Will the BJP tone down its communal rhetoric or convince itself that the party has to indulge in more of the same? Few would have expected the Aam Admi Party (AAP) to repeat its stellar performance of five years ago when it won 67 out of the 70 Delhi assembly seats. But the fact that it is touching the 60-seat mark and succeeded in retaining its well over 50 per cent vote share shows that there has been very little diminution of its political appeal. However, it is also undeniable that the BJP put up a creditable fight, running the AAP close in a number of seats. There has also been an eight per cent jump in the BJP’s vote share from 32.8 per cent in 2015 although it has dropped sharply from the 56.9 per cent which the party received in last year’s parliamentary polls. What the outcome underlines, therefore, is the differentiation which the voters are making between a state election and a national one. This propensity has also been evident in the three other assembly elections held recently, viz. in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, where the BJP either failed to form a government or could do so only with an

The anti-corruption party won 62 seats out of 70. Hindu nationalists get the other eight; the increasingly irrelevant Congress, nothing. Voters rewarded the winner for its social policies, which have increased access to schools and healthcare. Christian calls on the chief minister to include Christians in his administration. Arvind Kejriwal's landslide victory in Saturday’s Delhi[*] election is a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies of hatred, local Christian community leaders told AsiaNews. The anti-corruption Aam Aadmi[†] Party (AAP) took 62 seats out of 70, giving its leader a third mandate as Delhi Chief Minister. The other eight seats went to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress party, which hoped for a better result, was completely shut out. For Michael Williams, president of the United Christian Forum, "APA’s victory by an overwhelming majority clearly shows that the politics of polarisation and hatred have no room in the nation’s capital. Instead, “People need jobs, the economy needs revival, women need safety and minorities need reassurance.” In all these areas, Williams explained, the central government “is failing miserably. I hope that the rulers of India are able to align their ideology with the needs and concerns of citizens.” The Delhi vote was held in a climate of heated

On Wednesday the SDM court in Ghazipur ordered the arrested to be released on furnishing personal bonds of ₹2.5 lakhs and two sureties by gazetted officers for the same amount The 12 ‘Padayatris’ had undertaken a walk to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial at Rajghat in New Delhi, starting from Gorakhpur. They wanted to spread the message of goodwill and communal harmony and talk to people on the way. They covered some 200 Kilometres between February 4 and February 11, when they were arrested by Ghazipur Police for the crime of walking without permission. And when their bail application was moved the next day, the SDM court-ordered stringent conditions and demanded that each of them submit bonds amounting to ₹2.5 lakh each besides producing two sureties of equal amount from two gazetted officers. The conditions are unusually harsh and are clearly designed to have a ‘chilling effect’ on the activists, who may well find fulfilling both the conditions difficult. When the activists expressed their surprise over their arrest and pointed out that they represented no political party or group, that they were merely talking about the need to maintain harmony in society and distributing literature to that effect, they were told that they needed the permission

A small house church pastor and his family in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh were taken into police custody for a crime that they did not commit and questioned until 1:30 in the morning. The incident took place on February 9, after the members of the Bajrang Dal broke into pastor Sanjay Raj Singh's house church and disturbed the Sunday worship service. According to pastor Singh, the radicals manhandled the congregation and verbally abused the Christians. International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that the radicals were carrying Hindu idols with them. When they entered the house church, they broke the idols on the floor. "They started to film the broken idols that they dropped as evidence that I had destroyed the idols," pastor Singh told ICC. "The angry mob came prepared to accuse me of destroying the Hindu idols. That is the reason they brought these idols and dropped them where the worship was going on." "They forcibly snatched the car keys and did not allow us to leave the house for several hours," pastor Singh continued. "When the police came, they also claimed that I used the car for conversion activities." When the police arrived at pastor Singh's house, they arrested the pastor and his family on false charges and

Christians too fearful to show up after attacks. Attacks and harassment of a house church in southern India have decimated the 40-member congregation and left the pastor injured and demoralized. Pastor Eswara Rao Appalabattula on Jan. 27 pleaded with about a dozen local residents to stop building a wall meant to block people from attending worship services at his home in L.B. Patnam village, Andhra Pradesh. Led by a local Hindu extremist, the group attacked him, breaking his hand, he said. “They wanted to build a wall right in front of the church and ban us from using the path,” Pastor Appalabattula told Morning Star News. “I pleaded with them to not do so. But the group of at least six neighbors, both male and female, punched me in my stomach several times and pushed me to the floor.” They picked up a wooden pole and started beating his hands repeatedly with it, he said. “I was lying there on the floor screaming for help,” he said. “My wife came running and begged them to stop beating me – it was traumatic.” The attack topped a month of hostilities and years of opposition against the pastor and his wife, who are in their 60s,

In Udaypatty village in Uttar Pradesh, five Christians falsely accused of engaging in forced conversions were arrested and kept in police custody overnight on February 11. The five Christians were arrested when they had gathered for a prayer service at 12 in the noon. According to one of the accused, a mob of radical Hindus along with two police officials from the Barasti Police Station entered the prayer service shortly after it had started the disturbed the gathering. They accused the Christians of forced conversions and took them into custody. "We have been harassed several times in the past," Sunder Bhardwaj, one of the accused Christians, told International Christian Concern (ICC). "However, this time the Hindu radicals came with the police to arrest us." "We were terrified by the ferocity of the mob and the believers were scattered," Bhardwaj continued. "It is very sad that this is going on. We don't interrupt or disturb anyone when we gather for worship." While two Christians were released on the same day, three others were kept in the lock up overnight and released the next day.

By Joe WallenSonapat, Feb 17, 2020: The odd barking dog was the only thing that cut through the silence as Jai Singh stirred in his bed in his unadorned two-room house in the sleepy, sun-bathed village of Bitchpuri. After a simple breakfast with his wife the pastor led the morning prayers at his home for several of the village’s 120-strong Christian population. But the peace was suddenly shattered as the air filled with the sound of anti-Christian slogans outside. Flinging open the door, he was faced with an irate mob of around 200 people. Before he could reason with them, the crowd beat him and his 15-year-old son and dragged him to the village square. “They hit me with their fists and then took me into the temple and beat me with sticks, before stretching my legs back as far as they would go,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. He suffered two broken feet, as well as permanent nerve damage in his legs. Since Narendra Modi’s government came to power in 2014 religious minorities have felt the force of the prime minister’s Hindu nationalist agenda. While recent unrest in the country has focused on the marginalisation of Muslims, there has also been an uptick in attacks

A British MP heading a parliamentary group on Kashmir on Monday claimed she was denied entry into India despite a valid visa after she landed at the airport in New Delhi A British MP heading a parliamentary group on Kashmir on Monday claimed she was denied entry into India despite a valid visa after she landed at the airport in New Delhi, a charge denied by the government which said she had been informed that her e-visa was cancelled. Debbie Abrahams, a Labour Party member and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Kashmir, said in a statement that she arrived in Delhi on Monday morning and was informed that her e-visa, which was valid till October 2020, had been cancelled. A Home Ministry spokesperson said the British parliamentarian had been duly informed that her visa was cancelled and she arrived in Delhi despite knowing this fact.

He says the Citizenship Amendment Act and possible creation of a National Register of Citizens have led to large-scale protests from students and the youth in many parts of the country. Former Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia says the government must hear voices of protest and bring a healing touch for creating an environment conducive to revival of investment, comments which come in the backdrop of anti-citizenship law demonstrations. He says the Citizenship Amendment Act and possible creation of a National Register of Citizens have led to large-scale protests from students and the youth in many parts of the country. "The voice of the youth is unlikely to be silenced easily. In any society, students and the youth are the ones most likely to speak truth to power if only because they have the least to lose and the most to gain," he says. Ahluwalia, who served as one of India's senior economic policymakers for three decades, makes these observations in his latest book "Backstage: The Story behind India's High Growth Years" which traverses the politics, personalities, events and crises in the country's recent history. He asserts that there is an urgent need to create an environment of social harmony. "To create an environment

Hindu extremists in Andhra Pradesh, India, brutally beat an elderly pastor and verbally abused his wife amid escalating tension over the presence of a Christian church in their community. Morning Star News reports that Pastor Eswara Rao Appalabattula was attacked by a group of Hindu extremists after he pleaded with them to stop building a wall meant to block people from attending worship services at his home in L.B. Patnam village, Andhra Pradesh. "They wanted to build a wall right in front of the church and ban us from using the path," Appalabattula told Morning Star News. "I pleaded with them to not do so. But the group of at least six neighbors, both male and female, punched me in my stomach several times and pushed me to the floor." They picked up a wooden pole and started beating his hands repeatedly with it, he said. Doctors later told him his hand had been fractured. "I was lying there on the floor screaming for help," he said. "My wife came running and begged them to stop beating me — it was traumatic." That same month, a Hindu priest led a group of extremists to the pastor's home, where they threatened to kill his wife, Karuna Appalabattula,