The government has proposed that political parties cannot be designated public authorities as defined in the RTI Act. Anita Katyal reports
The government may have to move 18 amendments to the Constitution to implement the concept of simultaneous elections as recommended by a high-level committee chaired by former president Ram Nath Kovind.
Both the parties were not represented at the opposition meeting that decided on fielding Alva as their consensus candidate, but Pawar had said that he is in touch with both TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as AAP convener and Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
When contacted, Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Sitaram Yechury and Communist Party of India national secretary D Raja declined immediate comment, saying they could raise the matter in Parliament.
The political scene in Andhra Pradesh took an interesting turn on Tuesday with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti deciding to join the Grand Alliance comprising the Telugu Desam Party, the Communist Party of India - Marxist and the Communist Party of India. The TRS' decision came as a major setback for the ruling Congress and a rude shock for the fledgling Praja Rajyam Party of actor Chiranjeevi, as they desperately sought to align with the pro-Telangana outfit.
'Once I went to meet an MLA with a complaint, but he refused to even listen to me.' 'I was insulted. That is when I decided not to vote for anyone.'
A day after failing to topple the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government during the trust vote, leaders of the Left parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the United National Progressive Alliance met in New Delhi to chalk out their future course of action.The meeting, held at the residence of BSP supremo Mayawati, was attended by Communist Party of India Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat, Communist Party of India leaders A B Bardhan and D Raja.
In a major policy shift, Nepal's ruling Maoists will adopt a new path to socialism through capitalism and they may also give up their anti-India stance at the upcoming national convention of the party.
The UPA has decided not to sell its shares in BHEL.
The jeep, which blew up, killing 16 people, carried 200 kg of 'slurry explosives,' 150 electric detonators and 375 metres of safety fuse, Karunanidhi said.
Left parties will meet in New Delhi Monday to give a final shape to their strategy on the crucial issue of disinvestment of Public Sector Units, with the government planning to divest its stake in some non-navratna companies.
While Defence Minister Rajnath Singh spoke about the consensus, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said there is no need for a separate discussion in Parliament on the Pegasus issue during the budget session.
China has said that it has "no objection" to India's candidature for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council but was firmly opposed to Japan's bid for the same due to "historical baggage", according to Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held bilateral talks focusing on economic ties and global stability amid trade tensions and the aftermath of the Ladakh border row.
West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Friday filed a defamation case against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the Calcutta high court, a day after she said that women complained to her saying that they were afraid to visit the Raj Bhavan because of the activities there, a source said.
The Trinamool Congress on Friday termed Communist Party of India - Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury as the country's 'number one Maoist' and alleged that he has close links with the Maoists in Nepal. "Sitaram Yechury is the man who supports the Maoists and keeps going to Nepal. He should be considered as the number one Maoist in India," TC chief whip in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay said, when asked to comment on Yechury's allegation that TC is fomenting violence in Bengal.
'They mean business, but business as usual is unacceptable to them'
The Communist Party of India-Marxist has decided to support the Telugu Desam Party in the Assembly byelections in Andhra Pradesh, except in the four constituencies being contested by the Left parties. The party however said this alliance would stand only for the bye-polls and did not extend to general elections to the Assembly and Lok Sabha.
While they are trying to unite different parties to form a non-Bharatiya Janata Party, non-Congress alliance at the Centre, the Communist Party of India - Marxist and the Communist Party of India on Monday intensified their tussle over the Ponnani Lok Sabha constituency in northern Kerala's Mallapuram district.After the CPI announced its intention two days earlier to field its own candidate from that seat, the CPI-M's Central Committee today put its foot down.
The seat sharing has become the biggest challenge before the four party Grand Alliance led by the Telugu Desam party. The TDP president, N Chandrababu Naidu is under tremendous pressure from his partners' demand for a larger number of Lok Sabha and assembly seats.
Leaders of various political outfits on Thursday lashed out at former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf over his remark that he was ''proud of the Kargil operation'' during which the Pakistani troops had crossed the Line of Control and occupied positions on the Indian side in 1999.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
Shell-shocked by its dismal performance in the state assembly elections, the Communist Party of India-Marxist will soon hold a Politburo meeting to consider the reasons behind its massive debacle.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat on Friday lashed out at Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat for his remark that rapes are rare in 'Bharat' (rural India) but occur frequently in 'India', saying this reflects the mentality, which refuses to accept the reality of caste oppression or class driven exploitation of women.
The Grand Alliance of four opposition parties -- Telugu Desam, Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India Marxist -- who have decided to make the alleged corruption of the Y S Rajasekhara Reddy-led Congress government the main issue in the coming assembly elections, on Friday demanded that the chief minister be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act. A delegation of the Grand Alliance leaders met Governor N D Tiwari.
The Andhra Pradesh assembly was on Wednesday plunged in turmoil after 46 Members of Legislative Assembly, including the Telugu Desam Party leader Chandrababu Naidu, were suspended from the House and clashed with the marshals leaving two MLAs injured.
The entire opposition evicted from Tamil Nadu Assembly following uproar on the issue of lawyers-police clash in Madras High Court.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddadeb Bhattacharya on Sunday said the Communist Party of India-Marxist would guard against the creation of a Nandigram-like similar situation anywhere in the state.
Speaking on Neo-Liberalism, Secularism, and the Future of the Left in India, Yechury stressed that the "two Indias" could not survive together.
Communism and its unruly offshoots Naxalism and Maoism will continue to lose public support in India but a solution to the Naxal problem is still a few years away, writes Pramod Kumar Buravalli.
The seventh Tibet Work Forum was held in Beijing on August 28 and 29. Delhi should be deeply concerned, at a time India faces a precarious situation in Ladakh, because the TWF also defines China's western border policies, observes Claude Arpi.
The Communist Party of India - Maoist on Thursday rubbished charges leveled by the Communist Party of India Marxist, that the Trinamool Congress was patronising Maoists, saying the Left Front party was trying to keep itself afloat by making such allegations. "There is no need for us to have the CPI-M or the Trinamool Congress as allies," Maoist leader Kishenji said while reacting to the CPI-M's allegations that the outfit was protected by the TC.
'This nuclear agreement is a sign for the rest of the world of the great American respect for India,' says US Under Secretary of State R Nicholas Burns.
The income of these parties from "unknown" sources was Rs 689.44 crore, which is 53 per cent of their total income.
'Handling or mitigating a rebellion is not a corporate plan with quarterly, half-yearly and annual goals and results but an aggregation of the effort of several years.'
Trouble began when the Speaker disallowed adjournment notices on the multi-crore rupee scam relating to misappropriation of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan funds amounting to 40 crore.
If Karat's six-page long speech is an indication, he spent eight paragraphs attacking the Congress, while just one paragraph went into slamming the BJP for its communal politics.
'Bossism' by Left cadres in West Bengal and Kerala, erosion of mass base, 'unilateralism' by Communist Party of India-Marxist and infighting in its Kerala unit were major reasons behind the poll debacle suffered by the Left parties, Communist Party of India said on Tuesday.
