Pandian said his only intention to join politics was to assist Patnaik and that is why he did not contest the elections.
It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor has begun a fast unto death in Patna, demanding the cancellation of a recent examination held by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC). Kishor's hunger strike comes after he gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the Nitish Kumar government to act on the demand, raised by aggrieved candidates who allege the exam was rigged. The administration has declared the hunger strike illegal as it is not the designated site for protests.
There was a protest in the university demanding Gandhi's resignation as the chancellor and the students decided to walk down to her residence and paste a memorandum demanding her resignation on the door.
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
The highlight of the occasion, according to officials, is an address to a special gathering in the morning by President Xi Jinping, who cast himself in the mould of Mao Zedong, the founder of the Communist Party of China as it is officially called.
They said the Left party is consulting its lawyers to challenge the notice of the tax authorities.
Omar Abdullah will have to negotiate at every step with the lieutenant governor's office and the Modi government at the Centre.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren expanded his cabinet on Thursday, inducting 11 new ministers, including six first-timers and two women. The swearing-in ceremony was held at the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi. The new ministers include six from the JMM and four from the Congress. One minister is from the RJD. The expansion comes after the JMM-led alliance won the recent assembly elections with a comfortable majority. The cabinet expansion is expected to give the government a fresh impetus to push its agenda and accelerate development in the state.
'The political situation in the country will depend on the electoral outcome in Maharashtra.'
The preferred format would be for the top BJP leadership in the government to reach out to the alliance leaders on a case-to-case basis.
Proceedings of both Houses of Parliament were disrupted on Monday as the treasury benches accused top Congress leaders of colluding with billionaire investor George Soros to destabilise the country, triggering protests from opposition members.
After the Congress' shock defeat in Haryana, the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties flexed their muscles on Wednesday, accusing the grand old party of ignoring them.
The KPCC made this decision simultaneously as Sarin announced a press conference in Palakkad, declaring his intention to work with the Left Democratic Front moving forward.
Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan on Sunday said the UDF will take part in all the rehabilitation efforts and work towards restoring normalcy in the lives of the survivors.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) could have performed better in the recently-held Lok Sabha polls and perhaps, too much time was spent in reaching seat-sharing agreements, Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has said.
Local residents have stressed that land acquisition for rehabilitation must be completed promptly, as it has been delayed after estate owners challenged it in the Kerala high court.
Former West Bengal chief minister and a front-ranking Marxist leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will go down in the country's history as a pragmatic communist who kept aside his ideological convictions to woo capital for the industrialisation of his state.
With challenges such as raising the legal age of marriage for women, combating malnutrition among women and children, and addressing women's safety issues, the new ministers face a formidable agenda.
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
He said, during a press meet in Kannur, that during the LS polls, alliances were being formed in various states as part of the platform and its result was that the Bharatiya Janata Party was being largely isolated.
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
On Tuesday, 49 opposition MPs were suspended for the remaining part of the session for disrupting proceedings, taking the total tally of suspended MPs in Lok Sabha to 95.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
Besides disclosing in their affidavits, candidates have to prominently declare criminal cases they are facing, if any, thrice in newspapers in print as well on television, he said, adding that political parties too have to publish within three days of nomination why a candidate with criminal background was selected. "You (political parties) have to tell the public whether you did not get any (other) candidate and why was it necessary to select them (those with criminal background)," he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday pulled off a stunning performance in Maharashtra winning a record number of seats to propel the party-led ruling Mahayuti alliance to a landslide victory while the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) stormed back to power in Jharkhand on the back of a spectacular showing by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic. Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn't want to lodge first information reports (FIRs) against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
As rescue operations in the landslide-hit areas of this north Kerala district entered fifth day, rescuers unearthed more bodies and body parts, taking the death toll to 215, with around 206 people still reported missing.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said the Centre had sent multiple advance warnings to the Kerala government about possible floods and landslides in the state, starting as early as July 23, and nine National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams were rushed to the state the same day.
'She could have sat down with the students and taken a list of their grievances including their allegations and suspicions.' 'Not all suspicions are true, but you have to listen, you have to let the steam come out.'
The 71-year-old politician has been asked to depose at the agency office in Kochi on January 12, they said.
'Although there is a visible dent in TMC's urban votes, especially among women, the CPI-M and the BJP are unlikely to benefit from this'
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
The Opposition Congress alleged that the blast, which occurred around 1 am according to the police, happened during the manufacturing of country-made bombs by some CPI-M supporters.
Irked by his remarks, "Samastha", an influential Sunni scholars' body, said the CPI-M's "double standards" have been exposed through this.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said his party would oppose the Centre's move to bring a bill in Parliament to amend the 1995 law governing Waqf boards, and accused the BJP of trying to snatch the rights of Muslims.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
Congress deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi claimed in a social media post that the website of the Ministry of Food Processing shows the CM's wife Riniki Bhuyan Sarma's firm Pride East Entertainments Pvt Ltd has received Rs 10 crore as part of credit credit-linked subsidy.
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