A senior police officer said in Srinagar that a local trader had been arrested by the special operations group of the state police from the uptown Hyderpora locality of Srinagar a few days back.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
Two vacancies of election commissioners came about following the resignation of Arun Goel on Friday and Anup Chandra Pandey's retirement on February 14.
Gujarat was labelled Hindutva's crucible and Modi was to become the chief 'chemist'. A revealing political saga excerpted from Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay's The Demolition, the Verdict and the Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project.
Sources said the selection committee could meet either on March 13 or 14 depending on the convenience of the members and the appointments are likely to be made by March 15.
Narendra Modi has proved through execution of this event in Ayodhya that amongst all his contemporaries in politics he knows ordinary Indians like none other, notes Sheela Bhatt.
The Bharat Ratna for him comes nine years after the honour was bestowed on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The two leaders together spearheaded the journey of the Jana Sangh and then the BJP for over five decades.
'This is the victory of the people of Gujarat who want real development, not the hype of development.'
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested a top Maoist leader as it carried out raids at 62 locations across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the Communist Party of India-Maoist conspiracy case, an official said.
Central agencies had been monitoring certain leads, which said a group of people hailing from Kerala along with Lashker-e-Tayiba's support were trying to enter Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir through North Kashmir.
According to an order issued by the MHA, departmental proceedings are being contemplated against Rai.
Addressing the party cadre in Bengaluru, Shivakumar said, "We got 135 plus seats in the assembly elections, but I am not happy, don't come to my or Siddaramaiah's house. Our next target is the Lok Sabha elections and we must fight well."
Sukanta Majumdar, the state BJP president, said, "Amit Shah has set a target of 35 seats. We will achieve that".
Is the unusually and unbearably scorching Sun and the general laxity, bordering on laziness, among voters, responsible, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Even as the two parties appeared confident that they have reached out to every voter and publicised their new symbols, experts suggested varying impact of the split and the symbols on the vote bank.
Terrorists belonging to banned groups United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and People's Liberation Army (PLA) were allegedly part of the mob from which gunshots were fired at an army officer that left him severely injured in Manipur, officials said Monday.
'Chandrababu is wiser and a very good administrator.' 'Jagan is the opposite. He is not very wise, not a good administrator.'
'Imagine what the BJP's urges would be if India's electorate awarded it truly brute majorities like the 400 plus seats the prime minister called for in the 2024 general elections?' asks Shyam G Menon.
Overcome with emotions, Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar on Saturday broke down while reacting to the assembly elections results and gave credit to the Gandhi family for reposing their faith in his leadership in the state.
Naveen Patnaik is known as an "absentee landlord" who needs bureaucrats like Pandian to run his government.
His tenure was till December 5, 2027, and he would have become Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) after incumbent Rajiv Kumar retired in February next year.
Goel's tenure was till December 5, 2027, and he would have become Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) after incumbent Rajiv Kumar retired in February next year.
Durve argued that the word 'secret' is nowhere in the exemption clause under which information could be denied to an applicant.
The post, accompanied by Chouhan's picture with his palms brought together, sparked off speculation as "Ram Ram" is used both as a greeting as well as a parting message.
Annamalai has faced criticism for the breakup between the AIADMK and the BJP, but BJP leaders say 'he attracts youth, who needs change'.
Curfew was imposed in the entire Imphal valley on Thursday following violent protests for the release of five men, including a trained cadre of a banned terror outfit, who were arrested earlier this week on the charges of extortion.
Manipur witness more violence on Tuesday when unidentified armed men, suspected to be cadres of banned terror groups, attacked people from the tribal community in the morning killing three of them in Kangpokpi district, officials said.
Though the contest is tough in Baramati, Sule has an edge over her rival as the locals may not break the pattern that she is meant for the Lok Sabha and Ajit Pawar for the state assembly, the political analyst felt.
The Naxal movement has such a complex history that several books have been written to understand it. Bastar: The Naxal Story seeks to reduce it to bullet points and stereotypes, observes Deepa Gahlot.
Even as the dust settles on one election, glory in Thiruvananthapuram has come with a new question on the horizon: Who will be UDF's candidate in the next Lok Sabha election given Shashi Tharoor has said 2024 would be his last? It isn't a vacancy that can be easily filled, points out Shyam G Menon.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Incumbent DMK MP T Sumathy alias Tamizhachi Thangapandian will face-off former Telangana Governor and BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan, while the the AIADMK has fielded ex-MP Dr J Jayavardhan, who won from here in 2014.
'We are not worried about raids. We have nothing to hide.'
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
Special Protection Group (SPG) director Arun Kumar Sinha died in a Gurugram hospital on Wednesday. He was 61.
In 2019, actor turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent backed by the BJP, won by defeating then Kumaraswamy's son and joint candidate of the then ruling Congress-JD-S alliance Nikhil by 1,25,876 votes.
BJP workers depend on Annamalai's popularity to emerge victorious. He has has made 100 promises to be fulfilled in 500 days and assurances include cleaning up rivers, an international airport and food vans named after former Chief Minister K Kamaraj.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted raids at about 25 locations in Karnataka, Kerala and Bihar in the Popular Front of India (PFI) Phulwarisharif case.
In violence-hit Manipur, the general buzz associated with elections and the related paraphernalia of posters, banners and rallies are missing but it is the presence of these brown boxes with pictures of guns that is symbolic of the strife-ridden society struggling to return to normalcy.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
