Is narendra modi gay
- BJP, Congress manifestos include Queer promises
- Rights campaigners say policy pledges fall short
- Demands for same-sex marriage, trans career quotas
NEW DELHI - India's two main parties are pledging to improve life for LGBTQ+ people if they win a general election that starts on Friday, but campaigners say they are paying lip service to gay and transgender rights by dodging the key issue of homosexual marriage.
Despite progress on Gay rights, same-sex relations continue taboo in India and many LGBTQ+ people cover their identity for apprehension of discrimination. Last year, the Supreme Court declined to legalise gay marriage in a major setback to equality gains.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - which is expected to win a third designation and opposes same-sex marriage - has promised in its manifesto more shelters, national ID cards, and access to public health insurance for transgender people.
In its policy plan, the opposition Congress party has vowed to introduce a law to recognise queer civil unions - stopping short of supporting matching marriage - and search constitutional changes to prohibit discrimination over sexual orientation.
But LGBTQ+ rights act
India’s ‘bachelor’ Modi admits he is married
India’s election frontrunner Narendra Modi has established for the first hour that he is married, solving one of the biggest mysteries about the private life of the man tipped to be the next prime minister.
The 63-year-old is routinely described as a bachelor and is thought to include lived alone in his adult life, having risen through the ranks of a grassroots Hindu nationalist organisation in which celibacy is expected.
Media reports acquire described how he walked away from a marriage arranged by his parents when he was a child, but this has never been confirmed by the man himself who has portrayed his unpartnered status as a virtue while campaigning.
In an affidavit on Wednesday as he filed his papers to stand as a member of parliament from the Vadadora constituency in the western state of Gujarat, he acknowledged that he had a wife.
In the column of the affidavit to mention spouses, Modi — who is head minister of Gujarat – wrote the name “Jashodaben”, but he states elsewhere in the filing that he had “no information” about her.
Live Blog: Look some of India’s other single politicians
Modi’s brother confirmed in a statement that Na
Indian PM Narendra Modi's government resists recognition for queer marriage - court papers
The Indian government is pushing back on an strive by campaigners to defeat legal recognition for gay marriage, according to reports.
Officials have urged the court to reject challenges to the current legal framework lodged by LGBT couples, reported Reuters news agency, which has seen a Sunday filing submitted to the Supreme Court.
The Ministry of Law believes that while relationships in community may manifest in alternative forms, the legal recognition of marriage should be reserved for heterosexual relationships only, and the express has a legitimate interest in maintaining this.
"Living together as partners and having sexual relationship by alike sex individuals ... is not comparable with the Indian family unit principle of a husband, a wife and children," the ministry argued in papers seen by the Reuters news agency but include not been made public.
The court cannot be asked "to change the entire legislative policy of the country deeply embedded in religious and societal norms", it said.
India's top court decriminalised homosexuality in a historic verdict in 2018 by scrapping a colon
Tim Cook could be the first openly gay CEO to be hosted by Modi in a homophobic India
When Apple CEO Tim Cook meets Narendra Modi in New Delhi on May 21, it would make him the first openly gay CEO to be hosted by the Indian prime minister.
To be clear, this isn’t the first time Modi is meeting Cook. The two met in the US last year during Modi’s visit to the Silicon Valley, where gay marriages are legal. But in India, homosexuality is an offence punishable by up to life imprisonment. For years, lawmakers possess discussed decriminalising homosexuality. Yet, nobody really has the courage, or the will, to do away with the 155-year-old colonial era law.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been vociferous in its disapproval of homosexuality. “We assist Section 377 (the law) because we believe that homosexuality is (an) unnatural act that cannot be supported,” India’s current residence minister and former president of the BJP, Rajnath Singh, said in 2013.
Earlier this year, however, India’s supreme court said it will reexamine the forbid on gay sex.
It’s all about business
But it may be easy to overcome ideological differences if you are hosting the CEO of world’s most val
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