to please the people in power.'
There are communal organisations among all religious groups, but the ultimate goal of religions and such outfits is different, Geevarghese Mar Yulios, the metropolitan of the Kunnamkulam Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, told reporters in Thrissur.
The Supreme Court on Friday referred the issue of the practice of excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community to a larger nine-judge bench.
'Goa is a tiny state, but in terms of its Business of Politics, several powerful lobbies of India are involved in it, be it the mining lobby, hoteliers' lobby, casino lobby, hawala lobby, drugs lobby etc.'
'As CIC, you have the power to comment on policy matters. 'If you have very strong beliefs and you know your rulings will be reported, you will express your beliefs.'
Amidst the fanfare over Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's plans to celebrate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's birth anniversary in Kolkata on January 23, his daughter Anita Bose-Pfaff has said that the organisation's ideology and the nationalist leader's ideas of secularism and inclusiveness are 'poles apart and do not coincide'.
'I condemn in strongest possible words hurtful comments of India's BJP leader about our beloved Prophet (PBUH),' Shehbaz tweeted.
Trinamool congress MP and Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University Sugata Bose tells Kavita Chowdhury that there is a sense of fear and insecurity among our minorities.
"The consequence of the demand to declare Hijab as an essential religious practice is huge because there is an element of compulsion or else you will be expelled from the community," Navadgi told the court.
India witnessed religiously motivated killings, arrests, riots and coerced religious conversions and the police in some cases failed to respond effectively to communal violence, according to the US State Department report on International Religious Freedom.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was 'putting pressure' on him to 'frame' the then chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi in an alleged fake encounter case in Gujarat when he was being questioned by the probe agency during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
The 1991 provision is an Act to prohibit conversion of any place of worship and to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947, and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
In the wake of several Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states using bulldozers to raze the houses of persons accused of being involved in criminal activities, senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Indresh Kumar on Wednesday said this action was not targeted at any particular community, but against those involved in some crime.
...the BJP's template of operation was different or if the Centre and the state were ruled by dissimilar parties? asks Shyam G Menon.
Noting the pendency of issues related to firecrackers before the Supreme Court, the Delhi high court on Thursday refused to entertain a petition challenging Delhi Pollution Control Committee's complete ban on sale and use of all kinds of firecrackers.
The party's most important electoral challenge lies in whether it can meet the aspirations of the youth who were drawn by the promise of gainful work.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear on February 3 a batch of pleas challenging controversial state laws regulating religious conversions due to interfaith marriages.
India on Monday hit out at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation for its criticism of the country in the wake of the alleged derogatory remarks made against Prophet Mohammed by two Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries.
He also told reporters outside the state assembly complex here that the state police will seek help from central agencies on a possible Pakistan angle in the incident.
The bench pulled up some of the petitioners, who sought adjournment in the matter, and said it would not permit "this kind of forum shopping".
It is not the duty of a constitutional court to regulate and monitor the movement of every citizen to see whether one indulges in public urination, spitting and littering, the Delhi high court said on Monday while dismissing a plea seeking to prohibit the practice of putting up images of deities on walls to prevent people from urinating in public places.
The Supreme Court said on Thursday it is not the 'interpreter' of the Holy Quran and it has been argued before it in the Karnataka hijab ban matter that courts are not equipped to interpret religious scriptures.
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
When a resolution, moved by Chief Minister M K Stalin, to urge the Centre to implement the Sethusamudram ship canal project was taken up for discussion in the House members spoke on their party stand.
The Karnataka government told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the state has not touched any "religious aspect" in the hijab ban row and that the restriction on wearing the Islamic headscarf is limited to the classroom.
'...to bring the Global South and others to the negotiating table on the basis of Gandhi's non-violence so that we can leave a safer world for our children.'
The Madhya Pradesh cabinet on Tuesday gave nod to an ordinance on the bill against religious conversion through fraudulent means, including those for the sake of marriage, that stipulates a jail term of up to 10 years for violators.
A day after the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) sought a ban on staging of the Malayalam play Kakkukali, its director Job Madathil on Tuesday accused the critics of having an agenda behind their charges and urged them to watch the drama first.
There have been over 300 attacks against Christians and their churches and prayer halls, primarily in northern India, states Aakar Patel.
