-BBC   India's election authorities have put on hold a government decision to reserve a proportion of government jobs and seats in state-run education centres for minority groups. The quota - of 4.5% of jobs and seats - has been suspended until elections are held in five states next month. Critics say the Congress party announced the quota to woo Muslim minorities in the upcoming polls. Opposition parties had complained about the move. They accused the...

The quantum is well below expectations of Muslims who have been pressing for exclusive reservation of 10% The Union government's much-anticipated quota-within-quota sop for minorities as a whole has left Muslim groups confused and groping for answers. On Thursday, the Union Cabinet marked off 4.5 percentage points from within the 27 per cent OBC Central quota, allocating the share to religious minorities, among them Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Jains. (In the 2001...

-The Hindu   Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India, has issued the following clarification on his critical observations of the Indian media.   I have expressed my views relating to the media in several T.V. interviews I gave as well as in my articles in some newspapers. However, many people, including many media people, wanted clarification and amplification of some of the issues I had raised. Many media people (including several T.V. channels)...

Rural households having a member earning more than Rs 10,000 a month or anyone serving in a government or government-aided organisation or owning a landline phone will not be included in the below poverty line (BPL) category in the new poverty census being conducted by states. However, the new census, which also includes questions about religion and castes, will compulsory include rural households without shelter, destitutes living on alms, manual scavengers,...

Promises action “to allay fears and insecurity Christians are experiencing” Chief Ministers will be asked to deal firmly with anti-Christian violence Promises to act on the Saldanha report on violence against minorities in Karnataka Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured a Christian delegation on Saturday that he was trying to evolve a consensus on granting Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims. He also said he would ask Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram...