The caste census has already become a hot-button issue. Unless settled earlier, it will echo loudly in the coming assembly elections and eventually in the 2024 parliamentary poll, notes Virendra Kapoor.
The Narendra Modi government on Monday supported the United Progressive Alliance regime's decision to include the Jat community in the central Other Backward Classes list for providing reservation and refuted the allegation in the Supreme Court that it was done to gain political mileage in the general elections.
Out of the 403 seats up for grabs, the BSP had prepared a final list comprising 97 Muslim candidates (12 more than 2012), 87 Dalits and 106 other backwards castes, besides earmarking 113 seats for upper castes -- Brahmins 66, Kshatriyas 36 and others 11.
The passage of this major legislation comes ahead of the general election due early next year.
However, another quota agitation body Sardar Patel Group welcomed the government's move, but said they will assess how it will help Patel community and up to what extent.
'BJP has lot of money. Even a rich person like me is scared of taking on the financial muscle of the BJP.' 'What is the point of throwing money? Result toh aane wala nahi hai.'
'In IIT, most faculty members have a bias against SC/ST students.' 'SC/ST and OBC students have no idea whom to approach for support.'
Among the eight secretaries are Bansuri Swaraj, former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana's son Harish Khurana and Imprit Singh Bakshi.
The Supreme Court, examining whether states can sub-classify the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the grant of a quota within a quota, said on Thursday that the state governments cannot be selective in granting reservation benefits to backward classes as it will lead to a dangerous trend of appeasement.
The Supreme Court on Friday questioned the Bihar government as to why it published its caste survey data but refused to restrain it from making public further data, and said it may examine if the state has power to conduct such an exercise.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
'Can we force somebody to contest and fight an election when they don't want to contest an election?'
In the five years in politics Priyanka Gandhi has undeniably emerged as a thorn in the BJP flesh, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. It is time that this thorn is twisted a wee bit more when the elections have become far more uncertain than what it was when the Election Commission announced the poll schedule.
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the Constitution amendment bill to restore the power of states to make their own OBC lists after a thaw in the logjam as Opposition parties backed the legislation but demanded the removal of the 50 per cent cap on reservation, with many of them also calling for a caste-based census.
He also criticised the government over an advertisement published in some prominent newspapers listing the steps taken for the welfare of the Maratha community.
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
The productivity of the Budget session was abysmal. The Lok Sabha functioned for 33% of its scheduled time (46 hours); the Rajya Sabha 24% (32 hours).
The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday named former TV anchor and journalist Isudan Gadhvi as its chief ministerial candidate for next month's assembly elections in Gujarat.
The Supreme Court, examining whether states can sub-classify Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for grant of quota inside quota, on Wednesday said all SCs and STs may not be homogeneous in terms of their sociological, economic, education and social status.
Most of them are sitting legislators and a few of them also served as ministers in the past.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
Muslims have been given tickets in 36 of the 100 seats.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday night released the first list of 43 candidates for the high-stakes Bihar polls, giving about 60 per cent representation to those from SC and backward castes in an apparent attempt to target the base of rival Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine.
The cabinet decided to bring the religious minorities under the EWS category.
Either this affidavit was prepared a long time back, or, Ambedkar has not been following the Commission's hearings.
These self-appointed well-wishers of AMU are basically for the control or police model of university governance. They have no faith whatsoever in the democratic functioning of the universities, observes Faizan Mustafa, former dean, Faculty of Law, and Registrar, Aligarh Muslim University.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said that candidates belonging to the Other Backward Class category are required to be adjusted against the general category who were more meritorious than the last of the general category candidates appointed.
Eshwarappa would turn 75 in June, the unofficial age bar in the BJP for leaders to contest polls and hold official positions.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The party has not applied the "one-family, one-ticket" formula for the Karnataka polls which it followed in the Punjab polls held last year.
Gangmei in his appeal said the HAC "was a necessary and proper party and the proceedings before the high court were vitiated on account of not making the HAC a party".
There are no major legal complications in implementing the bill right now but the Narendra Modi government putting it off for 10 years, he said.
'People understand Hitlershahi, tanashahi and now Modishahi.'
'The BJP is doing politics 24x365, but the Congress revs up only during elections.'
Former Bihar MP Anand Mohan, who is serving a life sentence in the killing of Indian Administrative Service officer G Krishnaiah, is to be set free along with 26 others who have been lodged in different prisons of the state for more than 14 years.
'Where should shudra-OBCs go because of whom the nation is surviving?'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced hiking the capital expenditure by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore for infrastructure development for 2023-24 and will be at 3.3 per cent of the GDP. Presenting the Budget for 2023-24, she said the newly established infrastructure finance secretariat will assist in attracting more private investment. "Capital investment outlay is being increased steeply for the third year in a row by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore, which would be 3.3 per cent of GDP.
