Parliament's approval of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, a contentious piece of legislation aimed at reforming Waqf bodies, has sparked strong reactions from the opposition, who allege that the bill was "bulldozed" through Parliament. The bill, considered the government's most consequential legislation in its third term, was passed with comfortable majorities in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha despite opposition claims of a lack of consultation and an intrusion into religious affairs. Other notable bills approved during the session included the Finance Bill, Appropriation Bill, Immigration and Foreigners Bill, and Tribhuvan Sahkari University Bill. The session, which saw high productivity, also witnessed debates on issues such as economic distress, delimitation, and the three-language policy. While the government touted its achievements, the opposition criticized the government's approach and vowed to challenge the Waqf bill in court.
A revamp of the All Indian Congress Committee is also on the cards.
Singh stressed on discipline and unity in the party.
The Congress, by and large, focused on local issues in this election and its campaign also was run by state leaders initially.
Jayanthi Natrajan, the Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu, contradicted the statement of Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Karunanidhi that the time has come to make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister. "I would like to put it on record that Dr Manmohan Singh and his team have done excellent work. There is no vacancy for the post of prime minister," she said at her first press conference as AICC spokesperson.
The parliamentary committee scrutinising the Waqf bill is set to propose that existing 'Waqf by user' properties will remain so if not in dispute or are government facilities but they must be registered before the new law takes effect, providing little relief to Waqf bodies in their unverified title claims.
Apart from the two major parties (Cong: 98; BJP: 67) the Bahujan Samaj Party is leading in four seats, while the Janata Dal-United and the Communist Party of India-Marxist are ahead in one each.
. Congress, on a high after clinching a deal with breakaway leader K Karunakaran's outfit, is contesting in 77 assembly segments, 17 less from last elections.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued a note to its state units on the draft political resolution for the upcoming party congress. The note says the party does not consider the Narendra Modi government or the Indian State as "neo-fascist", even as there are manifestations of "neo-fascist characteristics". The note clarifies that the party is not calling the Modi government "neo-fascist", but is concerned about the dangers of the BJP-RSS consolidating power and pushing a Hindutva-corporate agenda. The CPI(M) distinguishes between "neo-fascism", which it describes as a global phenomenon rooted in the crisis of neoliberalism, and classical fascism.
"I have been saying it for the last 10 years that if there is anybody who is the biggest agent of the BJP, it is Mulayam Singh Yadav. If anybody dances to the tunes of the BJP, it is Mulayam Singh Yadav," Rashid Alvi, the Congress spokesperson, said while addressing a public meeting in Moradabad on Wednesday night
The talks between the ruling Congress party and the Praja Rajyam Party for a tie-up for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation on Monday suffered a major setback.
Chowdhury is considered a strong critic of Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee. His appointment also triggered speculation on whether he would continue to hold the post of the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, going by the party's principle of giving one post to one person.
On Saturday, Delhi unit of the Congress unanimously adopted a resolution urging Rahul to take over as the president.
After the 1962 War with China, there was a demand to forge greater defence cooperation between India and the West. One such voice was that of Sudhir Ghosh, a distinguished MP, to tie up strategic cooperation with the USA immediately after the Chinese attack on India, recalls Rup Narayan Das.
Despite Natwar Singh's outbursts against Sonia Gandhi, the Congress on Monday said it did not want to make him a martyr by summary expulsion as the former external affairs minister's aggression showed his "sense of guilt".
The brainstorming session (chintan shivir) of the Congress will be held in Jaipur from January 18 to 20 to discuss political and economic situations and seek new ideas ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress on Wednesday said that the process of declaring its candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha election would start soon."Party leaders sent to various constituencies for selection of nominees have already submitted their reports. The party will soon announce its candidates in certain seats, where there is a unanimous opinion on nominees," All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijay Singh said.
As the All India Congress Committee Plenary session started in New Delhi, the party rank and file hoped that the Congress high command would be able to clear up the mess surrounding the party in the wake of the various scams surrounding it.
'Mamata needs to address the anger and resentment among various sections of the Hindu community because low-scale communal violence has always paid richer electoral dividends for the BJP.'
Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Hooda are the members of the pro-reform G23 group who wrote a letter to party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
After over a week of diffidence, the Congress on Monday came out openly backing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the controversial Indo-Pak joint statement in Egypt that has come under a lot of criticism.
The team, comprising Vayalar Ravi, Pranab Mukherjee and Ghulam Nabi Azad, is right now meeting party legislators at Sahyadri Guesthouse at Malabar Hills.
There was speculation that he might meet the party's All India Congress Committee in-charge of Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and other senior leaders, but sources close to Pilot said no meetings were fixed.
Stepping up its attack on Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare-led civil society, Congress on Wednseday dubbed the yoga guru as a 'king of black money' and Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde as a 'Bharatiya Janata Party man'.
Rattled with the twin problem of defection and resignation after the selection of candidates for the ensuing assembly election in Nagaland, the Congress has called upon all the deserters to come back and work for the party.
"No such alliance has been formed, but the possibilities are always there," All India Congress Committee general secretary Ashok Gehlot told PTI.
A day after the party's rout in Delhi elections, the knives are out in the Congress with leaders blaming each other and raising questions on whether the party has outsourced the task of defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party to others.
"I have been given BJP ticket from Mandi and the party has informed me about this," he said.
Alva, who has been sulking since her son Nivedith was not given nomination in Karnataka elections, was critical of adoption of 'different yardsticks' in deciding party nominations for coming elections in six states.
The visit comes amid the campaign for the November 25 assembly polls in Rajasthan, where the Congress hopes to return to power.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah was sworn in as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, the first elected government in the Union Territory since 2019 when Article 370 was abrogated.
"For me, they (Maoists) are no enemies at all. If they are under some wrong notions, we need to talk to them," Rao said in the Rajya Sabha, while participating in a debate on the Dantewada massacre.
The grilling of Brigadier-General Dyer by Akshay Kumar's Sir C Sankaran Nair, as shown in Kesari 2, is purely an imaginary sequence, proves Utkarsh Mishra.
The Congress on Monday emphasised once again that the United Progressive Alliance was not scrapping the India-United States nuclear agreement right now and said that it was making efforts to allay the apprehensions of the Left allies over the agreement. "There is no backing off right now," said All India Congress Committee spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed. He was responding to questions on whether the Indo-US nuclear deal had been put on hold in view of the opposition.
Even though it was stated that no action would be taken against the senior leaders who had written to Sonia Gandhi, they say that the retaliation had already begun, reports Aditi Phadnis
The Congress presidential polls will be held by a secret ballot and no one will get to know who voted for whom, the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said on Wednesday, asserting that a level-playing field has been ensured for both candidates.
The Congress party on Wednesday gave a deadline to Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan up to September 23 to decide whether it wanted to come with Rashtriya Janata Dal-led United Progressive Alliance in the coming Bihar Assembly polls.
Rather unusually, for it was a party forum, China cropped up several times during the discussions at the All-India Congress Committee plenary session at Burari in Delhi. And references to the country were not in socialist solidarity, either.
Can a culture survive as a way of life, even as the language and writing at its core, alter with time? Can we be rational and Malayalee or do we have to necessarily be religious and proudly cultural to be Malayalee? asks Shyam G Menon.
'He messaged me on Friday at 8:52 AM and then at 2:47 PM I replied, 'Are you planning a switch?'. At 2:48 he sent a message, 'is speaking to you not possible?' I said I will call you and at 3:40, I spoke to him'
