Kumar had recently dumped the 'Mahagathbandhan', of which the Rashtriya Janata Dal was a key constituent, and returned to the NDA fold to form the government with support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
Few finance ministers announce any taxation measure that could upset the stock market. Ms Sitharaman decided to take that risk, observes A K Bhattacharya.
Many senior BJP leaders and outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs, including seven Union ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav, have not been renominated by the party for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls amid strong indications that several of them may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The Commission, under Justice (retd) Ritu Raj Awasthi, would recommend an amendment to the Constitution to add the "new chapter or part" on simultaneous elections, the sources said.
For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
Eighteen people were killed and 19 injured when a double-decker sleeper bus headed for Delhi hit a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in Unnao on Wednesday, officials said.
Seven out of eight women street vendors reported experiencing high blood pressure, while women in the middle age group raised concerns about delays in their menstrual cycles due to the extreme heat.
The party's state unit president Jagadanand Singh announced the names of Mohd Qari Sohaib, Munni Rajak and Ashok Kumar Pandey.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday named 14 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls including former Union minister R P N Singh and Sudhanshu Trivedi -- the only outgoing MP renominated by the party.
Kumar, who chose not to react when the 31-year-old Rashtriya Janata Dal leader made a series of personal attacks and allegations in his nearly an hour-long speech, erupted in anger when the latter sought to interject during a statement made by Janata Dal-United leader and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary.
The police team arrived on July 28 to probe the 'abetment to suicide' case registered by the actor's father in Patna against Rhea Chakraborty and others.
'People in politics have lost the value of being connected to their own people.' 'Now it's all about vote share, vote bank, how many parties can you break and make them join you.'
Terming the Congress a "shackle" for the alliance, Rashtriya Janata Dal Shivanand Tiwari said the party had contested on 70 seats but did not hold as many rallies.
While Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar repeatedly appealed to the protesting members to take their seats, the unrelenting MPs continued to raise slogans.
Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, who was a minister himself in the previous National Democratic Alliance government, was visibly shaken at the disdain shown towards the Chair by Samrat Chaudhary who holds the Panchayati Raj portfolio.
The Mumbai police on Thursday told a court in Mumbai that there is a possibility of an 'international connection' in the recent firing outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan's residence.
More than 80 per cent of Indians live in districts vulnerable to climate risks. Among these, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Bihar are the most vulnerable states to extreme climate events.
According to the officials, the three-storey coaching institute, surrounded by residential and commercial establishments, had permission to use the basement as a store room, but it was being used as library in violation of the rules.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
Images of Jyoti Kumari, the teenager who had cycled, with her injured father riding pillion, for 1,200 kilometres from Gurugram to Bihar's Darbhanga during last year's national lockdown had captured the imagination of people in the country.
It is possible to be blind to this and pretend to carry on as if nothing has happened but that will not change the reality, asserts Aakar Patel.
Paswan's announcement came following a meeting of the LJP national executive which endorsed his leadership and hit out at a faction headed by his paternal uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras for its work against the party's constitution.
The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav and his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav for questioning in the railways land-for-jobs money laundering case probe, official sources said on Wednesday.
The Navi Mumbai police uncovered a plot to kill the actor during their investigation disclosing a video call conversation between Lawrence Bishnoi gang member Ajay Kashyap and another accused.
A scheduled wedding, taking place between two alleged gangsters -- Anuradha Choudhary alias 'Madam Minz' from Rajasthan and Sandeep alias Kala Jathedi from Haryana -- is being discussed in police circles.
The vote value of an MLA is calculated on the basis of the total population of the state, based on the 1971 census.
Unprecedented chaos erupted inside the Bihar assembly on Tuesday when police was called inside to assist the marshals in evicting unruly opposition members who tried to physically prevent the Speaker from taking his Chair.
The state cabinet approved the Parliamentary Affairs Department's proposal to convene the first session of the 17th assembly and 196th session of the legislative council from November 23 to November 27, minister Amarendra Pratap Singh of the BJP said.
A peek into the life of a public-sector banker who did well professionally, but paid a price for it, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
At the meeting which lasted for more than half an hour, the leaders of the two parties are understood to have discussed the key issue of seat-sharing among alliance partners in the NDA, which also includes Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday apologised in both Houses of the legislature, as well as outside, for remarks made a day before on the importance of women's education to control population growth.
The 77-year-old former Congress president is set to enter the Upper House for the first time from Rajasthan.
'What happened to Andhra Pradesh? It is the perfect example of the transientness of Federal Units.' 'Federalism is a transient thing in this country.'
Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the poorest states in India, according to Niti Aayog's first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report. As per the index, 51.91 per cent population of Bihar is poor, followed 42.16 per cent in Jharkhand, 37.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. While Madhya Pradesh (36.65 per cent) has been placed fourth in the index, Meghalaya (32.67 per cent) is at the fifth spot. Kerala (0.71 per cent), Goa (3.76 per cent), Sikkim (3.82 per cent), Tamil Nadu (4.89 per cent) and Punjab (5.59 per cent) have registered the lowest poverty across India and are at the bottom of the index.
Bihar Police ADG wrote a letter to the Mumbai municipal commissioner, seeking the IPS officer's exemption from quarantine protocols and facilitate his return to Patna to resume his duty.
A 45-year-old priest was shot dead over a dispute regarding a mobile phone in Bihar's Darbhanga district on Thursday, following which one of the alleged assailants was lynched by locals and two others were arrested by the police.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances