The Maha Kumbh, a massive religious gathering in Prayagraj, India, is preparing for the culmination of its events with the Mahashivratri 'snan' (sacred bath) on Wednesday. Authorities have declared the entire mela area a 'no vehicle zone' and are urging devotees to take a dip at the ghat nearest to them to avoid crowding at the Sangam. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is monitoring the arrangements and has issued an advisory for devotees, outlining specific ghats for different arrival routes. The Maha Kumbh has seen a record number of pilgrims, exceeding 64 crore. Security arrangements are robust with over 37,000 police personnel and 14,000 home guards deployed. The fair has also been hailed for its cleanliness and safety measures. The event is expected to conclude with the Mahashivratri puja.
Maoists have killed Abhay Kumar Yadav, one of the four kidnapped Bihar policemen, following a decision taken by the 'people's court' after the deadline given by the Left-wing extremists to the state government expired.Avinash, a self-proclaimed Maoist spokesman, has confirmed that Maoists killed Yadav, a sub-inspector in the state police. "We killed him and warned the state government to release our comrades till 10 am on Friday morning," he said.
Jitan Ram Manjhi went ahead with proposing dissolution of the assembly
Police swung into action soon after learning about the posters put up at 'Chalukya Circle', just a stone's throw from the venue of the meeting which is being attended by Nitish Kumar.
The bodies of the last four of the trapped labourers were pulled out from the site of the avalanche-hit Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in Chamoli on Sunday, taking the death toll to eight as authorities ended the nearly 60-hour rescue operation.
Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Saturday visited Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar in the presence of party president Sharad Yadav to reconcile after Bharatiya Janata Party's top leadership in Delhi made it clear not to support Manjhi.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Giving another dimension to the identity proof controversy in the capital, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday saw the move as a "sinister design" to target the people from his state.
Allies since the 1990s, the JD-U and the BJP have in the recent past squabbled on issues ranging from Agnipath, caste census, population law and ban on loudspeakers.
Amid speculation over Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United's next move in the wake of vote counting trends, senior party leader K C Tyagi on Tuesday said they are in the National Democratic Alliance and 'we will be in the NDA'.
The governor accepted Kumar's resignation, and asked him to continue as caretaker CM till a new government is formed, they said.
Altogether 77 people have been arrested in connection with the communal violence that erupted in Bihar Sharif town in Nalanda district during the Ram Navami festivities, police said on Sunday.
He was administered the oath of office by Governor Rajendra Arlekar at the Raj Bhavan in Patna.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad burnt an effigy of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on Friday evening to protest the transfer of 224.02 acres of land to Aligarh Muslim University by the state government for establishing the AMU Kishanganj Centre.
'Gyanendra back on the throne would be bad news for the Nepali people. He may not have learnt from his experience, but we have.'
On his maiden visit to Bihar after assuming power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said politics had hampered the development of the state and promised to give more than Rs 50,000 crore special package to the poll-bound state at the right time.
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party falling short of a majority in the Lok Sabha and needing the National Democratic Alliance partners to form the government at the Centre, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United head Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu have emerged as potential kingmakers.
Although the Bihar CM is mum over his next move, speculations of a rift between Mahagathbandhan and JD-U leader Nitish Kumar joining the NDA, have been soaring high.
The 45-day Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj concluded on Mahashivratri with a record-breaking number of pilgrims taking a holy dip at the Triveni Sangam. Over 65 crore pilgrims participated in the event, which took place once every 12 years.
The Bihar result could be a flash in the pan but it has Nitish Kumar seriously worried. More so, because the loss represents a defeat for many of the reforms he was trying to introduce.
The court order is in the public domain for all to see, the JMM executive president said, adding that he would discharge his duties with commitment.
Fielding a strong joint opposition candidate from Varanasi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was among the proposals discussed at the fourth meeting of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), sources said.
Shivakumar took stock of the incident in which five people lost their lives.
Kumar's outburst came as opposition members stood in the well of the House, demanding that the state's amended reservation laws be incorporated in the 9th schedule of the Constitution to make it immune from legal scrutiny.
Sources within the INDIA bloc said appointing Nitish Kumar as convenor would lend credibility to the INDIA bloc's demand for conducting a nationwide caste census.
Chaudhary alleged that the BJP "hates Bihar" after having lost power in the state, which is "back in the centre-stage of national politics" since the opposition meeting hosted in Patna by Nitish Kumar.
Delhi is set to get its third woman chief minister, after Congress' Sheila Dikshit and Bharatiya Janata Party's Sushma Swaraj, as Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi has been chosen to succeed Arvind Kejriwal.
Bihar assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, against whom the newly formed National Democratic Alliance government has moved a no-confidence motion, on Wednesday dug in his heels.
Bihar CM says their activities are not in the best interest of the government.
It also cautioned that if the legislation is passed, the "two crutches" on which the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is running at the Centre would not be able to escape responsibility.
'The issue has been cleared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief J P Nadda much before the elections'
The chief minister said that every migrant labourer working in the state should have a labour card given by the state government.
On the possible motive behind the murder, Prabhat said the temple was embroiled in a land dispute.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
Police personnel removed him and his supporters from the protest site as they were holding the demonstration near a restricted area, and thus it was "illegal", a senior officer said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday intensified his fight against corruption in the state by issuing orders to prosecute 11 corrupt officers and confiscate their properties, according to state government officials. The date for the symbolic gesture against corruption was 11/11/11. On the third day of his Seva Yatra in Bettiah, district headquarters of West Champaran, Kumar cleared pending files about corruption cases against the eleven officers.
Kumar also asserted that his efforts should reap benefits for the younger generation, "for people like (his deputy) Tejashwi Yadav".
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