Discussions to evolve a consensus on separate Telangana state is on and the Congress high command will take a final decision on it but it will take time, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Tuesday.
Flurry of economic reform suggests Modi realises his muscular nationalism script is getting jaded. Chances are he'll try for economic recovery but stick to what's worked so far, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Rahul Gandhi also attacks Modi and RSS in Bastar.
'Gujarat should have been a breeze. But the Patidar agitation and economic uncertainty queered the pitch.' 'Yes, the BJP won and its rank-and-file will take great comfort in the assembly victory. But the leadership is taking stock for a very tricky set of elections coming up in 2018.'
Delhi Police on Monday drew flak as a video emerged in which male police constables can be seen purportedly assaulting protesters, including women, demonstrating over the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula near the RSS head office in New Delhi.
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday condemned the attacks and harassment of people from the northeast in various parts of the country in the wake of the killing of a boy from Arunachal Pradesh in Delhi and said a message should go out that they should be protected.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi, Left parties and CMs of various states congratulated Kovind.
'Why did your generals try to grab a few square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh?' 'And what happened to the hard work that you and Prime Minister Modi put into the Wuhan and Mamallapuram meets?' Claude Arpi writes a letter to Xi Jinping, China's self-styled supreme leader, who turns 68 today, June 15.
Massive crowds thronged liquor stores, more vehicles plied on roads and cab-hailing platforms resumed services as India entered the third phase of the lockdown on Monday with further easing of curbs except in containment zones in the shadow of the highest rate of recovery yet from coronavirus.
The investigative agency has been asked to file its report to the apex court on July 24.
Parliament on Wednesday saw a washout as the Opposition aggressively pressed for ouster of Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, rejecting the government's offer for a debate.
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
With most political parties failing to articulate the concerns of Muslims, who account for 15 per cent of the population and can swing the electoral outcome in 21 constituencies, the AIMIM hopes to make a mark in the ongoing assembly elections, says Shafeeq Rahman.
All private medical colleges will come under the ambit of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, Health Minister J P Nadda said on Tuesday after an Ordinance to keep the state boards out of it for a year was signed by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Earlier, the Allahabad HC rapped the Uttar Pradesh government saying the law and order machinery and officials were directly under the MLA's influence.
Attacking the Congress for its 65 years of "misrule", the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on said it was unthinkable that a national party has to be welcomed as a "regional party" in the Lok Sabha but promised to take the opposition party along in the decision-making process.
The Congress for its part urged Modi not to politicise the armed forces.
Banerjee said she was doing so after consulting leaders of major opposition parties and following 'a favourable court order'.
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
'Sachin Pilot once calculated that with a million Indians flooding the labour market every month, only an additional 12 million jobs annually could keep unemployment at the same level.' 'That's chickenfeed for the functionaries who cram my e-mail inbox every day with such a constant flow of job offers that trying to empty it is like trying to drink dry the horn connected to the ocean in Norse mythology,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
While all political parties have been talking about following in the footsteps of the debutant Aam Admi Party by fielding fresh faces in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-U leader Nitish Kumar has set the ball rolling by deciding not to renominate his party's three sitting MPs in the coming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha scheduled for February 7. Anita Katyal reports.
Delivering his concluding address to the party's National Executive, which saw its president Amit Shah raising concerns over "migration" of Hindus from a communally-sensitive western Uttar Pradesh town, Modi made no reference to the controversial issues and instead asked leaders to use power for the benefit of society.
Ramesh says that since the attitude of the Narendra Modi government is deliberately provocative and confrontational, it should not expect cooperation from the Congress.
Biju Janata Dal termed the Budget, which was presented in Parliament by Rail Minister Sadananda Gowda, 'quite shocking' and 'illogical' as it complained that no emphasis had been made in it for the areas that generated more revenue from freight.
'The frequency of 'vikas' being used in speeches and slogans has reduced noticeably. Why is the 'BJP's Chanakya' so aggressive and combative?' asks Utkarsh Mishra.
Congress had a reason to smile as it was able to emerge as the single largest party in Meghalaya, but failed to secure a majority.
Rahul exuded confidence that his party will emerge victorious in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly polls and defeat the BJP in the 2019 general polls.
Why the Bihar defeat can be the best thing for him as PM, but only if he has the humility to read the writing on the wall, says Shekhar Gupta.
Though there is a full-throated clamour in the Congress that party vice-president Rahul Gandhi be formally named as its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Nehru-Gandhi scion is personally not convinced that his projection will yield electoral dividends.
"Nobody other than Modi can give a strong government," Shah said.
State governments want the Centre to direct the 14th Finance Commission to compensate states for implementing pay scales, to be recommended by the pay panel.
'This survey, done on the basis of feedback from BJP-RSS workers at the booth level, has given Narendra Modi the confidence to start packing his bags in Gandhinagar. on Tuesday, he has done photo shoots with his colleagues and staff.' Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com presents the Sangh Parivar's assessment of how many seats the BJP will win in this election.
Sonia Gandhi's iftar was meant to be a powerful show of unity of Opposition parties to take on the Modi Sarkar, but that was not to be...
'Which path should Muslims take politically as they have been completely marginalised?'
'You've got to be a doer to be re-elected.' 'You don't have to be a great communicator or an orator any more because voters want to see action and development on the ground.' 'And they want a doer rather than just an orator.'
Addressing a rally in coastal Odisha town of Balasore on completion of two years of his government, he called for a 'balanced' development in the country and wondered why the eastern belt had remained backward despite being generously bestowed with natural resources.
Voting is being held in 59 of the total 60 seats .
'Wisdom demands Modi moves to restore the critical institutions of the State and dial back on the cult building around his persona,' say Sonali Ranade and Shealja Sharma.
'The debate, by being mostly in Hindi, lost much of its educative relevance to the southern states.' 'All the prime minister's debating skills and oratorical prowess went over the heads of the South Indian audience,' points out B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.