Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday sought an apology from the Congress for the controversial statement by party MP that suggested a call for a separate south nation over fiscal injustice, but the opposition party's president said it stands for a united nation and will not tolerate any such call.
"I apologise for the inconvenience", United States astronaut Neil Armstrong told Indira Gandhi when informed that the Indian prime minister had kept awake till 4:30 am to watch him land on the moon on July 20, 1969.
'Indira Gandhi was a great influence on Sonia Gandhi. Like her mother-in-law, Sonia is a very good listener. She dresses very much like her mother-in-law. She maintains her figure.' K Natwar Singh pays tribute to Indira Gandhi.
Had it not been for Pankaj Tripathi, who must have worked hard to get those Vajpayee intonations and mannerisms so perfectly well, Ravi Jadhav's flattering portrait of Vajpayee would have been more vacuous than what we get to see, observes Prasanna Zore.
The company said it has suspended the staffers and that it was part of the operation to unearth this crime.
The government had earlier announced the country's highest civilian honour for L K Advani and Karpoori Thakur.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday invoked her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi to send a message that but for the former prime minister's 'much reviled' bank nationalisation four decades back the country's financial institutions would have been hit by the current global economic crisis. "Every passing day bears out the wisdom of that decision (bank nationalisation in 1969)," Gandhi said in her address at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
"The decision came after the cabin crew reported disruptive conduct on board, specifically a dispute between a husband and wife," sources told ANI.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress is all set to kickstart its campaign for the next year's Lok Sabha elections with its mega rally 'Hain Tayyar Hum' to be held in Maharashtra's Nagpur city on Thursday, the party's 139th foundation day.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday made it clear she would not change her decision to rename Indira Bhavan and reiterated her charge that its ally Congress was colluding with the Communist Party of India-Marxist to organise sit-ins and road blockades.
Taking exception to RSS chief K S Sudarshan's glowing remarks on Indira Gandhi, NDA convenor George Fernandes on Tuesday wrote to him saying that any appreciation of the late prime minister amounted to 'endorsing dictatorship'.
The BJP is now inventing new angles to keep its campaign relevant -- even if it's old wine in an old bottle, which is what the allegation on 'Katchatheevu' is, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is in power on its own only in three states -- Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana -- with a big question mark on whether it can even stake claim to be head of the INDIA bloc.
'He was the best court craftsman that I have ever seen who could modulate his arguments in accordance with the judge and the mood.'
The ministry of home affairs has identified around 1,700 km of fencing that needs to be done, BRO's additional director general (East) PKH Singh said.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Assamese litterateur Indira Raisom Goswami, who had taken the initiative to bring the United Liberation Front of Asom to the negotiating table, on Tuesday passed away at a hospital in Guwahati after a prolonged illness. The condition of 69-year-old Goswami, who suffered a cerebral stroke in February, turned critical on Monday night and she was declared dead at 7:45 am, Guwahati Medical College Hospital Superintendent R Talukdar said.
Sam Bahadur is a mechanical summary of his life, ticking off one chapter after another without bothering to pause or ponder over their significance and influences, observes Sukanya Verma.
'In her insecurity, she destroyed the institutions of democracy,' says Khushwant Singh.
More than the jingoism overkill, it's the tedious tone of telling stories of this genre that hurts Pippa, observes Sukanya Verma.
'Rahul Gandhi should have prevented Nitish Kumar from going.' 'He must pacify Mamata Banerjee if he has a cause of Mohabbat Ki Dukaan.' 'He should bring this Mohabbat Ki Dukaan on the political canvas.'
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Sam Bahadur brims with patriotic fervour, but one can trust Director Meghna Gulzar's refined sensibilities to not descend into nationalistic jingoism, believes Mayur Sanap.
'Life has been full of rewards, full of sadness.'
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Can any nation claim, guarantee that there will be no terror strike?'
Noted social worker Ela Ramesh Bhatt was on Monday conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development by President Pranab Mukherjee. Bhatt, the founder of Self-Employed Women's Association, was conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize for 2011 at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Equating the imposition of the Emergency with dacoity, he said, "Generally, dacoity is carried out around midnight. Similarly, this dacoity of democracy in the country also took place around midnight."
In the last 9 years, the BJP govt has marked some anniversaries and events with more zeal than Congress-led governments.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will set a record by presenting the sixth Budget in a row -- 5 annual Budgets and one interim -- a feat achieved so far only by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. With the presentation of interim Budget on February 1, Sitharaman will surpass the records of her predecessors like Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had presented five budgets in a row. Desai, as Finance Minister, had presented five annual Budgets and one interim Budget between 1959-1964. The interim Budget 2024-25 to be presented by Sitharaman on February 1, will be a vote-on-account that will give the government authority to spend certain sums of money till a new government comes to office after the April-May general elections.
Among the impacted flights, Air India's flight AI 185 from the national capital to Vancouver that was to depart early in the morning was rescheduled.
"I will miss Mrs Indira Gandhi very much indeed," said a teary eyed British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 after laying a wreath on the body of the slain Indian premier with whom she became friends over the years.
"She was a great prime minister.. and a greater human being. She gave nationhood for India and she would stand up to the erstwhile USSR or the USA or anybody else," Lord Paul, who had written a book on Gandhi and was considered a close friend of her, said while paying tributes to her at the Nehru Centre in London on Wednesday night as part of the International Women's Festival, 'Sakhi'.
Pannun, the self-proclaimed general counsel of "unlawful association" SFJ, released the video messages on social media platforms on November 4.
Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) leader Lalduhoma was sworn in as the chief minister of Mizoram on Friday.
'You can attack and conspire to weaken us, but you cannot destroy the Congress permanently.'
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