More than 150 daily wage employees of Chanderi Municipality in Madhya Pradesh's Ashoknagar district have threatened to renounce the "Sanatan Dharma" and embrace some other religion en masse after Diwali to protest their removal from service.
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.
Religious freedom and related human rights in India are under ongoing threat, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom alleged on Tuesday in an unusual year-end update of the status of its assessment of religious freedom in the country.
'They have to prove the credibility of their talk; whether they want to focus on the secular face of India, whether they want to focus on democracy and above all freedom of an individual to practice his or her religion.'
The judge made the remarks while sentencing 25-year-old Mohammad Alim to life imprisonment, convicting him for raping and threatening a student after falsifying his identity.
The court issued the interim direction on a bunch of seven petitions challenging the provisions of Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021.
The US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also recommended to the Congress to raise the issue of religious freedom during US-India bilateral meetings, and hold hearings on it.
The BJP chief said while the party did not believe in discrimination on the grounds of caste, creed, religion and language, "we will not indulge in appeasement to expand the party's base.
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"anti constitutional", "anti poor" and "draconian", and urged that it should not be passed for any reason and should be withdrawn by the government.
"Bhagwat has done national service by speaking the truth on what missionaries do," the Sena said.
The Madhya Pradesh government has issued a new notification after the amendment in the MP Religious Freedom Rules 2021 for the same on Thursday.
The Bill has been pending with the Governor for over a year after the Assembly passed it last April 6 amidst uproarious scenes and boycott by the opposition parties.
They alleged that the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance was being used to "victimise especially those Indian men who are Muslim and women who dare to exercise their freedom of choice".
'His campaign reached into every community, every constituency, with a unifying platform of affordability.' 'Zohran began by listening to Trump supporters and brought many of them to his side because they too care about affordability.' 'Care for the poor is a tenet of every faith; this is the best platform to unite us.'
The issue of conversion of some Muslims in Agra rocked the Lok Sabha for the second day on Thursday with opposition members creating uproar and demanding immediate discussion on the matter, which they said could have grave consequences like causing riots.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has strongly criticised Maharashtra Minister Nitesh Rane for calling Kerala a "mini Pakistan", saying the remark is "highly provocative and condemnable". Vijayan said Rane's comments expose the Sangh Parivar's approach towards Kerala, which he said involves alienating and spreading hate campaigns against the state. He also criticised the leadership of the ruling party for not reacting to Rane's "serious breach of oath". Vijayan called for all democratic and secular forces to unite against the Sangh Parivar's "hateful propaganda".
The CM said that the film exposes the conspiracies of 'love jihad', religious conversion and terrorism and its "hideous" face.
The Gujarat high court on Thursday turned down the state government's plea seeking rectification of its recent order in which it stayed the operation of section 5 of the new anti-conversion law.
The youth brigade, set up in 2002 by Yogi Adityanath who is now Uttar Pradesh chief minister, filed a complaint against Yohannan Adam, the pastor of the church, accusing him of converting Hindus to Christianity, a charge the pastor denied.
The consequences will be stern in case SC/ST and minors are converted.
He said Muslims were trying to spread their religion by migrating to new areas, infiltration and Jehad.
Taking note of a Hindu outfit's assertion that a large number of people will be converted on December 25, district authorities on Friday issued a warning to those trying to disturb communal amity while asking citizens not to get provoked.
An audio clip recently surfaced on social media of the purported conversation between the accused, Dr Shashikant Deshpande, who was then additional district surgeon at the Udgir Government Hospital in Latur, and Dr Shashikant Dange, who was posted at a COVID-19 care centre.
In a significant judgment, the Allahabad high court has ruled that the religious conversion of girls "without their faith and belief in Islam" and "solely for the purpose of marriage" to Muslim boys could not be held valid.
The Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday that religious freedom does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion and that it certainly does not embrace the right to convert an individual through fraud, deception, coercion or allurement.
The most beautiful aspect of Bad Girl is the way it delves into the mother and daughter relationship, observes Mayur Sanap.
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.
Senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sankh leader Indresh Kumar favoured the Karnataka government's proposal to bring a law against forced conversions in the state.
The current situation in Kerala politics is perhaps best described as a case of the state's traditional two front politics now seeing a third front (the BJP) muscling in with the potential outcome being either a messy three front affair or a renewed endorsement of the two front pattern but with one of the old fronts compromised or quashed, observes Shyam G Menon.
Coming on the heels of two successful bilateral meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden -- the Official State Visit of the Indian leader here in June and a bilateral meeting in New Delhi in September -- USCIRF in its announcement of the meeting said the Congressional hearing is on how the US government can work with the Indian government to address violations.
Jemimah Rodrigues rose through the ranks in Mumbai to become one of the key batters for India, but the journey wasn't easy.
The bill was passed in the assembly in December last year but was pending before the council where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is one short of a majority.
To a query on the possibility of approaching court, Machado said that has not been decided, but it would be one of the options to stop the promulgation of the ordinance.
According to the latest assessment, 800 houses were damaged in the violence since December 24 with 580 families, including 336 below the poverty line, affected.
On October 14, 1956, Dr B R Ambedkar, fulfilling his long-held vow to renounce Hinduism, embraced Buddhism along with over 500,000 followers at Nagpur's Deekshabhoomi, marking a new era of social and spiritual liberation for India's Dalits.
In the slot of rural poor, there are those who struggle to pull themselves out of crumbling hovels, and there are the Jamtara-like bunch who turn to crime. Neeraj Ghaywan's Homebound is about the former, whose quest for respect and dignity is thwarted because they are underprivileged, notes Deepa Gahlot.
The Delhi Police on Monday questioned former minister Rajendra Pal Gautam over his presence at a religious conversion event where Hindu deities were allegedly denounced, and he will again be quizzed on October 11, senior officials said.
Showing keenness on a general consensus on the issue of stopping forceful religious conversion, BJP President Amit Shah said a bill can be brought in parliament for the purpose if "so called" secular parties extend support.
The incident has brought back into focus the controversy that erupted last year when BJP-led governments in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand directed food outlets along the Kanwar route to display the names of their owners and staff.
The Allahabad High Court dismissed a plea seeking the use of 'disputed structure' instead of 'Shahi Eidgah Mosque' in Mathura case proceedings.
