-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Three summers ago, a water train dispatched by the Centre had chugged into Uttar Pradesh' Bundelkhand region, attempting to provide succour to the parched area. The train had pulled in empty, drawn water from a local reservoir and triggered a massive political row between the Centre and the state government, as a result. This year, the weatherman's predictions for Bundelkhand are bleak as usual, not ruling...
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Are you Arya Samaji, Bohra, Marthomite or Kuka? - Dinesh Narayanan
-The Economic Times For next census, proposal being debated on adding separate heads for sects/branches of 6 major faiths. NEW DELHI: Are you a Kabir Panthi or a Marthomite or a follower of the Hinayana sect or an Ahmadia or a Kuka? Confused? These are sub-faiths under the rubrics of, respectively, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism. Census 2021 may ask Indians to identify not just whether they belong to one of the...
More »Maneka Gandhi's threat to single out Muslim voters isn't a bluff. India's ballot is no longer secret -Ishita Trivedi
-Scroll.in The BJP nominee in Sultanpur warned Muslims she would know whether they had backed her. If they don’t, she won’t help them if she’s elected to the Lok Sabha. Last week, Maneka Gandhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur constituency, caused a stir when she told Muslim voters that if they did not vote for her, they could not expect her to help them if she won. The...
More »Necessary steps to ending poverty -Pulapre Balakrishnan
-The Hindu The provision of health, education and public services matters more than income support schemes It is by now close to 50 years since Indira Gandhi brought the idea of eradicating poverty into the electoral arena in India. ‘Garibi Hatao’ had been her slogan. She actually took the country some distance in the promised direction. Though it had not come close to being eradicated in her time, it was under her...
More »Missing voters -Divya Trivedi
-Frontline.in A large proportion of voters who are left out of the electoral rolls despite having valid voter ID cards are Muslims and Dalits. Abdul Rahmat, 28, from Kolkata was shocked and confused when his application for enrolment in the electoral rolls was rejected with the comment “not an Indian citizen”. Born in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, he had moved to the city a decade ago and held a white-collar job with...
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