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.
Leaders of several like-minded opposition parties are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday in Bengaluru.
Arvind Kejriwal warned the media that "very big forces" would try and break the INDIA alliance by showing that there was a lot of acrimony among them.
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 Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
Bihar Agriculture Minister Sudhakar Singh Thursday said that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar could "sack" him for his perceived defiance but he will not step down unless asked to do so by the top leadership of his party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Stepping up the war of words with Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar on Tuesday said his promise to bestow a special status on Bihar along with a special package was nothing but a 'ploy' to win votes by 'befooling' people.
A political activist in Bihar on Thursday put up a poster announcing his resignation from 'all posts in the Bharatiya Janata Party' in protest against the ethnic strife in Manipur.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
Suman, who held the SC and ST welfare portfolio, is the national president of HAM founded by his father Jitan Ram Manjhi, a former chief minister.
The meeting in New Delhi etc is just the BJP being nice to the man who helped it realise its dream by stabbing Uddhav in the back, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
There is a strong possibility of opposition parties coming together to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday, stressing that he has had good talks with them and many will join hands gradually.
'They (INDIA bloc leaders) were not doing anything. Nothing happened after the first meeting of INDIA bloc that took place in Patna last year. Now, I have come back to the same place, where I was earlier (with NDA)'
Channi has courted controversy during a poll rally by asking people not to let the 'bhaiyas' of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar enter the state, a remark apparently aimed at Aam Aadmi Party leaders.
Upset about being snubbed by INDIA, Nitish Kumar is weighing his political options. BJP would like him back knowing that it would jolt the Opposition alliance, perhaps irreversibly.
Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi's younger brother was among 97 COVID patients succumbing to the infection in Bihar on Sunday, health department bulletin said.
Moreover, there have also been speculations that while entering into an alliance in August last year, a "deal" was struck whereby Nitish Kumar would give up his chair for his deputy who in turn would back him for the top job in national politics.
A meeting of Opposition parties, organised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will be held in Patna on June 23, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said a law on population control would not serve any purpose but insisted instead on education for girls and women.
Facing criticism over his appointment as Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad's son Tejaswi Yadav on Monday promised to take the state forward on the path of development and asserted that he would have a zero tolerance approach towards corruption.
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.
Besides the two Deputy CMs, those who tested positive are Ashok Choudhary and Sunil Kumar, the ministers for building construction, and prohibition, excise and registration respectively.
The European Union on Friday reached out to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is considered one of the important leaders from non-Bharatiya Janata Party opposition, ahead of next Lok Sabha polls.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has convened a meeting of Janata Dal-United MLAs and MPs on Tuesday to discuss the scenario that has emerged following the exit of former national president R C P Singh, party chief Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan said on Monday.
Veteran Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Awadh Bihari Chaudhary was on Friday unanimously elected as speaker of the Bihar legislative assembly.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Wednesday said he aspired to become the CM of the state and also took a jibe at his 83-year-old uncle asking when will the Maratha strongman retire from active politics, as he appeared to be ahead in the numbers game for control of the Nationalist Congress Party after its vertical split.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems intent on mending fences with estranged former colleagues as part of the spadework for posing a credible challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party's national hegemony.
Firing yet another salvo at the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena on Monday slammed its ally over the issue of supporting Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi saying backing him would be a "sin" as it would be an endorsement of "black era in politics".
Without naming Chirag Paswan, the legislators are reported to have recalled the actions of the former Lok Janshakti Party chief during the 2020 state assembly polls while warning the CM that if they were not alert, it would not be good for the party.
'Gyanendra back on the throne would be bad news for the Nepali people. He may not have learnt from his experience, but we have.'
"Between 1990 and 2005, only 95,000 people were given jobs. In our administration, over 6 lakh jobs were given and besides this many others were enrolled in other services," Nitish Kumar said.
The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar came under fresh attack on Monday from state Bharatiya Janata Party president Sanjay Jaiswal whose party seems annoyed with junior ally Janata Dal-United's shrill demands for special assistance from the Centre.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United said it was the right time to withdraw the general consent to the CBI.
'If the BJP continues with Nitish as CM, it will not consolidate its position further in future.'
Tejashwi accused the Nitish Kumar-led government of meting out "step-motherly" treatment to migrant labourers.
The ruling National Democratic Alliance in Bihar on Monday sparred with the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal over items allegedly stolen from a government bungalow recently vacated by Tejashwi Yadav, to whom it was allotted while he was the state's deputy chief minister.
Forty-one Border Road Organisation labourers working to clear snow near the high altitude border village of Mana in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district were trapped under an avalanche on Friday.
'The JD-U is my party and of thousands of leaders and workers.' 'It is certainly not Nitish Kumar's party.'
Yadav, who returned from the national capital on Thursday after a trip that lasted three days, asserted that there was "nothing new" in the summons, even as he alleged that the central agencies were acting as per the directions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Chief ministers of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha on Wednesday evening condoled the demise of Tata Group's chairman emeritus and veteran industrialist Ratan Tata, and said his legacy will live on forever.
