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#Narendra Modi UP Election
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coldbasementruins · 7 hours
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behold---my favorite tweet from the kerala congress twitter
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on god, if the government flips and things somehow become worse i will take to the streets.
this entire election is just giving me such a weird emotional strain??? like i am turning 18 this year, this is the country where i have to live in, will get a job in, will roam around the streets, i should have the right to feel safe and i should have the right to support who i want,
india has so many fucking issues and somehow the only thing people focus on is it's caste during voting???
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swamyworld · 8 days
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varanasi lok sabha election 2024 10 stalwarts of Team Modi took charge in Varanasi OBC Brahmin land
Varanasi Lok Sabha Election 2024: The party has put in all its efforts for the BJP candidate for Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party has given responsibility to leaders from different parts of UP. Leaders from Western UP to Bundelkhand and Purvanchal are handling the responsibility of campaigning for the PM. Not only this, leaders from Gujarat and…
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n7india · 22 days
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PM Modi के नामांकन में दिखी NDA की एकजुटता
Lucknow: प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने लोकसभा चुनाव-2024 के लिए मंगलवार को वाराणसी से तीसरी बार नामांकन किया। पुष्य नक्षत्र में उन्होंने मुख्य निर्वाचन अधिकारी कार्यालय में पर्चा दाखिल किया। गंगा सप्तमी पर मां गंगा को नमन करने के बाद प्रधानमंत्री काशी कोतवाल काल भैरव के दर पर पहुंचे, वहां उनसे अनुमति-आशीर्वाद लेकर नामांकन किया। पीएम के नामांकन में एनडीए में शामिल सभी दल के प्रमुख या उनका बड़ा…
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thenewzpeg · 2 months
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Alleging tax terrorism, Congress questions motive, timing behind Rs 1823 cr IT demand 
NEW DELHI, March 29: Alleging tax terrorism and apprehending that no free and fair elections were possible in the country under current circumstances, the Congress today lashed out at the Income Tax department for its blatant and partisan misuse of power by selectively targeting the Congress party in the midst of General Elections.  The party leaders revealed that the IT had only yesterday…
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rudrjobdesk · 2 years
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कब दोबारा सीएम पद की शपथ लेंगे योगी और उत्तराखंड में कौन बनेगा मुख्यमंत्री, जानिए
कब दोबारा सीएम पद की शपथ लेंगे योगी और उत्तराखंड में कौन बनेगा मुख्यमंत्री, जानिए
उत्तर प्रदेश समेत 4 राज्यों में एक बार फिर से बहुमत हासिल करने के बाद भाजपा अब नई सरकारों की शपथ तैयारियों में जुट गई है। उत्तर प्रदेश के सीएम योगी आदित्यनाथ ने शुक्रवार को लखनऊ में कैबिनेट की मीटिंग… Source link
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globalcourant · 2 years
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Explained | The upcoming Rajya Sabha elections to 57 seats in 15 states
Explained | The upcoming Rajya Sabha elections to 57 seats in 15 states
The biennial Rajya Sabha polls are scheduled for June 10 and a close contest is expected in Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Karnataka The biennial Rajya Sabha polls are scheduled for June 10 and a close contest is expected in Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Karnataka The story so far: While 41 candidates have been elected unopposed out of the 57 Rajya Sabha seats up for election…
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mariacallous · 5 days
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India is in the middle of a 44-day exercise to elect its next government, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi tipped to return his Bharatiya Janata Party to power for a third consecutive term. Modi, who aims to win nearly three-quarters of the country’s 543 parliamentary seats, has surprised many observers by using dehumanizing anti-Muslim language on the campaign trail—rhetoric that is more direct than that of his past speeches.
So far, the BJP campaign has focused on creating an irrational fear among India’s Hindu majority that if Modi doesn’t return as prime minister, a share of their private wealth and affirmative action job quotas will be given to Indian Muslims. Modi and his party have doubled down on this narrative at a moment when reports suggest that their quest for a supermajority is unlikely to succeed. The brazen continuation of such anti-Muslim rhetoric differentiates this campaign from the two others that have put Modi in the prime minister’s office.
Hate speech is a criminal offense in India, and it is specifically barred during an election campaign. However, Modi chose the three leaders of India’s Election Commission, the agency charged with conducting free and fair polls, and it has ignored his flagrant violations of the election code. As a result, as the campaign continues through the end of May, so too will Modi’s anti-Muslim tirades. India is expected to announce its election results on June 4.
If the BJP wins and Modi is once again crowned prime minister, his Islamophobic rhetoric will not simply disappear. Many political leaders campaign in poetry and govern in prose, but hateful rhetoric has real-life consequences. Modi’s campaign speeches have put a target on Indian Muslims’ backs, redirecting the anger of poor and marginalized Hindu communities away from crony capitalists and the privileged upper castes. It underscores an attempt to make members of the Muslim minority second-class citizens in a de facto Hindu Rashtra, or state.
These social schisms need only a small spark to burst into communal violence, which would damage India’s global status and growth. Furthermore, Modi’s campaign rhetoric is matched by the BJP’s choice to not put up candidates in Muslim-majority Kashmir, reducing its stake in ensuring robust democracy in a region that New Delhi has ruled directly since 2019. His language will also have a direct bearing on India’s fraught ties with its neighbor Pakistan. Finally, the state-backed ill treatment will likely not be limited to Indian Muslims—meaning that other religious minorities, such as Christians and Sikhs, will also be affected.
Around 200 million Muslims live in India—the second-largest Muslim population in the world, after that of Indonesia. Few mainstream Indian political leaders have plummeted to such depths in castigating these citizens. Modi’s campaign rhetoric makes clear that if he is elected to a third consecutive term, the nation’s Muslims will stand politically disempowered, economically marginalized, and deprived of their constitutional rights.
Modi’s political rise came in the wake of significant violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, when he was the state’s chief minister. Due to his role in the violence, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States all temporarily barred his entry. Leading the party’s campaign to victory in the state assembly in the same year, his campaign speeches were full of crude language against Muslims. But the BJP’s electoral success in Gujarat—winning the next two assembly elections before the launch of Modi’s national campaign—ultimately gave Modi political credibility within an extreme fringe of the party.
By 2011, Modi had started reinventing himself as a business-friendly leader with an eye on a national role. By the time he became prime minister three years later, the narrative of a so-called Gujarat model of economic development concealed his anti-Muslim ideological moorings. Modi’s mask slipped occasionally, but he often spoke with a dog whistle. Mostly, the prime minister reiterated an imagination of India as a Hindu nation. In a post-9/11 world, Modi presented an alternative model of battling Islamic terrorism and consolidated a Hindu majoritarian voter base—delivering a stunning election victory in 2019 after an attempted airstrike against an alleged terrorist training camp inside Pakistan.
This year, Modi has not campaigned on his track record of the past decade or on the party manifesto for the next five years as often as he has attempted to further polarize Hindus and Muslims. In a speech given on April 21, Modi suggested that the opposition Indian National Congress party, if elected, would redistribute property to Muslims. The party would “calculate the gold with [Hindu] mothers and sisters” and transfer it “among those who are infiltrators and have more children,” he said—using terms by which his supporters regularly describe Muslims.
Elsewhere, Modi alleged that Congress was helping Muslims in a plot to take over India: “The opposition is asking Muslims to launch vote jihad,” he said in March. Speaking at a rally in Madhya Pradesh in early May, Modi said that voters would have to choose between “vote jihad” and “Ram Rajya,” the latter being a term referring to a mythical, idealized society that purportedly existed during the rule of Lord Rama, the hero of the famous Hindu epic Ramayana.
The prime minister’s economic advisory council soon released a paper that sought to stoke anxieties about a decline in the proportion of Hindus in India; during the period it covered—1950 to 2015—India’s population actually increased by five Hindus for every one Muslim citizen, but BJP leaders soon deployed the report to further demonize Indian Muslims.
The party’s official messaging has echoed Modi’s rhetoric. A now-deleted video posted on the Instagram account for the BJP’s Karnataka branch this month said, “If you are a non-Muslim, Congress will snatch your wealth and distribute it to Muslims. Narendra Modi knows of this evil plan. Only he has the strength to stop it.” It was followed by an animated clip depicting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hatching a plan to benefit Muslims at the expense of Hindu groups.
Other Indian democratic institutions have done no better. Despite formal complaints from opposition parties and civil society groups, the election commission has neither punished nor restrained Modi. A petition in the Delhi High Court seeking immediate action against Modi for his “communally divisive speeches” was dismissed, with the judges arguing that it was “without merit” because the commission was already looking into the matter. “We can’t presume that they won’t do anything,” one judge said. But as the elections near the finish line, that is precisely what has happened.
Some observers are likely to dismiss Modi’s recent language as par for the course during an election campaign, when tempers run high. However, most surveys and polls have predicted an easy victory for the prime minister and the BJP; he has no need to resort to pandering to base emotions with toxic rhetoric. In an interview, Modi denied that he had uttered a word against Indian Muslims; he was proved wrong by fact-checkers and video evidence. India’s top political scientist said that through his denials in interviews, Modi is trying to influence the naive chroniclers while he continues with his anti-Muslim speeches for the masses and his supporters. Modi’s No. 2, Amit Shah, insists that the party will continue with this anti-Muslim campaign. By persisting with hateful speech, the BJP leadership is fueling a narrative that is likely to intensify discrimination against Indian Muslims during Modi’s rule.
As prime minister, Modi has spearheaded a project for the political disempowerment of Indian Muslims. For the first time in the history of independent India, the ruling party does not have a single Muslim member of parliament. In the current election, the party has put up just one Muslim candidate—on a list of 440—who is running for an unwinnable seat in Kerala. More broadly, religious polarization has made it difficult for Muslim candidates to win seats in areas without an overwhelming Muslim majority. During recent elections, there have been complaints of authorities barring voters in Muslim-majority localities in BJP-ruled states. Modi’s message to Indian Muslims is unequivocal: You do not matter politically.
India’s Muslims are economically disadvantaged, too. A 2006 committee under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress government found that the Muslim community faced high levels of poverty and poor outcomes on almost all socioeconomic indicators. India’s opposition parties have promised a new socioeconomic survey that could inform future policy without a focus on religion. Modi’s government, by contrast, opted to not conduct even the regular census in 2021—the first such instance in 140 years—due to COVID-19; it has not been conducted since.
Rather than relying on data, Modi and his supporters prefer an emotional response that pitches poor and marginalized Hindus against Muslims. India is a highly unequal country: About 90 percent of the population earns less than the average income of $2,800 per year. This gap has widened under Modi, with the richest 1 percent now owning 40 percent of India’s wealth. By othering Muslims, Modi puts them at risk of becoming the object of other deprived groups’ ire, which could lead to further communal violence. A Muslim man was allegedly lynched in Gujarat during the current election campaign, without making national  headlines.
Islamophobia is at the core of the project to make India a Hindu state. Modi and the BJP frequently weaponize terrorism discourse to delegitimize critics and political opposition. In Kashmir, where the BJP is not running candidates this election, this tactic has fueled anger and hostility. The high turnout in the region seems to be an expression of rage against Modi’s 2019 decision to revoke its semi-autonomous status. When the ruling party leaders conflate Islam with terrorism, there is little chance of extending any hand of peace toward Pakistan, either. Modi and his ministers have vowed to take back Pakistan-administered Kashmir by force if necessary—no matter the grave risk of conflict between two nuclear-armed countries.
Finally, Modi’s rhetoric does not bode well for other religious minorities in India. In the border state of Manipur, the largely Christian Kuki community has suffered state-backed majoritarian violence for more than a year. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated state, Christian priests and worshippers are being jailed, beaten, and threatened by both Hindu majoritarian groups and state police. Meanwhile, the BJP has demonized the Sikh farmers who led protests against agricultural laws in 2020 and 2021, labeling them as separatist Khalistani terrorists. (Last year, Modi’s government was accused of involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada as well as in an attempted assassination in New York.)
Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians are India’s biggest religious minorities; they make up nearly one-fifth of the country’s population. To disempower these groups would spell the end of the historical bond between India and ideas of universal justice, human rights, and democracy. A majoritarian Indian state—a Hindu Rashtra—would instead make a covenant with bigotry, discrimination, and violence. The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly asked Washington to blacklist Modi’s government for its suppression of religious freedom, but the Biden administration has refused to act so far.
However, the evidence is there for all to see—and Modi has further substantiated the charge of bigotry with his campaign speeches targeting Indian Muslims. No matter if the BJP achieves its supermajority, this rhetoric will have significant consequences for India. Modi is serving a warning. The world should take note before it is too late.
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zvaigzdelasas · 8 months
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[DW is German State Media]
Running an administration made up of three staunchly right-wing parties appears to be tedious but it hasn't changed her, says the leader of the post-fascist, radical right-wing Brothers of Italy party.[...]
Over the past year, Meloni, 46, hasn't repeated any of the more radical slogans she was so fond of while campaigning. At home in Italy, she is trying to shape domestic policy according to strict conservative family ideals while on the economic front she has more or less carried on with the relatively successful policies of her predecessor, Mario Draghi. Meanwhile at the European level, she has been almost moderate. One doesn't hear acerbic criticism of the EU from her these days and around the world, she seeks out friends and allies. In fact, she leaves the radical statements to her coalition partners: Matteo Salvini of the right-wing League (in Italian, Lega) party and Antonio Tajani, the country's foreign minister and head of Forza Italia, which was previously led by the late Silvio Berlusconi.[...]
The one thing that doesn't seem to weigh on her daily duties as Italy's leader is the fact that her own party's logo features the eternal flame that sits on the tomb of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Her partners in Europe also seem to be looking past that. One hears EU administrators in Brussels confess surprise at how "mild-mannered" and "soft-spoken" the Italian leader has become.[...]
At a Rome press conference with Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz, head of the centrist Social Democrats, Meloni told reporters that both were in agreement on all of the most important policy areas and that they were looking for pragmatic cooperation. Scholz didn't object. Meloni also seems to have built a rapport with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. [...]
During a recent visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, von der Leyen and Meloni also seemed to be on the same page when it came to migration policy. That means monitoring borders, reducing arrivals and collaborating more closely with transit countries. Meloni's suggestion that the navy should blockade the coasts of North Africa was the only one that didn't win support from von der Leyen. The two women have already traveled to Tunisia twice to try and wring an agreement out of the autocratic Tunisian president on holding back migrants. Meloni sees that as part of her strategy to focus more on North Africa than previous heads of state have done, in her bid to stem migration.[...]
The heads of the EU and G7 states were actually relieved when Meloni expressed unconditional support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. US President Joe Biden praised Meloni's stance about how defending Ukraine also defends Europe's freedom.
"I hope you'll be nice to me," Biden joked when Meloni visited him at the White House in Washington this summer. Meloni responded with a telling laugh. Only a year ago Biden had branded her election victory a danger to democracy. Meloni let it be known that the pair were on friendly terms again after the one-on-one meeting in Washington. Meloni, who was completely inexperienced in foreign policy, has also been making friends at international summits, such as the recent G20 meeting in New Delhi. The public affection demonstrated by India's nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi prompted excited comments on social media in that country. The names, Meloni and Modi, were melded to create the new label "Melodi."
A win for moderation! /s
24 Sep 23
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metamatar · 10 months
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India spends a tiny fraction of its budget on public healthcare. Even in spending that minuscule fraction, expenditure on mental health comes last. In fact, the government encourages people to reach out to faith healers for “spiritual” treatments. The ministry of health and family welfare mentions on its website that “recent research has shown that religious practices can be helpful in curing and preventing physical and mental illnesses.” It adds, “When medical care becomes unaffordable, futile, and of no use, spiritual care is absolutely feasible, and a logical solution.”
[...] many superstitious beliefs, because long and deeply held, are also considered integral parts of religious faith and granted the protections attached to it. This is true not just within Hinduism, but also in Christian, Islamic and tribal belief systems. Superstitions begin to seem less banal particularly when they fuel prejudices prevalent within communities. Superstitious beliefs often provide legitimacy to oppression and injustice, acting as a way to maintain the status quo in a society, villainise minorities and women, or to keep people in their places. On the darker end of this spectrum are superstition-based crimes, which can involve human sacrifice and allegations of witchcraft. [...]
Where there is superstition, there is also a battle against it. But, while India has a lineage of rationalists and sceptics, the murders of its leading icons demonstrate how imperilled these figures are. Narendra Dabholkar, a rationalist who was among those demanding a stringent anti-superstition law, was assassinated in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, in which the Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi was elected prime minister. Within a year of Modi taking office, the rationalist Govind Pansare was also assassinated in Maharashtra, and another rationalist, MM Kalburgi, was assassinated in Karnataka. A police investigation found that Kalburgi’s statements made during a discussion on an anti-superstition bill were perceived as “anti-Hindu,” and had been the trigger for the attack on him.
cw: rape, graphic violence, ritual murder in the link below
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beardedmrbean · 4 months
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated a grand temple to Hindu god Ram in the flashpoint city of Ayodhya.
He said it heralded "a new era" for India - the temple replaces a 16th-Century mosque torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots in which nearly 2,000 people died.
Top film stars and cricketers were among guests at the event in Ayodhya.
But some Hindu seers and most of the opposition boycotted it, saying Mr Modi was using it for political gain.
General elections are due in India in the next few months and Mr Modi's political rivals say the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be seeking votes in the temple's name in a country where 80% of the population is Hindu.
Critics have also accused the government of exploiting a religious celebration in a country which - according to its constitution - is secular. For Muslims, India's biggest minority, the event evoked fear and painful memories, members of the community in Ayodhya told the BBC in the run-up to Monday's ceremony.
Televised live, it showed Mr Modi performing religious rituals inside the temple's sanctum along with priests and Mohan Bhagwat, head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - the ideological fountainhead of Hindu nationalist parties.
The complex history of India's Ayodhya holy site
Transforming a flashpoint holy city into the ‘Hindu Vatican’
"Today's date will go down in history," Mr Modi said after the event. "After years of struggle and countless sacrifices, Lord Ram has arrived [home]. I want to congratulate every citizen of the country on this historic occasion."
The temple has been constructed at a cost of $217m (£170m), funded from private donations. Only the ground floor was opened - the rest is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The construction work is part of a revamp for the city, estimated to cost more than $3bn.
The building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya fulfils a decades-long Hindu nationalist pledge. Many Hindus believe the Babri mosque was built by Muslim invaders on the ruins of a temple where the Hindu god was born.
The movement to build the temple helped propel the BJP into political prominence in the 1990s.
There was a festive atmosphere as tens of thousands of chanting Hindu devotees waved flags and beat drums - military helicopters showered flower petals on the temple. Saffron flags with pictures of Lord Ram line streets in the city festooned with marigolds, as do banners with the faces of Mr Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Some of India's biggest celebrities, including Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, attended.
Temple rises from ruins of one of India’s darkest days
Listen: The temple at the heart of Modi's India re-election bid
Transforming a flashpoint holy city into the ‘Hindu Vatican’
In many other northern cities Hindus lit lamps, and saffron flags carrying images of Ram are fluttering on rooftops, including in several parts of Delhi. Cinemas screened the event, and big screens relayed pictures from Ayodhya to town squares and residential neighbourhoods.
The ceremony, called Pran Pratishtha, which loosely translates from Sanskrit into "establishment of life force", lasted about an hour. Hindus believe that chanting mantras and performing rituals around a fire will infuse sacred life in an idol or a photograph of a deity.
Several domestic TV stations built huge sets by the side of the river Saryu, a tributary of the Ganges, just behind the temple, and provided wall-to-wall coverage of the event, some proclaiming the moment of consecration as the start of "Ram Rajya" (Lord Ram's rule) in India.
Hindus celebrated the inauguration in other countries too. Massive billboards of Lord Ram graced Times Square in New York, where a group of devotees braved the freezing weather to gather in the middle of the night.
Temples all across the United Kingdom - where Indians are one of the largest diaspora groups - marked the event. Colourful posters had been shared inviting devotees to honour the occasion and celebrations involved flowers, sweets and music. There were also some celebrations in Muslim-majority Dubai - where Indians are a significant population - but from Indian news reports these appeared more muted than elsewhere.
In 2019, the Supreme Court gave the disputed land to Hindus after a protracted legal battle followed the mosque's demolition. Muslims were given a plot outside the city for a mosque but have yet to build one.
One member of the community the BBC spoke to in Ayodhya ahead of Monday's inauguration agreed that Hindus have the right to build the temple after the Supreme Court gave them the site.
"We did not accept that decision happily, but what can we do," he said. Another man said he was happy Hindus are building the temple - "but we are also sad because it was built after destroying a mosque".
The new three-storey temple - made with pink sandstone and anchored by black granite - stretches across 7.2 acres in a 70-acre complex. A 51-inch (4.25-ft) statue of the deity, specially commissioned for the temple, was unveiled last week. The idol has been placed on a marble pedestal in the sanctum sanctorum.
Thousands of police were deployed for Monday's event, despite Mr Modi having appealed to pilgrims not to turn up and to watch the ceremony on television. In many states a full or half day holiday was called, with schools and colleges closed and stock markets shut.
The build-up to a demolition that shook India
The man who helped Lord Ram win the Ayodhya case
But a sour note was struck with some top religious seers saying that as the temple was not yet complete, it was against Hinduism to perform the rituals there, and many opposition leaders deciding to stay away.
Some opposition-ruled states also announced their own plans for the day - West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she would pray at the iconic temple to goddess Kali in Kolkata and then lead an all-faith rally. The eastern state of Odisha (Orissa) unveiled huge plans to bring pilgrims to the Jagannath temple in Puri, one of the holiest sites for Hindus.
Authorities say they expect more than 150,000 visitors per day once the temple in Ayodhya is fully ready.
To accommodate this expected rush, new hotels are being built and existing ones spruced up as part of a major makeover and in recent weeks, a new airport and railway station have opened.
Officials say they are building a "world-class city where people come as pilgrims and tourists", but many local people have told the BBC that their homes, shops and "structures of religious nature" have been either completely or partially demolished to expand roads and set up other facilities.
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swamyworld · 28 days
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Muslim vote bank Narendra Modi, Narendra Modi Muslim: PM Narendra Modi told the Muslim community the need to introspect, what is the reason
Lucknow: The voting process for the Lok Sabha elections is being completed in Uttar Pradesh. The three-phase election process has been completed. The Muslim vote bank seems to be voting united once again. Meanwhile, a big statement from PM Narendra Modi regarding Muslims has come out. In an interview given to Times Now, PM Narendra Modi said a big thing about Muslim vote bank. Referring to their…
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sivavakkiyar · 3 months
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The disempowerment of Kashmiri political parties finds its roots in August 2019. A day after a meeting between Omar Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah of the Jammu Kashmir National Conference and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 4, 2019, a cloud of uncertainty enveloped the region. The speculation led to citizens flocking to oil and ration stations, anticipating an imminent change. National Conference leaders dispelled these rumors, only to witness a swift crackdown thereafter. On August 5, 2019, Article 370 was abrogated.
The subsequent imposition of a prolonged lockdown and communication blackout, along with the detention of three former chief ministers under the Public Safety Act, marked a seismic shift in the region’s political landscape. The dissolution of the BJP-People’s Democratic Party coalition in June 2018 preceded these events.
After the abrogation of Article 370, the BJP promptly initiated delimitation and announced that elections would be postponed until its completion. As politicians were gradually released from detention, speculation arose regarding their conditions of release. Initially, rumors suggested that politicians had agreed not to oppose the abrogation. However, leaders like Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, and Omar Abdullah swiftly refuted these claims, declaring the abrogation “unconstitutional” and vowing to reverse the decision of August 5, 2019.
While the Supreme Court of India has wrapped up the chapter on Article 370, at least for the time being, the political parties of Kashmir, once united under the banner of People’s Alliance for Gupak Declaration (PAGD), are now engaged in a skirmish of their own. They seem determined to topple each other from a chair that doesn’t even exist anymore.
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thoughtlessarse · 2 months
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Narendra Modi’s electoral success in Gujarat between 2001 and 2014 and on the Indian scene since then stems from his novel blend of populism and Hindu nationalism (Hindutva). Hindutva grew out of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organization, RSS), a paramilitary-style nationalist group founded in 1925 to bulk up young Hindus both physically and morally so they could stand up to Muslims, who were depicted as a danger to the majority. Modi joined the RSS as a child and devoted his life to it, pursuing no other careers and even living apart from his wife. He rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the chief minister of Gujarat (his home state) in 2001. The following year, he oversaw an anti-Muslim pogrom that left some 2,000 dead— a strategy of religious polarization that won him the December 2002 regional elections. Similar successes in 2007 and 2012 made Modi the obvious prime ministerial candidate for his Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party, BJP) in 2014. But he left behind the RSS tradition of collective decision-making, putting himself front and center and striving to connect directly with “his” people. Rather than relying on the activist network, Modi held rally after rally where he showcased his flair for speechmaking. He also founded his own television channel, worked social media, and employed a revolutionary strategy: using holograms to simultaneously lead one rally in hundreds of places. Modi even distributed masks printed with his likeness to deepen supporters’ identification with him. In short, he saturated the public arena so as to embody the masses—a task made easier by his low-caste origins, on which he has built a complete narrative. (He worked as a teaboy in his father’s shop.) However, the “masses” meant only the Hindu majority, which he was busy stirring up against one target in particular: Muslims. As in the 2014 elections, in 2019 “Moditva”—Modi’s idiosyncratic hybridization of right-wing nationalist ideology, Hindutva and a personality cult—triumphed on the strength of BJP landslides in the north and west. This success allowed him to bend to his will both the RSS and the BJP—whose MPs had ridden to victory on his coattails—fashioning a government of faithfuls and a parliament of yes-men. The other institutions soon succumbed too—even the Supreme Court, once a beacon of independence. In the summer of 2014, Modi advanced a constitutional reform that would have changed the appointment process for judges, until then picked by a collegium of peers. His co-optation, opposed by the entire political class, would have replaced the collegium with a five-member commission. The Supreme Court eventually declared the amendment unconstitutional, but Modi still got his way: Of the nominees submitted by the collegium, his government finalized appointments only for those he liked. The court thus resigned itself to proposing candidates who were apt to please him.
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