In a snub to Shiv Sena, Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi hopped on to two suburban trains on Friday throwing caution to wind in the wake of security threat to make a last minute detour through Sena bastions during his brief visit to this metropolis.
The ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, which has already crossed swords with the Congress, is all set to launch its campaign for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections from the bastion of Gandhi family -- Amethi and Rae Bareli -- on February 9. The party, while announcing its plan to organise Brahmin Sammelans across the state, has decided to organise its first convention in Amethi, parliamentary constituency of All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi.
During the two-day visit, Mukherjee will meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and discuss the latest situation in the northern part of the island nation, sources said. Mukherjee is expected to impress upon Rajapaksa government the need for finding a political solution to the ethnic problem to ensure lasting peace.
The counting of votes for the politically senstive Nandigram assembly by-election started on Friday amidst tight security, official sources said.
Moving to retake the last remaining LTTE bastions in the north, Sri Lankan troops on Monday reached the southern outskirts of strategically vital Elephant Pass after capturing a key town on the road to the rebels' coastal stronghold Mullaittivu, the military said. If the troops recapture the corridor, which was lost to the Tigers in 2000, a vital land link to Jaffna peninsula will be re-established.
Ruling out the possibility of any sudden fall of its last bastions of Killinochchi and Mulaitivu, Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran has said that his group still had thousands of fighters and was also working to "rebuild" relationship with India.
A bastion of Kashmiri pandits, a record 12 displaced pandits of a total 21 candidates are trying their luck from Habba Kadal segment which goes to polls with 20 other constituencies in Jammu, Srinagar and Samba districts in seventh and final phase of elections on December 24.
Heavily armed Taliban on Friday began pulling out from the strategic Buner town and were returning to their bastion in Swat valley after a deal was brokered by hardline cleric Sufi Mohammed, amid intense global pressure on Pakistan over the presence of militants so close to Islamabad.
He said the army has captured the entire Pudukudiriyirippu area that was under the control of the Tamil Tigers, who have lost many of their key leaders in the latest fighting. Important LTTE leaders killed in the clashes included Vidusha, Nagesh, Durga, Deepan and Patabi, Nanayakkara said, adding another senior rebel leader Banu was injured.
Twenty four-year-old Charles, the eldest of the two sons and a daughter of the elusive LTTE chief, was injured in the fighting in the Tiger bastion of Pudhukkudiyiruppu, Defence Ministry officials said.
With one year left for assembly elections in Karnataka, the last big bastion of the Congress, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has found an emotive issue to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party as the latter prepares the ground for a fight to grab power. Raghu Krishnan and Nikita Puri report.
'When bankers are hounded by investigative agencies for credit decisions going wrong and defaulters are treated like outcasts, who will borrow money and who will lend?' asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Tata Group has decided to defer its plan of setting up a rural business process outsourcing unit near the proposed steel plant at Kalinganagar in Orissa by two years.
The Sri Lankan forces fast closing in on LTTE last bastion in island nation's north have captured one of the command bunkers used by elusive Tamil Tiger supreme Velupillai Prabhakaran in thick forests of Dharmapuram town in Mullaittivu.
Workers of SNCF will be on strike for two days out of five every week for three months.
Here are some of the political leaders' who await their fate.
As suspense grows about the whereabouts of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran after the capture of the last bastion of the outfit, the Sri Lankan army chief on Monday said he believed the guerrilla leader could be in an underground bunker or in the no-fire zone.It is widely believed that both Prabhakaran and his son Charles Anthony could be in the 20 sq km no-fire zone, where the rebel remnants are said to be holed up after they were pushed out.
Priyadarshini Scindia, wife of sitting Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, started campaigning in February, going door-to-door, reaching out to a cross-section of voters, listening to their woes and telling them about the work done by her better half.
After battering the Left in its bastion in the Lok Sabha polls, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday called for an end to "Marxist misrule" in West Bengal, claiming it will come "within a year."
Women dominate Indian banks's clerical and officer rolls, but few make it to the executive office these days, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
At a crucial meeting on the alliance of the Left Front in Kerala, furious CPI leaders walked out of the discussion as the CPI-M stuck to its position to field an independent candidate from Ponnani in northern Kerala's Mallapuram district. The CPI wants to field its own candidate as the constituency has been traditionally with it according to the seat-sharing agreement between the Left partners.
Chinese mobile brands are deeply entrenched in the Indian market. A move to bar them may send a bold diplomatic message. But its cost for the local industry is anybody's guess. In the event that Chinese brands face curbs, two handset makers - Samsung and Apple - squarely stand to gain.
The mandate which the people of Northeast have given is in itself is a very big change, Modi said.
Newly elected mayors will campaign for the party in poll-bound Gujarat.
According to Grant Thornton International, women still hold less than a quarter of senior management positions in privately held businesses globally and 34 per cent of PHBs have no women at the senior management level. In India, there is a rise in percentage of women in senior management level (15 per cent) as compared to previous year (14 per cent) but it still ranks in bottom five globally.
'It is mind-boggling that a party can be in rigor mortis even after numerous electoral defeats,' observes Ramesh Menon.
As Sri Lankan troops advance towards the last Tiger bastion of Mullaittivu, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka has said he was not sure whether Velupillai Prabhakaran was on the island nation but felt that it was not possible for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo to find a shelter in India. The Lankan Air Force had destroyed a vessel carrying arms and ammunitions for the LTTE just when it was being offloaded in the rebel coastal area, Fonseka added.
Sharmila, 37, can swiftly pluck nuts by climbing steep coconut trees of any height. She climbs up around 10 to 15 coconut trees a day, charging Rs 10 per a tree as she finds extra income to meet mounting expenses.
Meanwhile, the Congress said that that it is ready to go it alone in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election.
The Karnataka BJP core committee had proposed only Tejaswini's name for the Lok Sabha seat, but Tejaswi Surya emerged the dark horse.
Lack of organisational network and a strong disconnect with the rural population led to the Congress president's defeat in what until now had been described as a party stronghold.
The highest winning margin was registered by BJP candidate Subhash Chandra Baheria in Bhilwara who defeated Congress candidate Ram Pal Sharma with a margin of 6,12,000 votes.
'Between now and 2021, Bengal's politics could change irrevocably,' predicts Kanchan Gupta, Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the impressive show by his party to the "alert voters" who he said rejected the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) of opposition parties.
The party and its president, it seemed, were also unable to articulate their views effectively enough
A M Rathnam's Bheema, directed by Lingusaamy is a dazzling, slick bash-fest. Vikram steals the show.
Chabua is a key base of the IAF and it has the latest airplanes including the Sukhoi-30 MKi and Chetak helicopters.
The Indian Medical Association has condemned Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav's drive against doctors accusing them of charging "exorbitant" fees.
He also hoped that Priyanka Gandhi will campaign outside party bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli.
When Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee became chief minister after Jyoti Basu stepped down in 2000, the younger generation could not have been happier. 'Change is about to set in' they thought. But the euphoria was short-lived.
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