The Congress, which had held its sway in these two Muslim majority districts during the Left Front rule of 34 years and the following 10 years of the TMCs reign since 2011, has not been able to open its account in this election.
He had tried to visit the state after the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status but was sent back from the airport by authorities.
A day before the start of the Budget session of Parliament, as many as 18 opposition parties, led by the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Shiv Sena and the Trinamool Congress, decided on Thursday to boycott the President's address to the joint sitting of both Houses in solidarity with the farmers protesting against the new farm laws.
Telugu Desam Party chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is coordinating the meeting. He has invited the leaders of all the non-BJP parties.
Doval's visit was 'part of regular high-level engagements between India and China', an Indian Embassy press release in Beijing said.
Statesmanship requires that the prime minister himself reaches out to those amassed at the Singhu and Ghazipur borders. Modi should be able to win over this domestic front with sheer compassion, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'But Russia is well aware of Pakistan's nuisance power on its border.'
#Not In My Name, said ordinary citizens, as they took to the streets to reclaim the India they believed in.
'Prime Minister Manmohan Singh refused to allow us to project his real personality to let the people of India know exactly what he really was. He was always shying away from greater public exposure. Since the last two years we have seen enormous criticism, ridiculing the prime minister. He has been made into an object of jokes. It certainly hurts. I think this man deserves lots of good reviews... His contribution to social policy, his contribution to the economy, his contribution to coalition management, his contribution to foreign policy.' Dr Sanjaya Baru, Dr Singh's former media advisor who is in the eye of a storm over his book on the prime minister UPA speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Top Left leaders Prakash Karat (Communist Party of India-Marxist), A B Bardhan (Communist Party of India), Debabrata Biswas (Forward Bloc) and Abani Roy (Revolutionary Socialist Party), led the demonstration near Parliament House.
The second phase of polling began Saturday morning on 20 constituencies in Jharkhand, which votes in five phases to elect 81 members of the legislative assembly.
Earlier last week, the Election Commission had written to all national and state parties asking them to follow all COVID-related guidelines during public meetings, rallies and other activities.
'If the BJP thinks it is going to overnight transform Bengal into Madhya Pradesh, sorry, that's not going to happen because I have faith in our ethos and culture.'
When the fierce encounter ended around 3:30 PM on Saturday after almost 10 hours, senior cadre Milind Teltumbade and 25 ultras had been killed.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on his maiden visit as minister to Washington, DC, addresses two think thanks, leaves American Establishment impressed, reports Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com.
Criticising the strong reactions from India over China blocking its bid to enter NSG, a state-run daily on Monday said India is "still stuck" in the 1962 war mindset as it called for a more objective evaluation of Beijing's stand.
'The Congress's arrogance and unrealistic claims have weakened the anti-BJP movement at the national level.'
Kejriwal said the eight MPs were fighting for the rights of farmers without worrying about heat, mosquitoes or other inconveniences and have spent the night protesting in the Parliament complex.
With no agenda announced for the meeting, the leaders from Jammu and Kashmir said they have come with an open mind.
'Every person has two identities in India, that of his caste and nation.' 'It is understandable in a multi-caste, multi-religious society and I don't mind this.' 'What I mind is the State has failed in doing enough to melt these two identities in such a way that everybody has access to citizenship which is more important than your caste.' 'That is why people remain in the narrow identities of his caste or religion.'
PM Modi addressed the Indian community in Washington DC after meeting chief executives of major US companies.
Pakistan should also be accorded the same 'privilege', the Global Times said.
'Its aim is to force the Bhutanese government to cede territory that China wants elsewhere in Bhutan to give Beijing a military advantage in its struggle with New Delhi.'
'From the very start, PM Modi was insistent that visiting foreign leaders should be exposed to an India beyond its capital.' 'Through these experiences, he felt that the full Indian narrative would be much better understood across the world,' explains External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. A riveting excerpt from Bluekraft Digital Foundation's Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery.
'Tell me, one BJP policy that Mamata has opposed and is fighting tooth and nail?' Be it Article 370, instant triple talaq, be it CAA/NRC/NPR, be it notebandi, FDI, she has aligned with the BJP.'
Had it not been for the intellectual dominance and political legitimacy of the Leftist philosophy since 1970, would EPW have become what it did? After all, there were other more established journals around then, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
An SIT officer probing the murder case said the investigation is in final stage and a chargesheet will be filed in two months.
There are "contradictions" in the approach of the two parties in fighting BJP and there is no question of an alliance with the ruling TMC in Bengal as it has inflicted atrocities on grassroot level CPI (M) workers, he said.
The nationwide strike on Tuesday called by the Left parties against the hike in petrol and diesel prices evoked a mixed response with it getting unruly in some parts of the country.
Farmers gathered at several national highways, key roads and some railway tracks in Punjab and Haryana on Friday morning as part of their nationwide protest against the Centre's new agri laws.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
Several trains were cancelled, highways and key roads blocked and many thousands stranded for hours on Monday as a nationwide 10-hour shutdown against the Centre's three agri laws disrupted lives across parts of India, particularly in the north.
The Summit for Democracy seems to have done more harm than good, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The humiliating rebuff given to the power brokers in Delhi in Kerala's local body election carries a big message: Malayalis thoroughly disapprove of the Modi government's shenanigans to misuse central agencies to destabilise a genuinely popular state government, notes M K Bhadrakumar.
'You've got to be a doer to be re-elected.' 'You don't have to be a great communicator or an orator any more because voters want to see action and development on the ground.' 'And they want a doer rather than just an orator.'
This senior cop who deposed in such detail about the Elgar Parishad, however, claimed to know nothing about the opposition to it from organisations such as Milind Ekbote's Samastha Hindu Aghadi as well as Pune's then Mayor Mukta Tilak.
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
While Himanta Biswa Sarma scotched rumours that he would be the king this time, political sources in Guwahati maintained that he, and not Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, had a bigger say in choosing candidates, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Till late Sunday night, the 84-year-old Jesuit priest was on ventilator support, the senior counsel told PTI. Swamy has been undergoing treatment at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai, following a court order on May 28.
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.
