Cracks are now more prominent in the Opposition’s INDIA alliance with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav questioning why the previous Congress-led governments did not conduct caste census when they were in power.

Mr Yadav’s comment highlights the differences between the two parties that are part of the mega Opposition front seeking to put up a united fight against the BJP in next year’s national elections.

The previous governments did not act on this due to their faulty policies, he told ANI in Satna in election-bound Madhya Pradesh and taunted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his “X-ray” remark over the caste census demand.

At a rally yesterday, Mr Gandhi reiterated his call for caste census and termed the exercise an “X-ray” that would give details of various communities in the country. Asked about this, Mr Yadav said the Congress’s demand for a caste census is a “miracle”.

#WATCH | Satna, Madhya Pradesh: On Rahul Gandhi’s statement, SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav says, “…Congress is the party which did not conduct caste census after independence… When all the parties in the Lok Sabha were demanding a caste census, they did not conduct a caste census.… pic.twitter.com/aYEaUU9SwT

— ANI (@ANI) November 13, 2023

“X-ray was the need of that time. Now we have MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and CT (computed tomography) scan. The disease has now spread. If this problem was solved back then, such a gap wouldn’t have existed in the society today,” he said mocking Mr Gandhi.

“The biggest miracle is the Congress is also talking about caste census. Those who are talking about X-rays are the same people who stopped the caste census after Independence,” he quipped.

Mr Yadav slammed the Congress for not conducting caste census after India attained independence. “When Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav), Sharad Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and parties from South India raised the demand in Lok Sabha, the Congress refused to do it,” he said.

“Why do they want to conduct caste census today? Because they know that their traditional vote bank is not with them. But the backward classes, Dalit, and adivasis know that they had betrayed them after Independence,” he added.

Mr Yadav has been training his guns at the Congress lately and has also claimed that the grand old party does not want to ally with his outfit after their relations soured over seat-sharing for the November 17 Madhya Pradesh elections.

Last week, he said the Congress did not implement the Mandal Commission recommendations and had opposed the caste census. In another instance, he told a rally in Madhya Pradesh that neither Congress nor BJP have done anything for the poor and farmers when they were in power in the state.

However, despite the signs of strain, he told NDTV last month that his party was still a part of the INDIA bloc.

Children’s Day or ‘Bal Diwas’ is celebrated annually on November 14 in India. The day is celebrated to appreciate and acknowledge children as they are the future of the county. This date also marks the birth anniversary of the first Prime Minister of the nation Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was adorably referred to as ‘Chacha Nehru’ by children. 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad, India. He was a great advocate for children’s rights and for an all-inclusive education system where knowledge is accessible to all. He considered every child as the future of the country and appreciated them to the fullest. “Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow,” Nehru said in one of his famous speeches. 

Why is Children’s Day celebrated on Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday? 

Previously, Children’s Day was celebrated in India on November 20 –  the day ‘World Children’s Day’ is celebrated globally by the United Nations. However, after the death of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the year 1964, the parliament issued a resolution to establish his birthday as the official Children’s Day in the country. Since then, India celebrates Children’s Day to commemorate the birth anniversary of the first Prime Minister of India. The day is also known as Bal Diwas in the country.

During Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure, several educational institutions of national importance- Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) were set up. He was often called by the name “Chacha Nehru”. 

Children’s Day Celebration

To commemorate this day, children are showered with a lot of love, gifts and pampering. Schools across the country organise special events and programs for the children who are also showered with gifts that consist of eatables, books and cards. They also conduct games, debates, seminars, dance, music, essay, speech and painting competitions. 

Children’s Day is a day to sow the seeds of virtue in the future leaders of the nation

The US Supreme Court on Monday adopted its first formal code of conduct governing the ethical behavior of its nine justices, bowing to months of outside pressure over revelations of undisclosed luxury trips and hobnobbing with wealthy benefactors.

The court released its code “to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court,” according to a brief introductory statement.

Unlike other members of the federal judiciary, the Supreme Court’s nine life-tenured justices had long acted with no binding ethics code.

That absence, the statement said, “has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the justices of this court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”

The court has been buffeted for months by revelations regarding justices over undisclosed trips on private jets, luxury vacations, real estate and recreational vehicle deals, and more.

The issue had become an political flashpoint, with Democrats in Congress calling on the court to adopt an ethics code, while many Republicans viewed the ethics narrative involving the court as cooked up by liberals upset at its rightward leanings.

The ethics drum beat added pressure to a court already facing declining public approval following major rulings in its past two terms powered by its conservative majority. The court ended its recognition of a constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights and rejected affirmative action collegiate admissions policies often used to increase Black and Hispanic student enrollment.

Most of the ethics revelations in recent months involved Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative members.

The news outlet ProPublica has detailed luxury trips taken for years by Thomas provided by Texas businessman Harlan Crow as well as real estate transactions involving the justice and the billionaire Republican donor. ProPublica also reported that the conservative Koch network of political donors, which has had multiple cases before the court, has brought Thomas in recent years to its summit meetings.

A report by Senate Democrats in October also found that Thomas apparently failed to repay at least a “significant portion” of a $267,230 loan he received from longtime friend Anthony Welters to buy a luxury motor coach.