"Making a person belonging to Dalit caste as the chief minister of Punjab is nothing but an election stunt. I have come to know through the media today that assembly elections in Punjab will be fought under a non-Dalit leader and not under Channi," Mayawati told newspersons in Lucknow
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said more than 40 miscreants have been arrested in connection with the stone-pelting incident in Shivamogga and cases booked against them.
Bharatiya Janata Party's southern ally Al India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday reiterated its stand against the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code.
President Mukherjee said the "sensitivities" of the minorities must be respected "in letter and spirit" to ensure every community is part of the "national narrative"
The idea is to help madrasa students join the academic mainstream and prepare them for a better future.
The courts are not forums to solve "theological questions", Supreme Court judge Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said on Thursday in his verdict on the Karnataka hijab ban controversy.
Prominent Muslim organisation Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind on Tuesday backed the Andhra Pradesh waqf board's stance describing the Ahmaddiya community as non-Muslims, claiming that this is the "unanimous position" of all Muslims.
A bench comprising Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Ashutosh Srivastava passed the order on the public interest litigation filed by one Sudhir Kumar who argued that the film, if released/broadcast, is likely to create hatred amongst different religious denominations and thereby destroy the secular fabric of India.
He added that the legislation is similar to laws that exist elsewhere in defining specific criteria for citizenship pathways.
Chirag Daruwalla, who is following in the footsteps of his famed astrologer father, the late Bejan Daruwalla, makes his predictions for the New Year.
Stoutly defending Sanatan Dharma, Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai on Thursday dubbed the ruling DMK a casteist party that must be decimated, and questioned its track record on Dalit empowerment.
"India will succeed if it's not splintered on religious lines."
The court of additional sessions judge R M Asodiya reserved its order on Hindustani's bail plea for April 13, additional public prosecutor Moham Gohel said.
Questioning the team's authority headed by a former Patna high court judge, Banerjee pointed out that Ram Navami processions organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party had carried arms and driven tractors and deliberately taken routes where 'Namaz' was being offered.
'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.'
Mufti said the fundamental rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution and guaranteed to all Indian citizens "are being brazenly impinged upon".
As the police said they have a list of 8,000 accused and the drive will continue, women protested against the move in various districts saying they will face problems without livelihoods.
The Uttar Pradesh State Minority Commission on Sunday described the mass conversion of Muslims in Agra as 'an act of fraud and a dubious exercise which has no connection with the serious business of change of faith'.
'It will be the end of the Congress after the Lok Sabha election.' 'Many Congressmen and even Communists will move to the BJP.'
'Few practitioners of yoga doing the Surya Namaskar, including lakhs of Americans and Europeans, see it as a form of worshipping the sun. They do it because it is good exercise.' 'In my view Muslim groups need to be more flexible on such things and not present their problem in terms that are confrontational.' 'Having said that, are they over-reacting? The history and the background of the government and its ministers would lead us to believe otherwise,' says Aakar Patel.
The assailants fired indiscriminately at the temple built by the local Hindu community on Sunday, prompting a police unit led by Kashmore-Kandhkot SSP Irfan Sammo to reach the scene.
'The central government can stop further destruction... if they have the political will to do so.'
The vision of a 'New India' would talk about constructing a nation where the so-called appeasement of religious minorities would stop, Hinduism would be accorded "due status" and there will be one law for all citizens, including for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, reports Archis Mohan.
A private member resolution seeking that the government implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee report and other reports that have discussed the educational and social backwardness of Muslims and enact a legislation for the prevention of atrocities against minorities was moved in the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
The posters were put up on the shutters of the shops late on Sunday evening, Purola station house officer Khajan Singh Chauhan said.
The minister said considerable tracts of land belonging to the Waqf board had been illegally occupied, but assured that it will be vacated and used to build schools, hospitals and parks.
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.
The devotees who were beaten up by the mob were identified as Sumantra Chandra Shravan, Nihar Haldar, Rajiv Bhadram, he said.
Indian-Americans have relatively more conservative views of policies in India while on issues affecting the US, the diaspora has a more liberal take, according to a survey of the political attitudes of the influential community in this country.
A family of six, including two young girls, were responsible for the attacks, national police chief Tito Karnavian said.
China on Monday waded into the furore over the controversial remarks by two now-suspended Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries against Prophet Mohammed, expressing the hope that the incident can be properly managed.
'The government is going to introduce legislation that would make it easy for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sikhs and Jains to migrate legally to India.' 'But looking at that list, my entire well-meaning question, as may be obvious, is: What about Muslims? They seem to have been specifically left out of this formulation,' says Aakar Patel.
'The time has come for all those believe in a democratic India to stand up and be counted and to make a choice.'
'Why is a powerful person called Amit Shah who camped in Manipur for three days not able to maintain law and order in the state?'
The Delhi high court on Thursday sought the stand of the central government and Central Waqf Council on a PIL seeking to declare that the Waqf Act is in violation of the Constitution and that private properties of citizens can only be governed by a Uniform Civil Code.
India must evolve its own standards on how democracy must be ranked in a diverse and multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and pluralistic idea called India, suggests R Jagannathan.
'Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is sincere about maintaining religious harmony in the country.' 'But for mysterious reasons, it does not reach the grassroots activists of her party.'
Bharatiya Janata Party Vinay Katiyar and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien had a heated argument.
'If this is the India you're talking about, where there is no space for minorities, where you have hate, where people can enter universities and beat students up, let me be anti-national.' 'I'll carry that as a badge of honour.'
The Centre should open all its diplomatic channels with Bangladesh to communicate the global Hindu concern and ask the government there to stop attacks on Hindus and Buddhists, the outfit urged.
