Several protests -- some peaceful, some violent -- erupted across India on Monday against the police crackdown in Jamia Millia Islamia and the controversial citizenship law as students and political leaders took to the streets, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi called these protests "deeply distressing" and appealed for peace.
After Kochi, the City of Joy witnessed its own 'Kiss of Love' edition by students of two universities to protest moral policing and promote gender sensitisation.
The idle talk at street corners, cafes and public places since May 23 is that the winds of change are blowing across Bengal.
Parrikar said he did not take anyone's name. "What is quoted is not what I have said. I never took the name of anyone, nor threatened anyone," the defence minister said.
The saffron party's IT cell had realised the power of WhatsApp early in the day and wielded it to devastating effect in the Bengal elections.
The BJP sees investments, both foreign and domestic, as their pathways to political power and not the construction of the Ram temple or a nationwide ban on beef. It will have no option but to let commerce prevail over religious sentiments, says Amulya Ganguli.
Trinamool congress MP and Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University Sugata Bose tells Kavita Chowdhury that there is a sense of fear and insecurity among our minorities.
Pakistan's law minister Zahid Hamid on Monday quit as the government "surrendered" to hardline religious groups, who called off their violent protests in Islamabad that had left six people dead and hundreds injured.
The test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be to convince not just friends in the media with crisp sound bytes but the very people most affected by the politics of hate through concerted action, says Shehzad Poonawala.
Outrage in Himachal Pradesh over widow of ex-Army man being dragged out and assaulted in public after being accused of practising witchcraft.
The issued rocked both houses of Parliament with the Opposition demanding Modi's statement on Trump's controversial remarks, holding that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and no third party can intervene.
Bhumata Brigade chief Trupti Desai on Thursday took her movement for gender equality to the famous Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai but stopped short of going into the shrine.
'We will fight hatred with love, we will fight bigotry with inclusivity. And today I am a Muslim too.' New Yorkers by the thousand, representing myriad backgrounds and faiths, converged on Times Square, to let Muslims know their fellow Americans stood by them.
'It is time for all Indians to understand the truth that led to a 10-year long bloodbath in Punjab and not attempt to glorify the terrorists under the garb of human rights violations or scratch old wounds,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd), on the 30th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.
Ajay Pandita, sarpanch of the Larkipora area in Anantnag district and a member of the Congress party, was shot at by terrorists in his native village at around 6 pm, a police official said. He said Pandita was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to injuries.
'The army has been open about its determination to keep the PML-Nawaz out of power at all costs.' 'Both the military and the higher judiciary have indicated a preference for Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik e Insaaf,' says Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan Desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
There is a great danger of the government getting stampeded into actions in Kashmir that could result in long lasting damage, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Cautioning against forces which fan communal tension in order to polarise the situation in their favour, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday voiced concern over the Muzaffarnagar riots and said such violence cannot be allowed to spread.
Prohibitory orders were imposed in Delhi and parts of Karnataka. Police kept tight vigil in Kerala. In Gujarat, 50 people were arrested for Thursday's violence.
'What authority has a secular government to administer Hindu temples? When Hindu temples are ruled by secular governments, what religious freedom do Hindus have?'
On Tuesday, 49 people, including award-winning filmmakers Aparna Sen and Mani Ratnam, and historian Ramachandra Guha, wrote to PM Modi, urging him to intervene in cases of hate crimes and atrocities against minority communities.
Adityanath says there is no scope for political violence in democracy.
'A speedy trial is absolutely essential.' 'Not only justice is given, it is given expeditiously.'
Addressing an election rally, BJP chief Amit Shah said, "As soon as the BJP forms the government in UP on March 11, we would search (Gayatri Prasad) Prajapati even from the hell and send him to jail."
'Without destroying idol worship, you cannot destroy caste because idol worship keeps religious communities in its religious ideology. The RSS is a big promoter of idol worship.' 'They may have an OBC PM, but neither the RSS or the VHP talk about an OBC becoming a priest. The equation is: Business in Baniya hands. Religion in Brahmin hands. OBC votes for the BJP.'
The perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack, who shot dead 166 people, had confessed to details that should have been enough to hang him, but Pakistan enjoyed his anti-India rhetoric and let him spread his tentacles. A revealing excerpt from Khaled Ahmed's Pakistan's Terror Conundrum.
Heated exchanges were witnessed in Lok Sabha on Tuesday over the rising number of communal incidents.
A united opposition on Monday cornered the government in Parliament, accusing it of focusing on issues like religious conversions instead of fulfilling promises of bringing back black money and creating jobs.
Sporadic violence marked the 'hartal' called by Hindu right groups in Kerala over Wednesday's police action against those opposing entry of women of menstrual age into the shrine.
'The book was NOT banned. There were NO book burnings. There were NO riots. The author was NOT sent death-threats. On the contrary, the plaintiffs pursued due process. The case is a textbook example of how to proceed with civilised, democratic dissent,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
While a police official said that over 15,000 people were present inside the sprawling ground in the garrison city, private estimate put the number of those attending the funeral nearly 1,00,000.
Since Balakot strike, India is trying to build maximum pressure on Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, sources said.
Lok Sabha elections result of 2019 tells us the Modi wave has only consolidated, instead of waning.
'Are moving towards a political culture that provides more space for violence and a paranoid political rhetoric,' asks Nitin Desai.
'No amount of economic measures or prosperity in Kashmir will make any dent in the situation there. The average Kashmiri understands the Pakistani game and is unlikely to prefer Pakistan over India. But the Pakistanis have made clever use of religious symbols and slogans to force religious-minded Kashmiris to support them. India has failed to counter this posturing by the separatists,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Jammu and Kashmir Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday demanded immediate arrest of separatist leaders who had waved Pakistani flags during a rally in Srinagar, saying it was not satisfied with the "mere registration" of a police case against them.
He, however, asserted that all infiltrators will be thrown out of the country.
'With his stature as a playwright and actor, Girish Karnad was one of the voices of modernity for not just Karnataka but the entire country.'
Amid reports of simmering tensions in some parts of the national capital ahead of Muharram on Tuesday, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi assured that all security measures have been taken, especially in sensitive areas and warned that those found involved in spreading rumours will be dealt with strongly.
The BJP knows the CAA, combined with a fresh nationwide NRC process, is an idea that's dead on arrival. Where it lives on is as a divisive, polarising instrument as its rivals have to take a position against it and thereby be exposed to the charge of 'Muslim appeasement' again, points out Shekhar Gupta.
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