What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend...
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
Addressing a huge rally in Maharashtra's Nagpur on the occasion of the Congress' 139th foundation day, he said unemployment in the country has reached its highest point in the last 40 years.
Mohan Yadav will take oath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in Bhopal on Wednesday morning, and the event will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the chief ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states among others, a party leader said.
The incident took place on the night of November 1. Following the incident, hundreds of BHU students had held a protest on the campus and demanded that the entry of outsiders be banned.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
The RSS, the political fountainhead of the ruling BJP, has been criticised by the Congress and other Opposition over its stand on the national flag.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
Jeetega Bharat has selected 125 Lok Sabha seats across the country where it will assist the Opposition alliance.
Experts recommend awaiting the findings of the 2021 Census, which is yet to be conducted, before introducing population control policies.
Given the 2024 general elections, it is unlikely that the allegations around electoral bonds, raised by the Opposition, will disappear easily or with a shrug of the BJP's shoulders and fabled 56-inch chest, argues Shyam G Menon.
In the last 9 years, the BJP govt has marked some anniversaries and events with more zeal than Congress-led governments.
Chief Minister-designate Mohan Yadav, an OBC leader and three-time Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, started his political career when he was a student and rose to become higher education minister of Madhya Pradesh where he announced to make Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas as an optional subject in colleges in 2021.
'Imagine what the BJP's urges would be if India's electorate awarded it truly brute majorities like the 400 plus seats the prime minister called for in the 2024 general elections?' asks Shyam G Menon.
"Everyone knows the situation in Kerala. Amit Shah should tell what is wrong here...minorities in Karnataka face widespread attacks whereas religious minorities are safe in Kerala," the chief minister said, adding that Kerala is the only place where the 'communal propaganda of Sangh Parivar' is not working.
'They are from the north, east, west, south and northeast part of India. They will be the 'mukhya yajmaan' (main hosts)'
According to him, the purpose behind such allotment was to help these organisations grow and with that its ideologies should also grow.
In the meeting, which has come at a time when the Gyanvapi mosque issue is being heard in courts, it was decided to build a platform for strengthening communal harmony in the country.
Rice exporters have requested the Centre for a flat export duty of $80 per tonne for parboiled rice instead of the current 20 per cent duty to smoothen trade, a top official of the rice exporters' umbrella body said on Sunday. The Indian Rice Exporters Federation (IREF) has also requested the government to reconsider its export ban on white rice which was imposed in July and reduction in the minimum export price for basmati rice to $850 per tonne to prevent negative impacts on both export volumes and farmers. On Friday, the government had extended the 20 per cent duty on parboiled rice exports until March 24.
The lack of clarity on who is next in line, when the time comes, as indeed it will one day some day, reflects poorly on the management of the world's largest political party. It scarcely need be said that a squabble between the contenders, Shah and Yogi, is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Opposition, notes Krishna Prasad.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday lashed out at Governor Arif Mohammed Khan for calling a group of protesting Students' Federation of India (SFI) members 'criminals' and said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government has 'let loose such a deranged man'.
The Left-Congress alliance won 19 out of 19 seats which is significant ahead of the panchayat polls.
Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra will be held in five phases on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13 and May 20. Counting of votes will be held on June 4.
While the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party hit out at the MLA and the Congress government, Shivakumar seeking to clarify, said no guarantee scheme will be stopped and it will be continued for five years.
Gadkari recalled the advice once given by late Congress leader Shrikant Jichkar.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Will January 22 mark a point of no return for our Constitutional secularism? asks Shekhar Gupta.
He also said 'Akhand Bharat' was true but divided Bharat was a "nightmare".
'In Western UP, last time a lot of Dalits voted for the BJP.' 'This time, there is a rethink among Dalits about the extent of their support for the BJP.'
The election took place at the two-day annual meeting of the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, the Sangh's highest decision-making body that began here on Friday.
With organisations like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which is a front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, telling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman they want OPS back, the government is in a bind, report Shiva Rajora and Aditi Phadnis.
Following the post, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accused Congress leaders of spreading "misinformation" and creating social hatred by sharing a "false" post on Golwalkar.
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
'In Kerala, if the Left had worked on stopping fascism the BJP would not have become a force today.'
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
The Kerala assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government to refrain from implementing the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country.
Wouldn't it be better to join the celebrations with the vast Hindu majority while at the same time criticising Mr Modi/BJP/RSS for politicising it? notes Shekhar Gupta.
'The prime minister took a meeting recently and he asked for suggestions and ideas for a plan till 2047.'
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Sunday ended his sit-in protest outside Khajuraho police station in Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh against the death of a party worker during assembly polls held on November 17.
A division bench of Justices SS Sundar and Sunder Mohan observed while hearing the bail plea of an alleged Islamic State of Iraq and Syria sympathiser, and also set him on liberty with a string of conditions, recently.
