The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a bill to regulate and supervise assisted reproductive technology clinics, with various members urging the government not to exclude single parents and the LGBTQ community from using this procedure.
This is a rare occurrence as a bill, that too a private member one, was voted out at the introduction stage itself.
At 64, the woman who will be India's 15th president, taking over from Ram Nath Kovind, will also be the youngest and India's first President to be born after Independence.
Top BJP leaders, including its president Amit Shah, reached out to their allies as well as other parties with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar expressing confidence that the government will get support from 'new' parties.
Accusing the Congress party of "failing to keep national interests over its political agenda", Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said the chief opposition party stood "isolated" in disrupting the Parliament at a time when MPs of other parties condemned the Gurdaspur terror attack and stood in solidarity.
Modi garners nearly 37% vote nationally, courtesy West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka and Telangana.
He said while the state government had sought Rs 8,481 crore as central assistance, the Centre has provided Rs 940.92 crore.
The grand old party faces the onerous task of rebuilding its moribund organisation, which is struggling to overcome a leadership crisis and regain credibility with the voters.
The NDA, led by the BJP, has 5,37,683 votes includes the Shiv Sena, and the shortage is around 12,000 votes.
'The central learning of the day was that if the BJP leadership can cajole, coax and convince regional parties to vote for bills, it would not be a stretch to see the same votes cast in favour of the land bill,' a senior Congress leader from a northern state told Rediff.com
Prime Minister Modi saw a reflection of himself -- she does not come from a political background, has no lineage, and had a lifetime of personal struggle and sacrifice.
Mamata Banerjee's sights are not on the next month's Presidential election. She is focusing on another election that will take place in 2024.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The road for the Opposition is full of 'ifs' and 'buts', reports Sunil Gatade.
Even the United Progressive Alliance constituent Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday rubbished the Planning Panel's claim that the number of poor people had declined to 21.9 per cent.
Ahead of the second phase of polls in the state, Banerjee's letter, which was released by the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, seeks to drum up support from opposition leaders by stating how non-BJP states have suffered due to the saffron party led Centre's actions.
JD-U MP Harivansh filed his nomination as the ruling NDA candidate to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman's post and is likely to be elected, even as the Opposition is working to field a joint candidate against him to force a contest.
The coming together of SP and BSP leaders on one platform is being seen as the emergence of a new phase of politics in the state after a dismal show of all anti-BJP parties in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly polls.
Responding to the debate on the bill, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the ban commercial surrogacy was "the need of the hour".
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
The government is making behind-the-scenes offers to other parties in a bid to break them but as long as the Congress is firm on the decision, there is little that the government can achieve on the Insurance Bill.
The JD-U also used the meeting to call for a joint Opposition candidate for the election to the President's post and urged Gandhi to take the lead in the matter.
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
Those who know Naveen Patnaik well say his final decision will depend on who has the edge after the election.
Besides, the government would also undertake and promote steps for water conservation and curbing extraction of underground water, which is depleting the water table and is a matter of concern, the minister said.
As nominations for Rajya Sabha biennial polls closed on Tuesday, a contest is on the cards in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana even as Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram are among those set to be elected to the Upper House.
However, speculation remained rife that the meeting was part of Banerjee's plan to form an opposition front with regional players minus the Congress.
It was a changed scenario in the new Lok Sabha with the churning brought out by the elections throwing in contrasts.
There is speculation that the Congress may bring Priyanka Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Randeep Surjewala and RPN Singh, among others, to the upper house.
Congress on Monday appeared to claim credit for effective handling of cyclone 'Phailin', saying all steps are being taken under its rule to make the country "disaster-resilient" which was evident from the Indian Meteorological Department's accurate prediction and "record" evacuation of over one million people in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
'We don't know how and why this happened as the route interlock signal works fine millions of times every day across India.'
On May 2, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will step into Bihar and challenge the Nitish-Lalu order in the state.
Every party had been asked to give in their suggestions during the meeting.
An Election Commission official said minor clashes between political workers were reported from some areas.
Where did the rasgulla originate from? Is the dish originally from Odisha or West Bengal?
The government told an all-party meeting Monday that it does not intend to bring any legislative business in Rajya Sabha during the first part of the Budget Session which is till February 11, sources said.
'If the Congress is to challenge the NDA government, Rahul Gandhi will have to shed his indifference to Parliament, become more visible and vocal and, essentially, lead from the front,' says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now.
The ground, which served as the battleground for the 51-year-old bureaucrat-turned-politician during the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption movement, is getting decked up and workers are busy making arrangements.
