South

Kavitha Jakkal, is one of the two under-50 women, who tried and failed to enter Sabarimala shrine on Friday. She had to stop 500 metres away from the shrine after the head priest told the police that if the two women enter the temple, he will close the gates and stop puja.

Just minutes away from the last 18 steps to the Sabarimala shrine, hundreds of protesters stood in front of policemen, determined to stop two women from entering the temple. Around 300 policemen had escorted the women on a five-km walk to the hilltop shrine, which has opened for the first time since the Supreme Court ended a ban on women of menstruating age or between 10 and 50 entering the temple of Lord Ayyappa.

Sabarimala temple: Two women trying to reach the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala under heavy police protection and in riot gear were halted just short of history on Friday as protests by devotees and priests forced them to turn back 500 metres from the temple.

Two women in body armour and helmets, who had trekked 5 km uphill to the Sabarimala temple on Friday escorted by about a 300 policemen in riot gear, were just 10 minutes from the shrine when a large group of protesters formed a human wall to block them.

Two days after the Sabarimala temple opened for the first time after the Supreme Court ruling lifting the centuries old ban on entry of women of all age groups, no women has yet been able to visit the Lord Ayyappa shrine.

In an unusual revelation, a senior Karnataka minister has admitted that the religious minority status granted to the powerful Lingayat community by the previous Congress government led to its defeat in the May Assembly election.

The Sabarimala temple head priest, Kandaru Rajeevaru, on Thursday dismissed reports that the family planned to close down the Lord Ayyappa temple if women entered it to offer prayers. He was reacting at Sannidhanam, the temple complex, after some reports were widely shared on social media that they may close the temple.

DMK president MK Stalin Thursday defended his party obtaining court stay against the probe into alleged irregularities in the construction of a building complex during his party's rule to house the secretariat, saying the allegations were fabricated.

In an embarrassment for the Congress, senior leader and Karnataka water resource minister DK Shivakumar has said that his party committed a "major blunder" by recommending religious minority status for the Lingayat community in the run-up to the May 12 assembly polls.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan blamed Wednesday's violence against the entry of women into the Sabarimala shrine on "Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) backed attackers" and accused the outfit of trying to destroy the temple's individuality.

In a sign of relief to residents of Chennai, water tanker operators called off their three-day strike late last night. However, suppliers of packaged drinking water continue their indefinite strike. The two bodies had called for a strike on Monday following a court order that restricted extraction of groundwater in the city.

A day after protests and violence in Kerala against the entry of women of menstruating age at the famous Sabarimala temple, the state government has banned the gathering of more than five people in Sannidhanam, Pamba, Nilakkal, and Elavungal - the base camps from where devotees head to the hill-top shrine. A state-wide shutdown has been called today by a group that calls itself the Sabarimala Protection Committee. Many shops are shut and vehicles are off the roads.

Two journalists of the New York Times, who managed to climb up the pathway to reach the famed Sabarimala temple in Kerala this morning, were forced to abort their trek and turn back following a massive protest by those who are trying to enforce the centuries-old ban on the entry of women of reproductive age in the temple, which was scrapped by the Supreme Court last month.

Over 12 hours after Sabarimala opened its doors to devotees including women of all age groups for the first time after a historic Supreme Court ruling permitting the entry, no woman from the "banned" age group has made it to the hilltop temple as yet.

The Airport Authority of India (southern region) planted over 40,000 saplings of herbal plants in 40 places, including 21 airports, as part of observing national ayurveda day on Wednesday.