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In the wake of allegations of voter data theft, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Karnataka Manoj Kumar Meena on Monday said the question of deletion of voters based on caste and community from the electoral roll does not arise. The CEO stated this after Congress alleged that names of minorities and some downtrodden communities were deleted based on the data provided by the co-founder of the Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Institute (Chilume Trust). A section of the media reported that names of people belonging to particular communities have been deleted. In view of the reports, the clarification is imperative, said the CEO. Electoral rolls do not contain any information related to caste/religion of voters, hence the question of deletion of names based on caste/community from the electoral rolls does not arise, Meena said in a statement. According to him, names of people who are dead or those who moved to other places are deleted by following due process of ..
Amid a slew of caste-related violence in the country, JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit on Monday said anthropologically gods do not belong to the upper caste and that even Lord Shiva could be from scheduled caste or tribe. Delivering the Dr B R Ambedkar Lecture Series titled 'Dr B R Ambedkar's Thoughts on Gender Justice: Decoding the Uniform Civil Code', she also said the "status of shudras given to women in Manusmriti" makes it extraordinarily regressive. "Let me tell all women that all women according to Manusmriti are shudras so no woman can claim she is a brahmin or anything else and it is only by marriage that you get the husband or father's caste on you. I think this is something which is extraordinarily regressive," she said. Taking about the recent caste violence involving a nine-year-old Dalit boy, she said that no god belonged to the upper caste. "Most of you should know the origins of our gods anthropologically. No god is a brahmin, the highest is a ...
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday reiterated his demand for a caste census, saying it is in national interest and will facilitate development of the communities lagging in development. Asked about the Centre's affidavit in the Supreme Court that virtually ruled out census on the caste lines, he told reporters that it was "absolutely not correct" but added that the matter was not directly related to the issue of caste census. In the national capital to attend Home Minister Amit Shah's meeting with the chief ministers of naxal-affected states, the JD(U) leader also rejected arguments against caste census and asserted that the demand for it has been coming from not only Bihar but many states. Kumar said he will speak to members of different parties in Bihar over the issue to chart out their next course of action. He had led an all-party delegation from the state to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in support of such a headcount across the country. However, the Centre told