Film stars arrived at polling booths in Mumbai to cast their votes in the ongoing Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. The elections are seen as crucial for major cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Nashik, and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
Underscoring the 'presumption of genuineness' of Aadhaar and voter ID, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the publication of draft electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar and said it would once and for all decide pleas against Election Commission's special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi is likely to take up the matter in which the EC has justified its ongoing SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, saying it adds to the purity of the election by "weeding out ineligible persons" from the electoral rolls.
Leaders of several INDIA bloc parties met the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and raised concerns over its timing, alleging that over two crore voters of the state may be disenfranchised by this mammoth exercise being done just ahead of assembly elections.
The Congress demanded that the government and the Election Commission come clean on the EVM issue and urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.
Springing a surprise, independents backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won the lion's share of 101 seats in the National Assembly in Thursday's election.
A voter's right to know is 'far too important' in democracy than the privacy of a donor, Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjiv Khanna said on Thursday as the apex court scrapped the 2018 electoral bond scheme for funding political parties.
In a landmark judgment that delivered a big blow to the government, the Supreme Court on Thursday annulled the electoral bonds scheme, saying it violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as well as the right to information.
A division bench of Justice D K Upadhyay and Justice Saurav Lavania also annulled the draft notification issued by the Uttar Pradesh government on December 5 for reservation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the urban local body elections.
If you are serious about countering the Chinese threat, then the best weapon is investing in real freedom, plurality, elections and democracy. Unfortunately, it isn't an approach all Indians currently seem to agree on, asserts Shyam G Menon.
The Congress declared Rs 526 crore as income from unknown sources which is 15.57 per cent of the total income of the national parties from unknown sources, the ADR said.
He accused the Apni Party, led by former People's Democratic Party leader Altaf Bukhari, and the union territory administration of using coercive tactics to buy loyalties of newly elected DDC members.
The total income of seven political parties from unknown sources was Rs 2,512.98 crore in 2018-19.
'With changing times, elections no longer are won by giving subsidies, doles and gifts before and after.' 'Entitlements, rightful gains of growth and economic development and the like are becoming important for increasingly conscious and demanding voters, especially younger voters,' points out Bheemaiah Krishnan Ravi.
Thousands of children in swaths of war-torn Syria, now controlled by dreaded Islamic State militants, can no longer study math or social studies under new diktats issued by the jihadists.
Income of political parties from known donors was Rs 1,835.63 crore, which is 16 per cent of their total income.
'EVMs are absolutely credible, they are robust.' 'It's only a calculator with certain instructions. And the sim card inside an EVM is burnt and cannot be reprogrammed.' 'Besides, the machines are circulated among various states. No machine is allowed to remain in one state after an election.' 'By far, it is one of the finest innovations India should be proud of.'
Will the EC would make an example of the RK Nagar by-election, either by ensuring free and fair polls or by countermanding the same, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.