With the Union Budget 2026, India's 74th, fast approaching, all eyes are once again on New Delhi's North Block as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is preparing to table it on February 1, 2026, marking her ninth Budget presentation in a row.
MNS chief Raj Thackeray pens tribute to his uncle, Bal Thackeray, recalling their bond and the pain of leaving the family home after quitting Shiv Sena.
'Why are IPKF martyrs not being officially recognised and appropriately honoured? And is the government really changing its mind on this now?', asks Aditi Phadnis.
'As his close associate Som Pal told me, "Mandal was never V P Singh's brainchild. It was a Janata Party commitment he inherited".' 'He would have done it anyway at some point, but the specific timing of his decision was dictated entirely by political exigency -- his government was threatened.' 'It also turned out to be a game changer in Indian politics.'
The CBI arrested Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, an absconder carrying a Rs 10 lakh reward, in connection with the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed. He is allegedly part of a conspiracy hatched by the banned JKLF.
'Rahul Gandhi's problem is that he doesn't think big.' 'He looks more like an activist, while politics is like a game of chess. You attack and then defend and have a game-plan.'
It was significant that the ceremony took place at 24, Akbar Road, the party's former national headquarters, and not at its new office in Kotla Road.
You are hooked on The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case from the first episode, applauds Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Former Prime Minister V P Singh, who is suffering from kidney and heart problems, has been admitted to the intensive care unit of Bombay hospital.
Veteran politician Satyapal Malik, who served as governor of multiple states and later became a vocal critic of the government, has died at the age of 79.
"No hue-and-cry should be made about it (issue of judicial activism) because Supreme Court is a respected institution, as is Parliament," Singh told PTI in New Delhi on Saturday.
Seeking to firm up a new political address after his suspension from Samajwadi Party, actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar Friday met former prime minister V P Singh and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar.
Barely a month after former Prime Minister V P Singh died, a dispute among his family members over inheritance of ancestral property has come to light.
He approved the government's nod to reservation in higher educational institutions.
The RSS which catapulted Jagdeep Dhankar to national prominence after 21 years of hibernation could not come to his rescue when BJP higher ups decided to seek his resignation, points out Prakash Bhandari.
Singh has been alleging that the state government had acquired land from farmers for the Reliance Energy power project at dirt cheap prices and is leading a campaign on the issue.
'With Punjab and Kashmir in flames, it would not have been politically wise to alienate the West.' 'It would have inclined Western countries towards Pakistan.' 'It would have been a self-goal.'
Former prime minister V P Singh Wednesday said he was detained briefly by the police as he prepared to go protest demolition of slums on the Yamuna bank, a charge denied by the police.
Only in the event of the RSS managing to force Modi into accepting a consensual candidate, will the party not continue to 'being' the 'next Congress', observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'Rather than 'consolidate' the Hindu majority votes, as the BJP-RSS combine has been known and wont to try, this time round PM Modi has himself taken the party to the next step, by seeking to create a new divide within the majority community, a la V P Singh in his time.'
The high point of the 19 Shastri months was the 22-day war that he fought against great odds and won in principle, even if military historians often call it a stalemate. Pakistan saw a great opportunity to conquer Kashmir and lost. It was the last time they had the relative strength militarily and diplomatically to take Kashmir. Shastri's resolve buried that dream forever, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The government has to specify what it intends to do with caste census data. It will be closely tracked if the government would simultaneously move towards removing the present 50% bar on reservations using means which are permitted in law. If this is not done, the entire exercise will become meaningless and could boomerang on the BJP, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Lalitgate is so much like the Bofors arms scandal that eventually brought down the Rajiv Gandhi government despite his humongous parliamentary majority, Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
Since the IPKF's withdrawal from Sri Lanka in March 1990, the LTTE's once-powerful influence in Tamil Nadu has faded.
Allahabad has seen some interesting battles, such as the Congress's Amitabh Bachchan defeating H N Bahuguna in 1984 or the 1988 by-poll that marked V P Singh's emergence as the contender for the PM post.
Late prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh's son Ajay Pratap Singh on Friday joined the Ramvilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party.
Journalist and author Chitra Subramaniam has demanded that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) make public its findings from the "box of evidence" received from Switzerland regarding the Bofors payoffs. Subramaniam, author of 'Boforsgate: A Journalist's Pursuit of Truth', expressed concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the evidence, questioning who opened the box, when it was opened, and what it contained. She also raised doubts about the official narrative regarding the alleged bribe in the Bofors case, suggesting the sum of Rs 64 crore may not reflect the full extent of the corruption. Subramaniam also alleged that the CBI planted stories about Hindi film actor Amitabh Bachchan to derail the investigation and launched a political vendetta against the Bachchans. She recalled that Bachchan had come to her home and asked if she had seen his name. The CBI has recently requested assistance from the United States in the case, seeking information from private investigator Michael Hershman, who claims to have crucial details about the scandal. The Bofors scandal, a major bribery case involving the Indian government and the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors in the 1980s, pertains to allegations of a Rs 64-crore bribe in a Rs 1,437-crore deal for the supply of 400 155mm field Howitzers.
The record lies with first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who did the honours 17 times from 1947 to 1964.
Colonel Billie Sodhi's life and family heritage reflect an unwavering commitment to excellence in polo, equestrian sports, and a rare, enduring athletic legacy.
Even Ajmal Kasab was given a fair trial in our country, the Supreme Court on Thursday remarked and indicated it may set up a courtroom inside Tihar Jail for the trial of J-K separatist leader Yasin Malik in a kidnapping case.
'I had to persuade him. I think he was a sceptic to begin with, but later on he was convinced that what we were doing was the right thing to do, that there was no other way out.'
'How can anybody cast aspersions on Sonia's family without any proof?' asks former prime minister V P Singh.
'She showed courage at every turn in her political career.'
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
The idea of weaponization got a fillip from an unexpected quarter. In the last week of October 1985, Rajiv met US President Ronald Reagan. Reagan told Rajiv, 'Pakistan has already made a bomb.' When Rajiv started talking about disarmament, the US president cut him short, 'Don't talk theory, think of your own protection.'
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
'Rahul Gandhi is raising the issue of a caste census though his party has been doing injustice on this front from the 1950s.'
With the Bharatiya Janata Party falling short of a majority in the Lok Sabha and needing the National Democratic Alliance partners to form the government at the Centre, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United head Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu have emerged as potential kingmakers.
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