'Aberrations' do not alter India's history of tolerance: Govt

February 6, 2015

New Delhi, Feb 6: Reacting cautiously to US President Barack Obama's concern about religious "intolerance" in India, government today said any "aberrations" do not alter India's history of tolerance.rajnath singh

Two senior Union ministers, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, underlined that India was a multi-religious and multi-cultural country where communities including Muslim, Jewish, Parsis and Christians were present.

They were reacting to Obama's comment in Washington yesterday that the "acts of intolerance" experienced by religious faiths of all types in India in the past few years would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi. Earlier also, Obama, at the end of his three-day visit here last week, had made a strong pitch for religious tolerance, cautioning that India will succeed so long as it was not "splintered along the lines of religious faith".

Addressing the reporters here, Jaitley said, "That any society must be a tolerant society is a fact that each of us has to accept. It's good to be tolerant. India has a huge cultural history of tolerance. Any aberration doesn't alter the history."

He also noted that the best example of tolerance was sitting next to President Obama, that is His Holiness the Dalai Lama, when the statement was made. "It's a part of India's tolerance that even he found it comfortable and India found it comfortable to absorb him in the society," he added.

Reacting to Obama's comments, Singh said in Uttarakhand, "as far as religious tolerance is concerned, it is embedded in our Indian tradition. India is the only country in the world where all the communities including various divisions of Muslims and all sects of Christians are present...In India, Parsis and Jewish are also there."

"The biggest speciality of the Indian culture has been that there has never been discrimination on the basis of caste, community, religion or sect," the Home Minister added.

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News Network
February 16,2020

Varanasi, Feb 16: Amidst continuing protests against the amended citizenship law, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said his government stood by the decision despite all pressure.

"Be it the decision on Article 370 or the Citizenship Amendment Act, it was necessary in the interest of the country. Despite pressure, we stand by our decision and will remain so," he said.

Modi was addressing a public meeting in his Lok Sabha constituency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also asserted that the trust set up for construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya will work "rapidly".

"A trust has been formed for construction of a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya. This trust will work rapidly," he said at a public meeting during his day-long visit to his Lok Sabha constituency.

The government had recently set up the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra on the Supreme Court's directive to the Union government to form a trust that can look into the construction and management of the temple.

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Agencies
January 5,2020

Bikaner, Jan 5: A government-run hospital in Bikaner saw the death of at least 162 children, higher than the number of deaths in Kota's JK Lon Hospital in December.

"In December, we received 2,219 children from different hospitals out of which 162 children died in the Intensive Care Unit here. None of them was born at the hospital," said Dr HS Kumar, Principal, Sardar Patel Medical College, PBM Hospital.

He, however, denied any negligence on the part of the hospital and said that all efforts were made to save every single life.

The official said that all the deceased children had taken birth at the Primary Healthcare Centres (PHC) and the Community Health Centres (CHC) and were referred to the PBM Hospital in a critical condition.

"Their condition was critical and they breathed their last during treatment," he said.

At least 110 children have lost their lives at JK Lon government hospital in Kota, Rajasthan.

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News Network
August 3,2020

Aug 3: Iqbal Ansari, who was a litigant in the Ayodhya land dispute case, has decided to gift a 'Ram nami' stole and a copy of the Ramcharitmanas to Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he attends the bhoomi pujan ceremony for the Ram temple here on Wednesday.

"Yes, I have received the invitation from Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust for the bhoomi pujan ceremony. I will certainly attend it. The dispute is over now after the court's verdict," Ansari, 69, told .

"Our Prime Minister is coming. I will meet him and give him a 'Ramnami' stole (with Ram's name written on it) and Ramcharitmanas as a present," Ansari said.

His father Hashim Ansari, the oldest litigant in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi land dispute case, died at the age of 95 in 2016 after which the son started pursuing the case in the court.

Talking about Wednesday's ground-breaking ceremony to mark the beginning of the construction of a grand Ram temple here, Ansari said, "I belong to Ayodhya. All this (temple's construction) will change the fate of Ayodhya. We all want our child to get better opportunities".

He further said, "I respect sadhus and saints. I am happy to have received the invitation for the ceremony. I think it is Lord Ram's will that I attend it".

When asked what he would have done had the court decided the case in his favour, Ansari said he had wanted the construction of a school and a hospital on the disputed land.

"I feel the city needs development. The future of our children should be safe and secure and they should get employment. Dispute in the name of religion should end now and we should let the city witness a new beginning," he said.

The Supreme Court had in November last year paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple by a Trust at the disputed site of the Babri Masjid's demolition in Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot an alternative 5-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque at a "prominent" place in the holy town in Uttar Pradesh.

The state government has allotted a five-acre land in Dhannipur village in Sohaval Tehsil of Ayodhya for the mosque's construction.

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