Since coming to power in May 2014, India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has diluted the provisions of several progressive laws that its predecessor, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, had enacted between 2004 and 2014. In August 2023, it amended the Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2005 through a new legislation, the Digital Personal Data … Read more
After Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented India’s annual budget early this month, leaders from the southern states protested over their falling share in the country’s tax revenues. The dispute appears poised to escalate in the run-up to parliamentary polls due in a few months, but it’s a rather old one. Although the five states of … Read more
An Indian state has approved an unprecedented uniform code for marriage, divorce, adoption, and inheritance for Hindus, Muslims, and other religious communities under new legislation that also requires couples that live together to register with the government or face punishment. Lawmakers in northern Uttarakhand state passed the legislation on Wednesday and its approval by the … Read more
Advertisement When the Narendra Modi government issued an innocuous circular earlier this month directing senior bureaucrats of different ministries to “showcase/celebrate the achievements” of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the past nine years, it caused a huge uproar. Opposition parties accused the government of “politicizing the bureaucracy” and using civil service officers to … Read more
Advertisement India’s 28-party opposition front, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance or INDIA, passed its first electoral test last week, with some key victories in assembly by-polls. Of the seven constituencies in six states that voted on September 5, constituents of the INDIA bloc bagged four. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance … Read more
Advertisement The Narendra Modi government’s formation of an eight-member committee headed by former President Ramnath Kovind to examine the prospect of “One Nation, One Election” and recommend measures to that end has created a lot of suspense and apprehensions in India. The idea behind “One Nation, One Election” is to hold parliamentary and state legislature elections … Read more
Advertisement Violence by Hindutva groups was averted in the communally volatile district of Nuh in Haryana on Monday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government — the Hindu nationalist BJP is also in power nationally — taking strong measures to prevent clashes. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other Hindutva outfits had called for a … Read more