"Private players are going only in those areas where there is a big market, whereas rural areas are by and large connected by BSNL. We are adding 20 million new lines this year to cover maximum foot print," minister of state for telecom Sachin Pilot said during the Question Hour.
After following Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the party's official Twitter handle, he began following senior leaders P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot, Ajay Maken, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot and CP Joshi from this month.
The Congress central leadership's decision to send former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot to work for the party in Gujarat is a strategic one, say Congress sources.
The government on Thursday said the domestic IT sector has not recovered fully and is expected to grow by 5.5 per cent in 2009-10 against a growth rate of 16.6 per cent in the previous fiscal.
Gujjar Mahasabha patron Col (retd) K S Bainsala, Congress MP Sachin Pilot, BJP rebels Atar Singh Bhadana and Prahlad Gunjal, Lokjanshakti Party MLA Ranveer S Gudha were among those who courted arrest.
IOA president Suresh Kalmadi has invited Rahul Gandhi along with other young Parliamentarians to participate in the Indian leg of the Olympic torch relay at the behest of the organisers. Besdies Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada and Sachin Pilot would also be invited. Kalmadi has also assured the relay, which had seen worldwide protests, would go without any hiccup in India.
"The new class of 70 crore people, who are above the poverty line but below the level of middle class, has been created in the last ten years and it includes security guards, taxi drivers etc," Gandhi said at a rally in Deoli area of Tonk district.
The coming weeks will be a tightrope walk for Gehlot who has 100 loyalists MLAs waiting to be rewarded on one side and the dissidents who wanted to be rehabilitated on the other, observes Prakash Bhandari.
State leaders have emerged as the biggest road block for Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi who is trying to give young leaders bigger responsibilities, says Renu Mittal
The chief whip, who moved the top court two days after the assembly speaker C P Joshi filed the appeal against the July 24 Rajasthan high court order, was very critical of the judicial intervention into the disqualification proceedings and said that the order 'was ex facie unconstitutional' and amounted to an intrusion into the domain of speaker's power under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
The Congress on Sunday named Baghel, a five-time MLA from Patan, to head the state Congress Legislature Party. Baghel, who took charge as Congress state president Congress after the 2013 assembly polls, was credited for the massive victory of the party in the recent assembly polls where Congress won 68 seats in the 90-member House.
Apart from the chief minister and deputy chief minister, 13 cabinet and 10 ministers of state were allocated portfolios.
A day ahead of former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's visit to Rajasthan to raise the voice of the farmers against the farm laws, he said that the Centre should withdraw the laws and after thorough consultation with farmers and states, come up with a new set of legislations which the tillers would themselves want and is not something that is forced upon them.
'If Rahul Gandhi's authority was absolute, he could have picked his man.' 'Compare this with the ease with which outsiders like Adityanath, Khattar and Fadnavis were picked.'
Several leaders, including many MPs, wrote to Sonia Gandhi, either calling for her to continue or urging Rahul Gandhi to take charge.
Leaders across the political spectrum on Friday condoled the demise of Chhattisgarh's first chief minister Ajit Jogi, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailing the IAS officer-turned-politician for striving to bring a positive change in the lives of the poor.
"He also gave verbal directions to make the necessary arrangements for the prevention of COVID-19 spread during the session," the spokesperson added.
Sachin and Sara Pilot will be on Simi Garewal's show.
Seeking an interim stay on the high court order, Joshi's petition said it was the top court's duty to ensure that all constitutional authorities act within the 'Lakshman rekha' drawn for each one of them.
The brutal incident came to light after a video of the assault went viral. In the video, a group of men is seen thrashing two persons with rubber belts. They later torture one of the victims by pouring petrol on his private parts with a piece of cloth wrapped on a screwdriver.
Yet another Congress leader has attacked party Vice President Rahul Gandhi saying he has neither direction nor any policy and called him an 'MD of a team of jokers'.
Manvendra Singh will take on the Rajasthan CM from Jhalrapatan constituency.
Congress candidate Shafia Zubair won the Ramgarh assembly poll in Rajasthan, while BJP candidate Krishan Middha won over his nearest rival from the Jannayak Janata Party for the high-stakes Jind bypoll in Haryana.
'Play safe and persist with an ailing Sonia Gandhi as interim chief and wait for an opportune moment to foist the crown prince yet again,' predicts Virendra Kapoor.
'I realised what a great leader he was by the way he took decisions to undertake the most-risky of missions.'
The BJP may be ready and waiting to pounce on another key state of the Hindi heartland, but it is the Congress's holy trinity that issued them an invitation to the beheading, notes Sunil Sethi.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and other senior party leaders, including All India Congress Committee general secretary Avinash Pande and spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, also moved to Jaisalmer along with the MLAs in five chartered flights.
Slogans of 'Rahul ji, we are with you' and 'Please do not resign' rang through the air.
The National Spot Exchange Ltd, promoted by Jignesh Shah-led Financial Technologies, is facing a Rs 5,600-crore (Rs 56-billion) settlement crisis.
He said, a message should go across the country, not just in Rajasthan that 'this will not be tolerated'.
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were on Tuesday stopped by police from entering Meerut on their way to meet the families of those who died during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The latest trends show that the Congress is leading in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, while it is locked in a close fight in Madhya Pradesh. However, leaders from both, the Congress and the BJP, have kept their fingers firmly crossed till the final results were announced. Leaders voiced their opinion on the results as they continued to stream in.
Countering the opposition claim that farmers across the country are agitated over the three new laws, he said that those in just one state are being misinformed and instigated.
Scindia's departure from the Congress also raises question marks about delayed decision-making and status quo in the Congress.
The apex court, in a plethora of verdicts, has given varying judicial opinions on Speakers' powers ranging from refusing to intervene in the matter to assuming the role of the Speaker itself and going to the extent of disqualifying lawmakers under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.
There is infighting among Rajasthan Congress leaders and I do not respect them. They are fake leaders, Bhanwar Lal Sharma tells Rediff.com contributor Shahnawaz Aakhtar