'If Ranil Wickremesinghe starts repressing and suppressing the protesters who represent the people, that will pose a danger for him to continue in office.'
Hindus will become the world's third largest population by 2050 while India will overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population, according to a new study.
'We are encouraged by what the prime minister said recently on these issues... We will keep a close eye on these issues. They are very important and as are other elements of our human rights and religious freedom.' 'So, absolutely, we'll keep a focus on them.'
There have been over 300 attacks against Christians and their churches and prayer halls, primarily in northern India, states Aakar Patel.
Aam Aadmi Party Chief Arvind Kejriwal has kicked up a controversy by asking voters in Delhi to take "bribes" from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress but to vote for his party in the upcoming Delhi assembly election.
Unless Punjab has a chief minister who is able to look beyond community/vote bank politics, carry all sections of society, stop appeasing while addressing genuine concerns and break the stranglehold of the SGPC over Sikh affairs, my beloved home state is bound to die and conversions will be rampant, warns Sanjeev Nayaar.
A group formed by controversial Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Yogi Adityanath --known for his interest in religious conversions dubbed "ghar wapasi" -- offered all possible help "including guns" to the Hindus of Dadri's Bisada village.
'If it weren't for Om Puri, a whole range of our big city experiences wouldn't have found their honest representations on the screen.'
Political power has now been outsourced fully to the Modi government. Even if the RSS is still, in principle, his guru, nobody would dare to whisper a word of advice to Modi, forget some whiff of criticism. When the shishya grows into such a popular and domineering leader, the guru has to applaud from the sidelines, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Already, there is a feeling even within the BJP's AIADMK ally that the BJP is overdoing things on the ED/I-T front, as corruption is not an election issue in the state -- as long as the people are otherwise not excessively unhappy with the governing party, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
El-Sisi welcomed Modi, who is on a two-day state visit to Egypt, at the Presidential Palace where the two leaders were closeted for one-on-one meeting after which the two sides signed a memorandum of understandng.
'One wonders if he has decided on the disastrous course of taking after Manmohan Singh, sitting like a Madam Tussaud wax figure, the same expressionless face, eyes unblinkingly staring in front, and making absolutely no difference, and no contribution, to the House proceedings,' asks B S Raghavan.
The column marked 'miscellaneous' in statements of accounts of Non-Governmental Organisations who receive foreign funds is turning out to be a headache for the Indian authorities. Vicky Nanjappa tells you why
'I never got respect as an actress.' 'But when I became a director and worked with actresses like Cate Blanchett and Jessica Chastain, I felt such pride of being an actress.'
Espousing an aggressive pro-backward and Dalit stance synchronising with the Maurya controversy, the SP has thrown down the gauntlet with Akhilesh upping the ante on the burning topic, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the civil court in Varanasi to not proceed with hearing the Gyanvapi case till it takes up the matter on Friday.
'By making Rachel Rajeshwari, Tejashwi has done an exemplary thing.'
Tamil Nadu is the celebrated home of the 'social justice' movement in the country, yet caste differences and violence has only been increasing in numbers and becoming more brutal in recent years, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Musharraf episode in the recent history of the subcontinent has convinced many realists in India that the hope of establishing peace with Pakistan is like accepting a dinner invitation from cannibals and expecting to live to tell the tale, points out Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'We have taught our children about every religion. But we have never told them that they belong to any particular religion. I always believed that these differences would slowly fade away'
A scene of a play and a conversation between two key characters were snipped from the first episode Tanashah, a day after the cast and crew of the nine-part starry political saga on Amazon Prime Video once again apologised and said they had decided to implement changes to address the concerns raised.
The apex court will hear the matter amidst an important development with a Varanasi court on Monday directed the district administration there to seal the spot of the survey inside the complex where allegedly 'Shivling' has been found by the surveying team.
'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.'
The order was issued a day after Shehbaz held a telephonic conversation with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and among other issues also discussed the issue of security of Chinese in Pakistan.
The Supreme Court, which had on February 7 refused to entertain two pleas seeking to restrain Lekshmana Chandra Victoria Gowri from taking oath as an additional judge of the Madras high court, on Friday pronounced the reasons for the dismissal of the petitions.
Gandhi attacked the BJP by alleging that the saffron party has proved that hatred can be used politically and to win polls, but cannot generate employment.
'The Muslims in Karnataka are safe and secure. The state government belongs to everybody.'
The South Korean foreign minister on Tuesday 'regretted the offence' caused to the people and government of India by the social media post on the so-called Kashmir solidarity day by the Hyundai Pakistan, a day after New Delhi summoned the RoK envoy to express 'strong displeasure' over the 'unacceptable' post.
After being caught in the perfect storm and conquering near death at sea four years ago, Abhilash Tomy has made seafaring history by coming second in the world's most difficult ocean race. As he sailed to the finish line to welcoming cheers, holding the Indian flag, his remarkable story tells us the amazing things human beings can do.
'Neither India nor others deserve this unsolicited lecture on human rights from a country that has consistently persecuted its ethnic and religious minorities, is an epicenter of terrorism'
Under NSA, the government can detain a person for as long as it wishes and the authorities need not disclose the grounds of detention. A person booked under the provision of Gangsters Act becomes part of a gang listed in police records. It entitles the police to keep track of those booked under the Act and issue summons to them for attendance at the local police station for questioning even if no fresh case is lodged against them.
A commission appointed by a court in Varanasi to conduct a videographic survey of the Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi Mosque complex submitted its report on Thursday, an advocate said.
Much depends on the BJP's electoral performance in next year's assembly elections. If the party fares well in UP and some states like Goa and Gujarat, it will be able to fob off the attempt at a reappraisal of its Hindutva doctrine, observes Amulya Ganguli.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Friday came out in fulsome praise of the Modi government for initiatives on national security, economy and international relations in a short period of six months.
Singh said the court also gave a week's time to both Hindu and Muslim sides to file objections to the report of a court-mandated videography survey of the Gyanvapi mosque premises.
'They were certainly not practising Hinduism in the Harappan culture (which includes Mohenjo Daro and other sites).' 'There was no notion of Hinduism then.'
India said on Thursday that it desired normal relations with all its neighbours, including Pakistan, and advised Islamabad to create a conducive atmosphere, including by taking "credible, verifiable and irreversible actions" to stop cross border terrorism against it and enable the two countries to engage and address issues bilaterally.
The action against Zakir Hussain, a councillor from Shakar constituency in Kargil district, followed registration of a first information report against him by police on Friday even as the councillor submitted a public apology over his remarks, the officials said.
"Somewhat surprisingly, Indian-Americans born in the United States are much more likely to report being victims of discrimination than their foreign-born counterparts," said the report.
'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.'