logo
Did not announce Telangana local body poll dates, says Panchayat Raj Min Seethakka

Did not announce Telangana local body poll dates, says Panchayat Raj Min Seethakka

HYDERABAD: Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Minister D Anasuya, popularly known as Seethakka, clarified that no date has been announced for local body elections. She said the election process will begin only after a Cabinet discussion.
Speaking to reporters in Hyderabad, she said: 'I only mentioned that elections will be held soon. Some are falsely claiming I announced the poll dates.'
She added that the delay is due to the state's efforts to secure 42% reservations for BCs, which is still pending with the Centre. 'We will discuss how to implement 42% BC reservations in the upcoming elections. Only the Congress is committed to ensuring social justice,' she said.
Feud between siblings
On the political front, she alleged that BRS working president KT Rama Rao seems eager to go to jail. 'He is provoking the chief minister to arrest him. Investigative agencies will handle the matter,' she said, adding that there appears to be a rivalry between Rama Rao and his sister, MLC K Kavitha, within the BRS.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Everything A Caste Census Will Change For India
Everything A Caste Census Will Change For India

NDTV

time30 minutes ago

  • NDTV

Everything A Caste Census Will Change For India

In his book Seeing Like a State, James C. Scott reminds us that modern states rely on simplification, of forests into timber, of people into populations, to govern effectively. The census is perhaps the most paradigmatic of these technologies. It is not just an exercise to record facts. It rather renders societies 'legible', abstracting lived complexity into structured datasets for administration, control, and policy design. India's forthcoming census, scheduled for 2027 after a 16-year gap, will not only reflect social and demographic transformations but also actively shape the institutional architecture of governance in the decades ahead. After prolonged delays, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and partly due to debates over caste enumeration, India is now preparing to embark on one of its most complex statistical exercises yet. However, the stakes are unusually high this time. This census will not just count people. It will enumerate caste across the country for the first time since 1931. It will do so in a vastly different India, one that is digitally administered, politically assertive, and socially more aware of its entitlements than ever before. The 1871 Census As Bernard Cohn and Nicholas Dirks have shown, the British-administered 1871 census did more than merely record caste. It institutionalised it. It froze fluid and locally contingent jatis (castes) into discrete, pan-Indian categories. The colonial census created what Dirks famously called 'the ethnographic state'. Bureaucratic legibility, in this case, reified and restructured India's social order. Thus, enumerating caste is not merely a matter of asking individuals to self-identify. Castes comprise thousands of regionally specific jatis, many with overlapping or ambiguous nomenclature. Standardising this data across districts, states, and languages requires a sophisticated classification architecture, akin to building a dynamic ontology rather than a static taxonomy. Moreover, matching these self-ascribed caste identities with constitutionally recognised categories, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, introduces a further layer of administrative complexity. There is also the problem of intent. While the Centre has clarified that the caste data may not be immediately aggregated into an umbrella OBC count or linked to reservation entitlements, enumeration itself is a constitutive act. To be counted is to be recognised. To be omitted is to be invisibilised. As scholars of statecraft have long argued, enumeration creates the basis for claims-making. Even if not linked to policy immediately, the availability of disaggregated caste data will inevitably reframe political demands. The Bihar And Karnataka Censuses The experiences of Bihar and Karnataka serve as instructive case studies. Bihar's caste survey, conducted in 2023, demonstrated the feasibility of a state-level exercise grounded in administrative pragmatism. It revealed that OBCs and Extremely Backward Classes comprised over 60% of the state's population, data that reinforced calls for proportional distribution of state resources. Karnataka's experience has been more contested. Its long-pending caste census, submitted to the state government in 2024, remains unreleased amid political uncertainties. Questions over methodological consistency, data integrity, and the implications for existing quotas have impeded consensus. These divergent outcomes point towards a key insight. Caste enumeration is as much about institutional design and procedural transparency as it is about data accuracy. Without clarity on the normative end-use of data, enumeration risks becoming politically volatile and administratively ambiguous. The Population Question Beyond caste, the census has direct constitutional implications for electoral redistribution. Article 82 of the Indian Constitution mandates the redrawing of Lok Sabha and state assembly constituencies after every census. This exercise, i.e. delimitation, has been suspended since 1976 to avoid penalising states that successfully reduced fertility rates. But the suspension is set to lift after the first census conducted post-2026, placing the 2027 enumeration squarely at the centre of India's next political reorganisation. This raises difficult questions. Population growth has been uneven across states. Southern and some Northeastern states have stabilised or declined demographically, while northern and central states, particularly Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, have continued to expand. A purely population-based seat redistribution could significantly shift parliamentary power northwards, raising concerns over the federal balance. This could also strain the political compact between demographically progressive and populous states, sharpening regional anxieties and fuelling mistrust. An Instrument Of Sovereignty Further, India's international border regions - Assam, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, and the Northeast - pose additional demographic challenges. These regions have witnessed complex migration patterns, both internal and transnational. In the absence of recent data, narratives around infiltration, identity, and entitlement have flourished without empirical grounding. A credible, up-to-date census can serve as a corrective, but only if handled with methodological precision and communicative restraint. Here, too, enumeration is not neutral; it becomes an instrument of sovereignty, legitimacy, and social belonging. Thus, the census forms the backbone of India's statistical infrastructure. It feeds into the National Sample Survey, the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, the National Family Health Survey, and numerous state-level databases. Delays in the census have rendered many of these exercises misaligned with current realities. We no longer have a reliable estimate of the urban-rural population ratio, poverty incidence, migration patterns, or regional consumption profiles. Without this baseline, development policy becomes speculative rather than evidence-based. To this end, conducting a census was very necessary. Thus, India's 2027 census will reflect more than just the demographic change. It will lead to significant changes. Delimitation and reservation of women in parliament will just be a start. It will shape how rights are negotiated, how resources are distributed, and how democracy is imagined.

Instead of promised 'acche din', days of debt have arrived: Congress's dig at Modi Government
Instead of promised 'acche din', days of debt have arrived: Congress's dig at Modi Government

The Hindu

time2 hours ago

  • The Hindu

Instead of promised 'acche din', days of debt have arrived: Congress's dig at Modi Government

Taking a swipe at the Centre, the Congress on Tuesday (June 17, 2025) claimed that the economic condition of the common people in India is 'very worrying' and that instead of the 'acche din' promised by the Modi government, days of debt have arrived. Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh cited a media report which claimed that despite the increase in the income of the people in the country and inflation being under control, household savings have decreased for the third consecutive year. 'People's savings in the country are decreasing, debt is increasing! This clearly means that on one hand inflation is increasing, on the other hand people's income is decreasing. As a result, people are either withdrawing their savings or are forced to survive by taking loans,' Mr. Ramesh said in a post in Hindi on X. 'The bottom line is that the economic condition of the common people in India is very worrying, but the Modi Government is completely careless!' he alleged. 'It is clear that instead of the 'achche din' promised by the Modi government, the days of debt have arrived,' Mr. Ramesh said, taking a swipe at the government. The Congress has been attacking the government over its handling of the economy, claiming the issues of rising prices, decreasing private investment and stagnating wages were hitting the common people hard.

Tamil race faces one challenge after another: CM Stalin
Tamil race faces one challenge after another: CM Stalin

The Hindu

time2 hours ago

  • The Hindu

Tamil race faces one challenge after another: CM Stalin

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M.K. Stalin, on Tuesday (June 17, 2025), lamented that some continue to have problem in accepting the antiquity of Tamil civilisation even though scientific evidence firmly established it. 'The Tamil race faces one stumbling block after another. We confront these challenges and prove the civilisation's ancientness through scientific evidence. Yet, there are those who stubbornly refuse to accept it. There is no need to revise the report. It is some people's mindset that needs to change,' he said in a social media post. The Chief Minister's remarks allude to the Union government's refusal to acknowledge the findings of Keeladi excavation led by archaeologist Amarnath Ramakrishna. Meanwhile, the DMK's student wing has announced a protest demonstration at Viraganur in Madurai district on Wednesday to condemn the Centre. 'Let us gather in large number and express our solidarity,' he said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store