The Election Commission sent a notice to Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the BJP's Mumbai chief. This is probably because a leading newspaper highlighted his utterances on its front page.
Armed with out-of-the box manifestos that promise abolition of income tax and unemployment allowance to educated youth, 48 Lok Sabha candidates of 21 lesser known parties have jumped in the poll fray in Gujarat.
The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce its verdict on Wednesday on a plea seeking restoration of conspiracy charges against senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
Muslim groups observed 'day of sorrow' while Hindu outfits celebrated 'shaurya divas' on the 23rd anniversary of Babri mosque demolition on Sunday, which passed off peacefully amid tight security in Ayodhya, as well as in other parts of the country.
Like Modi, Keshav Prasad Maurya worked at tea stalls. Dinesh Sharma, on the other hand, is a professor at Lucknow university.
'Though we will raise our voices repeatedly, though we will not keep silent, this is a clear threat to us. What happened to Gauri Lankesh could happen to any of us,' says friend, and fellow journalist and activist Shashidhar Hemmady.
Five other convicts were also granted varying jail terms by a special MCOCA court.
Born in Ayodhya, Ansari was the first to file the suit on the matter in the court of civil judge of Faizabad in 1949.
The Sabarimala Karma Samiti, a platform of right-wing outfits, including VHP, appealed to media houses not to depute women journalists in the menstrual age group to cover the developments in Sabarimala.
The court had concluded the arguments on quantum of sentence on Friday last week after taking into consideration submissions made by both the prosecution and defence lawyers as well as the lawyer of the victims.
'The current BJP leadership believes the party's expansion across India, and thus their own survival at the top, depends on injecting communal tension into areas where it has so far been largely controlled,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
'Given the growing animus against the Mughals in the Sangh Parivar, only a brave person will be ready to bet that no harm will ever be done by Hindutva storm-troopers to the Taj,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The arms training camp of Bajrang Dal has triggered a war of words among political parties in Uttar Pradesh with Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati expressing concern over Governor Ram Naik's support to the "illegal exercise" and Samajwadi Party accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of whipping up communal frezy with an eye on state assembly polls.
A clerical error compounded by callousness of the higher bureaucracy has raised a storm over the already vexed Ayodhya issue.
There are indications that the Modi dispensation was disinclined to bring the VHP into the temple-mosque frame.
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