Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
In a strategic move, the BJP has welcomed prominent Christian figures like Anil K Antony, son of Congress stalwart AK Antony, and seasoned Kerala politician PC George, into its fold.
Xi, who will turn 70 on June 15, was re-elected by the once-in-a-five-year Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China as its leader in October last year, becoming the first Chinese leader after Mao Zedong to continue in power beyond two five-year terms.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.
Breaking his silence over the matter, Vijayan on Tuesday sounded tough and said a high-level probe by a top-ranking officer would be held into the charges raised by the MLA.
Donald Trump's exaggerated opinion of his dealmaking capacity can get him into trouble, observes R Sriram.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samiti has pinned hopes on the development work his government undertook during the past ten years, while opposition Congress and BJP bank on anti-incumbency and the alleged failures of the incumbent.
The MLAs of the ruling JMM-led alliance exuded confidence of winning the floor test, while the opposition BJP asserted that the coalition would be defeated.
A day after premier K P Oli resigned, Nepal President called on all the political parties to elect a new prime minister within a week
With the RLD part of the NDA now, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan would expect an easier contest than five years back when the RLD, SP and BSP had an alliance.
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
Kharge also hit back at the BJP for criticising his party colleague Rahul Gandhi over a copy of the Constitution with a red cover. He showed a picture of PM Modi gifting a similar copy to former president Ramnath Kovind.
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.
Basant Soren, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supremo Shibu Soren's youngest son, on Friday took oath as minister in the Champai Soren-led government in Jharkhand, along with seven others.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday arrived in Beijing along with her family to attend the Olympics opening ceremony. Sonia, 61, is accompanied by her MP son Rahul, daughter Priyanka, son-in-law Robert Vadra and two grandchildren.
The padyatra concluded at the Lal Chowk area on Sunday with Rahul Gandhi unfurling the national flag but the official closing would take place on Monday in Srinagar, amid snowfall.
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.
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
'When you have a village which is controlled by the BJP, who are the people likely to perpetrate the attack?'
While Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala mockingly called the CM as "the most knowledgeable" person in the state who has the habit of terming priests "wretched creatures" and "ignorant", BJP leader V Muraleedharan said that Vijayan's remarks indicate that he continues to be intolerant towards those who disagree with him.
In a new report, the ADR said the BJP declared a total income of Rs 3,623.28 crore during the financial year 2019-20, but spent only 45.57 per cent (Rs 1,651.022 crore) of it.
Manoj Tiwari is the only sitting MP whom the BJP has retained.
He was reviled by critics in his party as a neo-liberal in disguise but till the end, he retained his belief in secularism and the humanity of Communism.
In financial year 2020-21, the BJP declared assets worth Rs 4,990 crore, up by 21.17 per cent to Rs 6,046.81 crore in 2021-22.
Nepal political parties on Friday night agreed to extend the term of Constituent Assembly by one year as part of a crucial deal under which Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal agreed to step down.
A total of 45 MLAs voted in favour of the confidence motion in the 81-member assembly.
The PDP led by former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has decided to stay away from the delimitation process, saying the body lacks 'constitutional and legal mandate' and is part of the overall process of political disempowerment of people of Jammu and Kashmir.
It is unfortunate that the Congress has taken a decision of contesting the elections in alliance with the JMM without even consulting allies in the UPA government, he said.
Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping is virtually confirmed to be the successor to outgoing President Hu Jintao after he was formally designated as the secretary general of the once-in-a-decade leadership meet of the ruling Communist party beginning in Beijing on Thursday, signalling smooth transfer of power.
On a day a sexual abuse case was registered against actor Siddique based on a complaint by a woman actor, the Left government appears to have adopted a cautious approach in the case of MLA Mukesh, with two ministers indicating that further action hinges on the findings of the probe by the special police team.
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'.
A senior TMC leader will be present at the proposed meeting, he said.
He also said that the party "cannot be selective in fighting the communists" and it must do so in all its manifestations, irrespective of religion and colour.
An agitated Congress condemned the anti-party act of Thomas and said he will face stern action for violating the order of the high command.
The Congress on Friday welcomed the statements of opposition leaders condemning Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Lok Sabha and said it was now time for the party to take on the job of building the opposition unity in a "systematic way".
Several opposition leaders on Monday wrote to the Rajya Sabha chairman claiming that Leader of Opposition in the House Mallikarjun Kharge was not accorded a seat commensurate with his position during the swearing-in ceremony of President Droupadi Murmu.
The CPI-M leader was the chief minister of the state from 2000 to 2011.
Ahead of a generational leadership change in China's ruling Communist Party of China at its key Congress on November 8, the party on Friday expelled disgraced leader Bo Xilai and ordered his trial for shielding his wife's involvement in the murder of a British businessman.
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