The exact number of people killed in the train burning is variously reported. For example, the BBC says it was 59, [113] while The Guardian put the figure at 60. [114] Bilateral discussion between the US and India will help reinforce and give momentum to the Quad discussion because many of the topics are very much interrelated,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters earlier this week. The problem for orthopaedic surgeon Dr Rajan Sharma, former head of the Indian Medical Council, is the ideological motivation behind the decision. He believes politics should not be allowed to intrude into medicine. President Joe Biden in a statement celebrating Indian Independence Day said the US and India were indispensable partners, and their partnership was grounded in a shared commitment to the rule of law and the promotion of human freedom and dignity. Accusations have abounded in India that old colonial powers in the west, uncomfortable with India’s rise, are attempting to stymie its prominence by bringing up old allegations.

Shortly after Modi was re-elected in 2019, his government scrapped the disputed region’s special status guaranteed by the constitution and turned it into a federal territory. Modi repealed 1,200 obsolete laws in first three years as prime minister; 1,301 such laws had been repealed by previous governments in the previous 64 years. [244] [245] [246] Modi launched the Digital India programme with the goal of ensuring government services are available electronically, build infrastructure to provide high-speed Internet access to rural areas, boost manufacturing of electronic goods in the country, and promote digital literacy. [247] [248] Modi rose within the party and was named a member of its National Election Committee in 1990, helping organise Advani's Ram Rath Yatra in 1990 and Murli Manohar Joshi's 1991–1992 Ekta Yatra (Journey for Unity). [49] [101] [102] Modi took a brief break from politics in 1992 to establish a school in Ahmedabad, and due to friction with Shankersinh Vaghela, a BJP MP from Gujarat. [102] Modi returned to electoral politics in 1994, partly at the insistence of Advani; as party secretary, Modi's electoral strategy was considered central to the BJP victory in the 1995 state assembly election. [103] [104] In November of that year, Modi was appointed BJP national secretary and transferred to New Delhi, where he assumed responsibility for party activities in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. [105] The following year, Shankersinh Vaghela, a prominent BJP leader from Gujarat, defected to the Indian National Congress (Congress) after losing his parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha election. [49] Modi, who was on the selection committee for the 1998 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election, favoured supporters of BJP leader Keshubhai Patel over those supporting Vaghela to end factional division in the party. His strategy was credited as central to the BJP winning an overall majority in the 1998 election, [106] and Modi was promoted to BJP general secretary (organisation) in May of that year. [107] Chief Minister of Gujarat Taking office This September, India is hosting G20 leaders under the banner of “One Earth, One Family, One Future”. As a part of the transition to India’s assumption of this position, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has leaned heavily on these themes in promoting India as an inclusive, emerging global power. In a custom traditional to Narendra Modi's caste, his family arranged a betrothal to Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi, leading to their marriage when she was 17 and he was 18. [54] [55] Soon afterwards, he abandoned his wife, [56] and left home. The couple never divorced but the marriage was not in his public pronouncements for many decades. [55] In April 2014, shortly before the national election in which he gained power, Modi publicly affirmed he was married and that his spouse was Jashodaben. [57] The marriage was unconsummated and Modi kept it secret because he would not have been able to become a pracharak in the puritanical RSS. [58] [59]Convenient Action: Gujarat's Response to Challenges of Climate Change. New Delhi: Macmillan Publishers India. ISBN 978-0-230-33192-1. OCLC 696558495. In response to the apparent censorship, student groups across India set up screenings of the documentary but had to face arrest, violence by rightwing groups and accusations of “treason”. In September 2013, Modi was named the BJP's candidate for prime minister ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election. [205] [206] Several BJP leaders, [207] including BJP founding member L. K. Advani who cited concern with leaders who were "concerned with their personal agendas", expressed opposition to Modi's candidature. [208] Modi played a dominant role in the BJP's 2009 general election campaign. [209] [210] Several people who voted for the BJP stated they would have voted for another party if Modi had not been the prime-ministerial candidate. [205] [211] [212] The focus on Modi as an individual was unusual for a BJP election campaign. [207] [213] The election was described as a referendum on Narendra Modi. [185] Modi meets his mother after winning the 2014 Indian general election Modi has been haunted for decades by allegations of complicity in the violence that took place during the Gujarat riots, which broke out after 59 Hindu pilgrims died on a train that had been set on fire. The fire was blamed on the state’s Muslim population. Punjab, Delhi, Bihar, Maharashtra, Goa and West Bengal have thus far proven somewhat recalcitrant and occasionally rebellious, for a variety of reasons that are regionally specific, and because of local parties, caste alliances and grassroots leaders who challenge the BJP. But even in these States, the presence of an opposition no longer proves that public opinion is against Modi or that the default political common sense is secular. Nor should the south be taken for granted any more. As Jaffrelot shows in his oeuvre, studying Hindutva ideology over the past century, from Savarkar and Golwalkar, to Advani and Vajpayee, before arriving at Modi and Shah, allows us to retrospectively register the early tremors of the political earthquake we are now experiencing. Abroad, countries like Israel, Turkey, Hungary and Brazil provide a global context for the rise of ethnic democracy.

PM Modi turns 69: A timeline of his political career". Deccan Herald. 17 September 2019. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021 . Retrieved 13 January 2021.

Science commentator Dinesh C. Sharma, writing in The Tribune newspaper, said he hoped the course material would not be compromised by the translations. Arjun Sethi, a community activist and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, said India under Modi’s rule has become the world’s largest authoritative government, suppressing any dissent and criticism of its policies. Harsh Mander, who quit his job as a civil servant to become a rights activist after the riots in Gujarat, said they “showed us a very different India than what we had promised ourselves at independence” in 1947. These are: the rise of Hindu nationalism; the explosion of caste politics (including Dalit and OBC mobilisation, a growing interest in B.R. Ambedkar, and post-Mandal reservations policy); the deteriorating state of the minorities, particularly Muslims; the trajectories of the Pakistani state and the entrenchment of Indo-Pak conflict; the expansion of the Indian middle class thanks to economic liberalisation and globalisation; the boom in Indian business after market reforms; and most significantly, the emboldening of the Sangh Parivar and its ideology to the point where Hindutva has metastasized from its home grounds in U.P., Maharashtra and Gujarat to infect the entire country. Now, once again, doctors are aghast after a decision by the Madhya Pradesh state government to offer a medical degree in Hindi. Until now, medicine has been taught throughout India in English.

The students had gathered at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, the Indian capital, for an outdoor screening of a new BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his role in the deadly 2002 riots in Gujarat when he was the western state’s chief minister. Al Jazeera reached out to four BJP spokespersons and the Indian embassy in Washington, DC, but they declined to comment or did not respond to questions on Thursday’s protest. In 2001, Modi was appointed Chief Minister of Gujarat and elected to the legislative assembly soon after. His administration is considered complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots, [d] and has been criticised for its management of the crisis. A little over 1,000 people were killed, according to official records, three-quarters of whom were Muslim; independent sources estimated 2,000 deaths, mostly Muslim. [11] A Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India in 2012 found no evidence to initiate prosecution proceedings against him. [e] While his policies as chief minister, which were credited for encouraging economic growth, were praised, Modi's administration was criticised for failing to significantly improve health, poverty and education indices in the state. [f] In the 2014 Indian general election, Modi led the BJP to a parliamentary majority, the first for a party since 1984. His administration increased direct foreign investment, and it reduced spending on healthcare, education, and social-welfare programmes. Modi began a high-profile sanitation campaign, controversially initiated the 2016 demonetisation of high-denomination banknotes and introduced the Goods and Services Tax, and weakened or abolished environmental and labour laws. RCR ( 7, Race Course Road), a 2014 Indian docudrama political television series which charts the political careers of prominent Indian politicians, covered Modi's rise to the PM's office in the episodes "Story of Narendra Modi from 1950 to 2001", "Story of Narendra Modi in Controversial Years from 2001 to 2013", "Truth Behind Brand Modi", "Election Journey of Narendra Modi to 7 RCR", and "Masterplan of Narendra Modi's NDA Govt", with Sangam Rai in the role of Modi. [449] India: The Modi Question, a 2023 BBC documentary, examines Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots and his record as Prime Minister of India. The Indian government banned the documentary, drawing widespread criticism. [450] [451] [452] [453] Dr Arun Shah, paediatrician, sees no intrinsic difficulty in teaching medicine in Hindi. “I think it can work with time, acceptance, and patience,” he said. “If the rest of the world can learn medicine in their native tongue, then why not Hindi? There will be hiccups but it is worth attempting and persevering with.”

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Over half of India’s 1.4 billion people are under the age of 30, and they are shaping up to be a pivotal political force in the 2024 general election and beyond, Ghosh told NBC News.

In 2008, Modi published a Gujarati book titled Jyotipunj, which contains profiles of RSS leaders. The longest was of M. S. Golwalkar, under whose leadership the RSS expanded and whom Modi refers to as Pujniya Shri Guruji ("Guru worthy of worship"). [506] According to The Economic Times, Modi's intention was to explain the workings of the RSS to his readers, and to reassure RSS members he remained ideologically aligned with them. The main opposition Congress party accused the Modi government of leaving opposition parties out of celebrations.

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The Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed by India and Pakistan, which rule over parts of it. Indian-administered Kashmir is the country’s only Muslim-majority region, where an armed rebellion started in the 1990s to either merge with Pakistan or create an independent country. a b c d Shani, Orrit (2007). Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism: The Violence in Gujarat. Cambridge University Press. pp.168–173. ISBN 978-0-521-68369-2. Almost 1,000 Muslims died in violence across the state. Police were accused of standing by and Modi of not doing enough to protect the minority community from the Hindu mobs and even tacitly supporting the Hindu extremists. He has denied accusations he failed to stop the rioting and in 2013 a supreme court panel said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.