'India may well be a religious country, but that is precisely why we need to avoid criminalising blasphemy,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
Its electoral triumphs in assembly polls, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, have made the BJP the single-largest party in the Rajya Sabha.
Ruptures in the opposition unity emerged barely a week after 17 parties joined hands to put up a joint candidate against the ruling National Democratic Alliance nominee for the July 17 presidential election.
"The nine deaths were reported in the neonatal care centre of hospital since last morning. All of them were kept in incubators as they were premature babies," Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Laxmikant Dash said.
The bill was taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha after the Speaker rejected Opposition demands to refer the key reform measure to a parliamentary Standing Committee.
In a stunning blow to the BJP on Wednesday, the party lost bypolls to all the three Lok Sabha seats it contested, including its bastion Gorakhpur, and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh, besides Araria in Bihar.
It's been 13 days that the Winter Session commenced, but no work has taken place as MPs continue to spar over the note ban.
Opposition members kept on shouting 'Pradhan Mantri sadan me aao'.
An Air India flight to Bhubaneswar from here was delayed by nearly eight hours allegedly due to some "VIPs" forcing the government-owned carrier to reassign the aircraft and its crew for Bhopal, a charge denied by the airline.
With the exit polls projecting a majority for the BJP-led NDA, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday took potshots at the ruling party, saying it will now find a scapegoat in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in its attempt to save Sonia and Rahul Gandhi from criticism.
Accusing the Biju Janata Dal government in Odisha of hijacking the credit for the work done through the welfare programmes of UPA government, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday claimed the state is ruled by "mine mafia" and not by the people's representatives.
The Congress' fortune in Odisha has been on the slide ever since it lost power to the Biju Janata Dal in the 2000 elections. Party loyalist Giridhar Gamang's resignation has only added to its problems, says Dillip Satapathy
Jaitley promised the states that they would be fully compensated for any loss of revenue arising from implementation of GST.
The introduction of the Telangana Bill itself has run into a controversy with several parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, telling Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar that they do not accept that the legislation has been introduced.
Seventy-one parliamentary constituencies spread across nine states voted in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections.
"All opposition parties should work together. It should be a one-to-one fight against the BJP. All opposition parties should help the strongest one in the state against the BJP," Banerjee said.
Archis Mohan decodes Bharatiya Janata Party's pre-presidential poll manoeuvres.
'Unlike in Gujarat, where he could ask for votes based on delivery, in 2019 he will have to appeal to his core Hindutva ideology, by firing over someone else's shoulders,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'Each of them is a setu (bridge) that links the government with the party, but their territories are different.'
Independent candidates may have won just three seats in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls, but they have garnered close to three per cent vote share -- higher than parties like Aam Aadmi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party and Communist Party of India.
Beyond welfare politics, the BJP has assiduously worked to appropriate regional icons.
The total value of Naveen Patnaik's assets has swelled by Rs 4 crore from Rs 7.98 crore to Rs 12.06 crore between 2009 and 2014. This increase is because of appreciation of property value instead of acquisition of any new property.
The road for the Opposition is full of 'ifs' and 'buts', reports Sunil Gatade.
The prime minister was often seen vigorously thumping the desk, prompting his Cabinet colleagues and NDA MPs to follow suit.
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 passage of this major legislation comes ahead of the general election due early next year.
India is mushrooming with Deve Gowda wannabes because being a former prime minister is better than being a former chief minister, says Shekhar Gupta.
Accusing the Modi government of interfering in states ruled by non-BJP parties by creating "artificial crisis" there, the Janata Dal-United on Monday appealed to regional parties such as the Trinamool Congress, the Biju Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party to "join hands" to counter the "dirty designs".
The move is being seen as an attempt to forge opposition unity to defeat the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sumitra Mahajan will be the Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha with senior leaders from all parties, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, moving motions on Thursday proposing her name for the high office.
A bill to amend a law on the appointment of Central Bureau of Investigation chief was passed in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday amid stiff resistance with the Congress alleging that it was aimed at keeping the largest opposition party out of the selection process, a charge denied by the government.
'If the Congress is to challenge the NDA government, Rahul Gandhi will have to shed his indifference to Parliament, become more visible and vocal and, essentially, lead from the front,' says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
The government has conveyed its "deep concern" to the US administration over attacks on Indians there, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Wednesday, asserting that the safety of Indian diaspora was a top priority.
The win in UP is especially significant because UP assembly members carry the maximum value of votes in a Presidential election, given the fact that the state is India's most populous.
Ahead of the visit of an all-party delegation to Jammu and Kashmir, political parties on Saturday pitched for holding dialogue with "all stakeholders", including Hurriyat, to douse the unrest and banning the use of pellet guns by security forces.
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the GST bill to compensate states for revenue loss for five years on introduction of the uniform nationwide indirect tax regime.
Maharashtra could become the gateway for the rest of the country.
Amid noisy scenes, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad introduced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 for discussion and passage, but pandemonium broke out in the Upper House with the opposition creating an uproar and the BJP countering it vociferously.
The chief minister skipped meals and remained awake the entire night on a makeshift dais along with some senior ministers and party members.
Even the United Progressive Alliance constituent Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday rubbished the Planning Panel's claim that the number of poor people had declined to 21.9 per cent.
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