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.
About 124 pilgrims on a two day visit arrived at the sacred Katas Raj temples in Chakwal district near capital Islamabad on Friday and were overwhelmed by the official reception.
A fierce competition among parties to offer freebies and guarantees, a scramble for tribal, OBC, women votes and a touch of Hindutva -- all have combined to make the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls a high-stakes battle with main rivals BJP and the Congress pulling out all the stops to gain power.
Jnanpith awardee Girish Karnad on Tuesday said 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan would have enjoyed the same status as of Maratha king Chhatrapathi Shivaji, if he was a Hindu and not a Muslim.
In the Interim Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a high power committee would be set up to consider the challenges arising from 'fast population grown and demographic changes.' 'But who wants data? It pays to feed people's fears, insecurities and apprehensions. If such fears don't exist, they must be created,' her husband Parakala Prabhakar says in this fascinating excerpt from his book, The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis.
Political analysts say the Congress's approach of taking the marginalised sections together has helped it in winning tribal-dominated seats, while the BJP will have to do a rethinking to win in Vyara, considering the social dynamics in this aAssembly segment.
'Nehru's inability to take religion seriously as a category led to serious errors of judgement in his dealings with the Muslim League, and later, also with the Hindu right.'
Following the post, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accused Congress leaders of spreading "misinformation" and creating social hatred by sharing a "false" post on Golwalkar.
Sakshi Maharaj, Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament from Unnao, has stirred a hornet's nest yet again by saying that Hindu women should produce at least four children in order to protect the Hindu religion.
'He is wily and has everything that a political leader needs to succeed at that level.' 'He would be outstanding as a counter to Modi in the Lok Sabha, if he had the Opposition benches behind him,' says Aakar Patel.
'Putting Yogi Adityanath in the CM's seat two years before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls is something to be read carefully.' 'Opposition parties would be dishonest themselves and unfair to secular people if they failed to unite and work as a single force to defeat the BJP.'
The inaugural Sangamam turned out to be a political Hindutva function than a gathering on the Hindu religion, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday urged Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena to take strict action over the murder of a minor girl in Shahbad Dairy in Delhi and said it was his responsibility to maintain law and order in the city.
Mobs killed a cleric in a late night attack on a mosque, torched an eatery and vandalised shops as communal violence that began in Haryana's Nuh spilled over into Gurugram, taking the death toll to five, the police said on Tuesday.
While Singh comes from the Meiti community, he has continued to appeal to both sides to stay away from violence and restore peace in the state.
'You will see more laws that treat Hindus and non-Hindus, especially Muslims, quite unequally.' 'Once you see this kind of erosion of secularism, it will be very hard to get it back.'
"India will succeed if it's not splintered on religious lines."
There is an impression within the Tamil Nadu BJP -- although no one is airing it -- that over-exposure for Narendra Modi over the past months may work against party candidates, as they have triggered a near-continuous social media debate on his achievements and failures, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The development is being seen as a sign of the growing political prominence of Hindus in America. Hinduism is the fourth largest faith in the US, representing approximately one per cent of the US population in 2016.
Action has been taken against 8,275 posts including 4,563 posts on Sunday, it said, adding these had been posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday charged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with 'deliberate insult' to Hindu sensibilities for taking along a minister from another faith inside an ancient temple where it is prohibited.
Majlis-e-Shura of Masjid committee has appealed to Muslim youths to marry within the community and keep away from inter-religious marriages that cause embarrassment, committee secretary Syed Wasimuddin told PTI.
The arrested belong to an outfit called the 'Hindu Yodha Sangathan', and the leader of the group is a history-sheeter with four criminal cases registered against him, police said.
'Segregation suits the BJP at the moment. It will not suit them forever.'
A court in Lucknow ordered on Wednesday to register a first information report (FIR) against senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid for comparing the 'Sanatan' Hindu religion with the Boko Haram and Islamic State (ISIS) terror outfits in his book titled Sunrise Over Ayodhya: Nationhood in Our Times.
Yogi Adityanath has turned Lucknow's VVIP guest house into his seat of power.
Mathura has a prominent mosque -- the Shahi Idgah -- located next to a temple, believed to be the site of the birthplace of Lord Krishna. The mosque has been at the centre of a legal battle for years with Hindu groups claiming that the Idgah was built on land where Lord Krishna was born.
A two-day-long 'Dharma Sansad' convened by the Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati of Dwarka Peeth has passed a resolution that Sai Baba, the 19th century saint from Shirdi, should not be worshipped as a deity by the followers of 'Sanatan Dharma'.
Leicestershire police said a 20-year-old man has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to possession of an offensive weapon during clashes in the city.
Addressing a public rally in Aurangabad late in the evening, in which he was termed as 'Hindu Jananayak', the MNS chief said if Uttar Pradesh government could remove the loudspeakers, what was stopping the Maharashtra government, led by his estranged cousin Uddhav Thackeray, from doing so.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the 'love jihad' controversy.
"We agree with the Supreme Court that this matter is complicated and this requires a serious and experienced judge. Court has said the district court will look into it. We agree with the Supreme Court," he said.
The king and his wife, Camilla, the queen consort, travelled from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey -- a distance of 2.2-km -- at a stately pace in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach bearing a gilded crown, which was commissioned for Queen Elizabeth II in 2012.
'The BJP is doing politics 24x365, but the Congress revs up only during elections.'
A 1,200-year-old Hindu temple in Pakistan's Lahore city will be restored after 'illegal occupants' were evicted from it following a lengthy court battle, the federal body overseeing minority worship places in the country said on Wednesday.
'In India, the establishment not only endorses, but many a times instigates anti-Muslim hatred.'
As of now, there is nothing to suggest that the 'Michaelpatti episode' has the potential to polarise Dravidian Tamil Nadu on religious lines, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In his weekly column Rokhthok in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana, Raut also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah should not sow 'seeds of hatred and divisiveness'.
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.
