Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday allocated portfolios to newly sworn-in ministers and reshuffled certain portfolios.
This is the fourth year of drought in Marathwada in the past five years. Each of its 8,522 villages have been affected for two consecutive years.
The MNS has convened a meeting of party office-bearers on Tuesday in Mumbai to discuss the issue.
'Can we slip through the cracks in the alliance and use the situation to our advantage?'
Hazare has been on a hunger strike since Wednesday demanding appointment of anti-corruption watchdogs at the Centre and in Maharashtra.
The decision came on a day when Thackeray said Maharashtra government should stop water supply to the beer manufacturing units in the drought-hit Marathwada region to tackle acute shortage of drinking water.
All municipal corporations have been directed to shut down swimming pools and not to provide water tankers for revellers.
The All India Kisan Sabha, backed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, announced suspension of the 180-km march from Nashik to Mumbai after a three-and-a-half hour meeting of its representatives with state ministers Girish Mahajan and Jaykumar Rawal.
Apart from the appointment of Lokpal at the national level and Lokayukta in states, Hazare has been demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations and some electoral reforms.
The last auspicious day of the ongoing Kumbh Mela was full of action
'If they think they can silence us by suspending us, then they don't know what BJP MLAs are made of.'
He said though there was a "ray of hope", certain issues he had flagged remained unresolved.
Nearly 4,000 doctors have been on strike in various government and municipal hospitals since Monday demanding security at work place in the wake of a string of attacks on their colleagues.
The 16-year-old boy allegedly raped the girl at an isolated place at Talegaon village under Trimbakeshwar taluka in the district on Saturday, Trimbakeshwar police station in-charge Mukund Deshmukh said.
Hazare, 81, had started his indefinite fast on January 30 over appointment of anti-corruption watchdogs.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday allocated portfolios to the twenty-member council of ministers, including 10 of the Shiv Sena, who were inducted into his expanded cabinet.
The Sena appeared firm on its demand that the chief minister's post should be shared by the two allies for two-and-a-half years each.
Sena MP Sanjay Raut, however, said his party was firm on a written assurance from the senior alliance partner over power sharing, including rotating CM's post for 2.5 years.
He was accompanied by his father, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, and mother Rashmi while filing nomination papers.
Hazare said he was giving the government six months time till August to come good on its assurance and warned that his protest will again begin in September if the demands were not met.
The Indian Medical Association rolls back their support but it is not known as yet if the resident doctors too would follow the suit.
The first 'shahi snan' of the ongoing Kumbh Mela began in Nashik on Saturday with thousands of devotees, including 'mahants' of various akhadas, thronging the ghats of the River Godavari to take the holy dip.
Ahead of the assembly elections, the saffron allies may be ecstatic over the swelling, but it's a double-edged sword with many older leaders wondering what they have got after putting in years of hard work, reports Radhika Ramaseshan
Fadnavis assured them of transferring land rights within the next three months.
The doctors called off their five-day strike after Fadnavis on Friday gave an ultimatum to striking resident doctors to resume duty or face legal action.
With the BJP backing off from the race, the onus to form government now rests with the Sena, which has indicated that it might rope in the Congress and the NCP to prop up a government.
On Friday, Khadse made a futile bid to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval as well as senior party leaders in New Delhi.
The Maharashtra government on Tuesay banned digging of borewell below 200 feet in view of the acute water crisis in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena leaders who were sworn in today during the expansion of Devendra Fadnavis ministry include some who have been ministers in the past and some new faces.
It's a major victory for the farmers who trekked 180 km from Nashik over six days under the blazing sun, some even barefooted.
Making a statement in the legislative assembly, Fadnavis said, "Enough is enough. If the doctors fail to resume work today, government will not sit quietly. We cannot leave the patients to die. I am making a final attempt to break the deadlock today by meeting the doctors' representatives. If no solution is found and doctors don't resume work, they should be prepared to face legal action."
The Bombay high court on Thursday asked striking resident doctors in Maharashtra to resume work immediately while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis appealed to them to call of the four-day stir, assuring security in hospitals.
The doctors have been protesting against some recent incidents, including in Dhule and at the civic-run Sion hospital in Mumbai, where relatives of patients attacked the respective doctors in-charge.
Resident doctors are the engines that run hospitals. For the patient, they are the face, hands, and voice of the hospital.
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