Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
"If Gadkari decides to build the bridge between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, he can approach Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and request him," Sattar said.
The no-frills ceremony comes a day after Kumar snapped ties with the BJP-led NDA and joined hands with the RJD to form a 'mahagathbandhan' government.
Defending the liquor ban in Bihar, he said that the state's prohibition policy has benefitted several people and a large number of people have given up drinking alcohol due to his measures.
In a protests against the decision of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala to invite BJP to form the government despite falling short of the required numbers, the Congress has been demanding they be called to form the government in Goa and Manipur as it had emerged as the largest party in the 2017 assembly election.
'Our approach is forward-looking. The central leadership wants young leaders to lead the charge now. This will also send a clear signal that lapses will not be tolerated. We are targeting beyond 2025.' Satyavrat Mishra reports.
The Bihar Police has launched a probe and dug up the grounds of the shelter home, but are yet to find the body.
While the outcome will be known once the meeting is over, more than one of the prospective attendees denied the party's ties with the BJP having worsened to an extent to call for a realignment.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
"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.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
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.
Cracks are widening within Bihar BJP with more party legislators coming in the open and alleging lack of inner democracy with one MLA openly vouching for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying he would serve as a better prime minister.
The opposition BJP charged Kumar with "bringing shame" to the state's women by speaking of the procreation process in detail.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said he agreed to attend the foundation-laying ceremony of the Aligarh Muslim University campus because it was he who had suggested Kishanganj as the venue.
Amid a brewing political storm in Bihar, the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal on Monday said it was ready to "embrace" Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal-United if he broke ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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According to an internal assessment of the food ministry, shared with chief ministers recently, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh will see a massive reduction in their annual grain allocation.
Contrary to that the BJP would give tickets to more Muslim candidates to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly polls, the saffron party has fielded only two Muslim candidates.
State RJD president Jagadanand Singh on Saturday announced its candidates for two seats, having done the same for 21 others a week ago, and declared that it was leaving one for the Left parties.
Members of JD-U, RJD and Congress which have given enough hint of fighting together against BJP in the coming state assembly election next year, jointly rushed into the well of both the Houses demanding action against Dhankhar and his "close friend" Sushil Kumar Modi.
'When he was sidelined in the INDIA bloc, it was was the turning point because it badly hurt Nitish's ambition.' 'After that, he decided to damage INDIA by changing sides.'
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.
He was administered the oath of office by Governor Rajendra Arlekar at the Raj Bhavan in Patna.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
Speculations are rife about a tie-up between the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal- United after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar resigned following the severe drubbing his party suffered at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha polls.
Seventy-seven MLAs were present in the assembly during the voting.
The opposition is likely to put up a joint candidate for the July 18 presidential election despite not having numbers on its side, and consultations in this regard have already begun.
About 2.34 crore voters, spread across 78 assembly segments of the 243-strong assembly, will decide the fates of 1,204 candidates, including the Speaker and 12 members of the state cabinet.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
The governor accepted the resignation and asked Kumar to continue as the caretaker chief minister till the new National Democratic Alliance government is sworn in.
Amid political standoff in Bihar, Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar on Wednesday met President Pranab Mukherjee to convey the support of 130 MLAs and urged him to advise the state governor to take an immediate decision claiming that any delay will pollute the atmosphere in the state and encourage "horse-trading".
The Bihar CM has requested the governor for a secret ballot.
In an embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, one of its MLAs has been accused of hurting Hindu sentiments by allegedly berating Goddess Lakshmi and Saraswati and Lord Hanuman.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday announced his intent to raise quotas for Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the state, saying a legislation to the effect is likely to be brought in the ongoing assembly session.
Leader of Opposition in Bihar Legislative Assembly Tejashwi Yadav on Monday said the caste-based census will help in preparing welfare schemes for people from different sections of society.
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
A day after his landslide victory in the Bihar assembly polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was on Thursday elected as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance legislature party in the 15th Bihar assembly.
With the Biju Janata Dal backing the National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the vote share of the ruling dispensation has now crossed 50 percent, virtually paving the way for her election as the first tribal President and the youngest too.
Two suspects were detained for interrogation in Patna on Wednesday in connection with a bomb blast that took place in a residential building in the Bihar capital on Monday night, police said.
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