The luncheon meeting took place at the prime minister's official Race Course Road residence.
Former finance minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha has denied that he is joining the Congress party. Sinha spoke to rediff.com from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, where he was holding series of meetings in his constitutency, after resigning from all party posts on Saturday.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha who joined Trinamool Congress on Saturday narrated how West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had offered to go as a hostage in exchange for passengers of Air India's IC 814 that was hijacked by the militants over two decades ago.
A round-up of the Ranji Trophy matches played on Saturday.
They adopted a resolution moved by NDA convenor George Fernandes where the parties vowed to dislodge 'the anti-poor, anti-kisan, corrupt, non-performing and an internally paralysed UPA government' and secure a decisive mandate for the NDA in the next elections, senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said.
Tamil Nadu's Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin has reacted to Andhra Pradesh counterpart Pawan Kalyan's out-of-turn taunts with a one-liner, 'Let's wait', and thereby hangs a tale, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Days after he vented his frustration over the selection of a new team of Bharatiya Janata Party office bearers, Shatrughan Sinha on Tuesday said that there is a vacuum at the top, in the absence of veteran leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.In an informal interaction with reporters, Sinha said the BJP leadership had weakened after the retirement of Vajpayee from active politics. He said there were also certain other factors but declined to elaborate.
Vajpayee held consultations with Deputy Prime Minister Advani, BJP president Venkaiah Naidu and Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in this regard on Monday night.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Monday said that the National Democratic Alliance lost the 2004 general elections due to 'over confidence' and use of wrong slogans like 'India Shining'."The impression even among the opponents and foreign analysts was that we will win....but we lost...one, due to over-confidence and secondly, using some wrong slogans like India Shining," he said. Advani was then the deputy prime minister.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday told mediapersons that his party was in alliance talks with the Bharatiya Janata Party.The alliance will be possible only if the BJP agreed to SP's conditions, Mulayam said, though he did not elaborate the conditions. He added that he had met BJP's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani and senior leader and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to discuss the matter.
With the BJP denying a renomination to Naqvi to the Upper House, and no Rajya Sabha renomination either for Sayyed Zafar Islam or MJ Akbar -- both of whom are also completing their tenures soon -- the party now has no Muslim member of Parliament from either House.
Singhvi was speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry where the American ambassdor David Mulford, was presenting a more realistic picture of Indo-US relations.
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is being treated in AIIMS for chest infection, is making a steady progress, doctors attending on him said today.
"The pneumonia is under control with the prognosis being good. Gradually his oxygenation (amount of oxygen in blood purified by the lungs) level has shown improvement and there is no spread of pneumonia," Head of AIIMS Cardiac Thoracic Vascular Sciences Department Sampath Kumar said. The 84-year-old leader was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday last with complaints of fever and chest congestion. Doctors later found that he was suffering from pneumonia.
The condition of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is admitted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences with chest infection, is stable and he is responding to the treatment, doctors attending him said on Sunday.
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee continued to be on ventilation on Saturday with his respiratory track infection remaining a cause of concern, doctors attending on him at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences said. "Vajpayee's condition is stable. His heart is stable but his lungs require support and that is why we are putting him on ventilation," Dr Sampath Kumar, head of Cardiac Thoracic Vascular Sciences of AIIMS, said.
Senior BJP leader L K Advani was on Sunday elected unopposed the working chairman of the National Democratic Alliance till incumbent Atal Bihari Vajpayee recovers from ill-health while acting NDA convenor Sharad Yadav has been elected as the convenor.
The condition of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences following respiratory infection and fever, was stable on Wednesday. The 84-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party leader was admitted to AIIMS on Tuesday night. He is being given appropriate treatment to deal with complaints of fever and respiratory infection, Dr Sharma said. Vajpayee is also suffering from hypertension and diabetes, he added.
The leaders were protesting the hike in petrol and diesel prices.
Suryakumar Yadav and captain Hardik Pandya held their nerves to guide India to a hard-fought six-wicket victory over New Zealand
Democratic Freedom Party leader Shabir Ahmed Shah suggested setting up a Kashmir committee headed by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to frame a policy.
'The priority at the moment should be to strengthen our internal security arrangements and improve coordination among the intelligence agencies, state governments and military authorities,' says Naresh Chandra, India's former ambassador to Washington.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the Bharatiya Janata Party's mascot in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley, even as the party is exhorting the people in Jammu to vote en bloc for it to protect the region's interests.This divergent campaign strategy for the ongoing seven-phase assembly election in the state has been worked out to resolve the party's dilemma in seeking votes in two regions where the BJP's presence invokes opposite feelings among the voters.
At the all-party meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to brief other political leaders on his government's plans to put the Indian Army on high alert and deploy more forces along the Line of Control, which separates India and Pakistan in Kashmir.
The controversy over a derogatory statement, made against former prime minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee by a Congress member during the debate over the Liberhan Commission's report in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, is not likely to die down soon with the party threatening to stall Parliament till he apologises for his remarks. "I am today both sad and angry," said deputy Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj.
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said he respected veteran BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a senior politician and did not know whether the Liberhan Commission has done the right thing or not by naming him in its report on the Babri demolition.
The Congress on Monday gave a clean chit to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and spiritual preacher Deoraha Baba, whose names figure in the list of those found culpable by the Liberhan Commission, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. "Vajpayee's name was not in the conspiracy (to demolish Babri mosque). His name was only in one of the lists," Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.
Congress Member of Parliament Jagdambika Pal, who served as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for three days in 1998, had to face an awkward moment on Monday during the debate on the Liberhan Commission's report in the House, when the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party pointed out that the report listed him as a karsevak.Pal was the first Congress leader to speak during the Lok Sabha debate on the report, which indicts top BJP leaders L K Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Liberhan Commission''s Report on the Babri Mosque demolition and the Action Taken Report (ATR) will be discussed in Parliament on Monday.
The sources said Thackeray also had talks with former prime minister and NDA chairman Atal Bihari Vajpayee a couple of days back.
Take the Rediff Business Quiz and see how much you know about this important regional group.
The meeting will take place at Hotel Renaissance, where the BJP is holding its three-day national executive.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee was involved in the Ram Janma Bhoomi movement which led to the Babri Mosque demolition in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, VHP chief Ashok Singhal said on Friday.
On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress clashed over the findings of the Liberhan Commission, which is believed to have indicted senior BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and M M Joshi, among others, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.
'The BJP is using administrative machinery to fight elections'
PM Singh who is acutely underplaying his "achievement" of getting the extraordinary nuclear agreement with US is all set to make history and he is well aware of the fact that opposition parties, whether they hate it or love it, have to live with it.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared on Sunday that the National Democratic Alliance government, if re-elected
"Yes, we know that the scene is changing everyday and things are becoming difficult, but we are hopeful that Bhairon Singhji with his stature and name would be able to get enough numbers to make it to Rashtrapati Bhavan," a top BJP leader said.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee Thursday night announced his retirement from active politics saying henceforth he would not contest elections.
