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Uttarakhand Politics: A Tale of Twists and Turns

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Ever since the formation of Uttarakhand in 2000, the situation of the state has been marked by disputes between the two prominent political parties. At that time, Nityananda Swami Ji left Congress for the power-struggling BJP and had the good fortune of being made the interim chief minister. However, this did not reduce the inter-party conflicts and Bhagat Singh Koshyari was made the Chief Minister. The situation was such that the BJP badly lost the elections in 2002 - the first interim Chief Minister Swami also lost the election. In 2007, after defeating the Congress, BJP formed a paralyzed government – it side-lined Bhagat Singh Koshyari under whose leadership the party had won and made Bhuvan Chand Khanduri the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. However, given the continued conflicts, the controversy-ridden Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank was crowned Chief Minister by the BJP. But because of allegations of corruption, Khanduri was again made the Chief Minister; and he lost the Assembly elect

Can BJP govt. tame the beast (Twitter)?

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Mukesh Devrari Twitter’s outright refusal to accept India’s domestic laws is remarkable. It refused to accept the Information Technology Act 2000 and ignored the govt. order regarding the removal of certain accounts and hashtags. It has also refused to appoint the officials to coordinate with the government and instead provided an address of a private law firm to file any grievances against the company. Rather Twitter is trying to pressurize the BJP govt. by launching an international campaign with the help of western media outlets. It would not be unjustified to argue that BJP is over-cautious despite the contempt Twitter has shown for India's parliament and its domestic laws.     The legal position regarding the freedom of speech and expression is settled in India. The constitution allows reasonable restrictions on all fundamental rights enshrined in part III of our constitution. In fact, the Parliament can make any law in India, if it encroaches on fundamental rights, the appeal