Category: India

India’s Muslims fear for their future under Narendra Modi

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With an increase in hate crimes against Muslims in India in recent years, some fear the world’s largest democracy is becoming dangerously intolerant under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan reports. It happened just days before the first phase of voting in the Indian elections. A Muslim trader in the north-eastern state of Assam was leaving work when he was accosted by a mob. Shaukat Ali was surrounded by the group, forced to kneel in sludge as he was attacked. “Are you Bangladeshi?” one man…

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After backlash on ‘Godse a patriot’ remark, Pragya Thakur apologises to BJP

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Pragya Thakur, who provoked national outrage by calling Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse a patriot, has apologised for her comments, the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh unit said after a barrage of criticism from political parties across the board. “She has apologized for her statement. She said she had said it by mistake.” Rajneesh Agrawal, a BJP spokesperson in Madhya Pradesh said. Another BJP leader added that the BJP’s state president Rakesh Singh had also called up Thakur and ticked her off. The Congress had called her patriot remark an “insult to…

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Stand by ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai Slogan’, Apologised to Supreme Court, not PM Modi: Rahul Gandhi

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Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday he will stand by his “Chowkidar Chor Hai” jibe as it is a reality and continue using the slogan again Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi said during a press conference in New Delhi that he apologised to the Supreme Court as he felt he had made a mistake. “There is a process is going on in the Supreme Court and I made a comment attributed to SC so I apologised. I did not apologise to the BJP or Modi ji. ‘Chowkidar Chor…

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Allying with PDP was BJP’s mahamilavat in Kashmir: PM Modi

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Ahead of his nomination filing in Varanasi on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to India Today Group editors and said that BJP’s alliance with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir was its “mahamilavat”. “We went with the PDP because Mufti Saab [Mufti Mohammad Syed] was there, but it was like mixing oil and water. The PDP-BJP alliance was our mahamilavat. We only did it because that was the people’s mandate,” said PM Modi while speaking to us. The Prime Minister has once again hit out at the Mufti family and…

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BJP’s Giriraj Singh wants EC to ban green flags, ‘Gives feeling of being in Pakistan’

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Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh courted yet another controversy on Tuesday when he called for a ban on green flags, which he said “tend to create hatred in the society and gives one a feeling of being in Pakistan”. Talking to media persons in Begusarai on Tuesday, Singh demanded that the Election Commission ban green flag, claiming it gave an impression of Muslim-related political or religious institutions. “These type of flags tend to create hatred in the society and gives one a feeling of being in Pakistan,” he…

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Scrap Article 370, introduce National Register for Citizens across the country: BJP president Amit Shah

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BJP president Amit Shah on Monday said his party will scrap Article 370 of the Constitution which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir and introduce National Register for Citizens across the country after returning to power. Shah accused TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee of questioning the air strikes to “appease” her minority vote bank and wryly said she can do “Ilu Ilu” with Pakistan but if that country fire bullets on us we would respond with cannon balls. On the campaign trail in West Bengal’s Uluberia Lok Sabha seat in…

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I’m proud to accept I was involved in Babri Masjid’s demolition: Sadhvi Pragya

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Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Candidate, and 2008 Malegaon blast accused, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur on Sunday said she is “proud” to accept that she was involved in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. When she was asked by reporters about her involvement in the demolition of Babri Masjid and if she would play a major role in building a Ram temple in Ayodhya, Ms. Thakur said, “I will go to make the Ram Temple. I have said it yesterday and I am not denying it that I had…

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Vote Modi to power if you want to destroy Muslims: BJP leader Ranjeet Bahadur Srivastava

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ranjeet Bahadur Srivastava has asked the voters to cast votes in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi if they wanted to ‘destroy’ Muslims, a media report said. The news gathering Asian News International (ANI) quoted the BJP leader as saying: “In the past five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made attempts to break the morale of the Muslims. Vote for PM Modi if you want to destroy the breed of Muslims. Despite Partition, the Muslim population is increasing in the country and soon…

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RSS picked Pragya Thakur for Bhopal battle, Trial still on, Bar Sadhvi from polls; Malegaon victim’s father

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The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) writ ran large in the selection of Malegaon blast-accused Pragya Thakur as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Thakur, out on bail after serving nine years in jail in connection with the 2008 Malegaon blast that killed six people, has long been the poster girl of the Sangh’s Hindutva campaign and is also used to exemplify what the organisation sees as the Congress’s “witch hunt of the RSS and the Hindus”. “The…

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Top promises in BJP manifesto for 2019 Lok Sabha elections

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The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday released its Sankalp Patra, the poll manifesto for the seven-phased 2019 Lok Sabha elections beginning April 11.The document, while focusing on nationalism, farm sector, infrastructure and governance, lays stress on youth with several promises for their welfare. Here is the BJP manifesto summed up in 15 points: Zero tolerance approach to terrorismThe manifesto says: “Our security doctrine will be guided by our national security interest only. This is exemplied by the surgical strikes and the air strikes carried out recently. We will firmly continue…

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