The opinion piece added that the party combines the most striking principles of three major political entities in the world -- the Likud Party of Israel, the Communist Party of China and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
The India-US nuclear deal was aimed at ending India's nuclear isolation and nuclear apartheid, recalls Rup Narayan Das.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Wayanad in Kerala on June 12, party sources said on Monday.
Communist Party of India general secretary A B Bardhan, who was taken ill while on way to flood-hit Saharsa and Madhepura districts in Bihar, was flown to the national capital on Monday where he was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
Election Commission data shows 15.88 crore (158.8 million) voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the second phase on Friday.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
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 Congress was fighting the elections in a pre-poll alliance with National Conference and had fielded 32 candidates, mostly in Jammu region, compared to 51 by the regional party.
The Communist Party of India Marxists said that Reliance gas pricing was 'artificially inflated.'
The DYFI has been organising numerous challenges and festivals across the state as part of its various fund-raising events to help the rehabilitation efforts for the survivors of the devastating landslides in Wayanad district on July 30.
In a stunning comeback, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance on Saturday stormed to power in Jharkhand for a second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, despite an all-out blitz by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which managed only 24 seats.
Gokhale has said that China used its "close connections" with the Left parties in India to "build domestic opposition" to the Indo-US nuclear deal.
The ruling Mahayuti is poised to retain power in Maharashtra with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) also putting up a strong show in assembly polls, most exit polls predicted on Wednesday after conclusion of polling on 288 seats in the state. Jharkhand is likely to see a change of government with BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coming to power in the state, three exit polls said on Wednesday with one poll giving majority to the ruling JMM-led alliance.
The actor-politician however, said they should not try to destroy such a huge industry like cinema.
Irked by his remarks, "Samastha", an influential Sunni scholars' body, said the CPI-M's "double standards" have been exposed through this.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, however, agreed to examine the constitutional validity of Section 8A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 empowering the Election Commission to undertake the delimitation of constituencies.
A delegation of 21 Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc MPs will pay a two-day visit to Manipur beginning Saturday to assess the ground situation first-hand and then make recommendations to the government and Parliament for a solution to the problems in the violence-hit state.
By offering aid to China in its hour of need we will create an opening to Xi Jinping to rectify his policy towards India, argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
During the Zero Hour of the Lok Sabha, BJP MP Anurag Thakur tried to corner the Leader of Opposition and Congress MP, Rahul Gandhi, by alleging that he has not spoken about ensuring the safety of minorities in Bangladesh.
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.
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.
The meeting of the 14-member all-important panel of the opposition will take place at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on September 13 evening.
After hectic parleys and much back and forth with the INDIA bloc allies, the Congress also ended up going into the polls with its original plan of largely going solo.
The JD-U Rajya Sabha MP said Nitish Kumar has built his image such that makes him the best fit for being the convenor of the opposition grouping.
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.
An average voter turnout of 20 per cent was recorded in the first four hours of voting in the bypolls to 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand on Wednesday amid an incident of stone pelting in a village in UP's Meerapur and allegations of police personnel deterring voters from casting their ballot.
Top leaders of the Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) held talks in an informal setting in Mumbai on Thursday evening to chart out a concrete roadmap and evolve a structure for cooperation among the alliance partners to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist raised quite a few eyebrows breaking ranks with the Left parties and pledging its support to United Progressive Alliance's Presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee.
Brisk polling was seen for the Wayanad Lok Sabha and the Chelakkara assembly seats in Kerala as they witnessed a turnout of 20.54 and 19.08 per cent, respectively, after the first three hours of voting on Wednesday.
Jharkhand Communist Party of India leader filing a PIL against a government circular asking school children and teachers to attend special yoga sessions.
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.
'I will win the election. The Congress and BJP are fighting for second place.'
Jaishankar briefed the leaders of all parties about the situation in the violence-hit nation and the steps taken by the Indian government.
On April 3, Gandhi's roadshow, on the way to filing his nomination in Wayanad was visibly different from that of 2019 in the hill constituency when the green flags of ally IUML outnumbered the Congress's in the crowd. There were no flags of any party or affiliated organisations.
The total income of national and regional parties from unknown sources for 2020-21 stands at Rs 690.67 crore.
Police, assisted by security forces, immediately sealed the area and a hunt has been launched to nab the militants involved in the killing, the sources said.
The decision to remove Oli from the party's general membership was taken at the Standing Committee meeting of the faction led by former prime ministers Prachanda and Madhav Kumar Nepal after Oli failed to produce explanation to his recent moves as sought by party leadership, sources said.
Although the company has shown willingness to talk to its workers and accept their key demands, it is CITU that is causing a roadblock to a solution.
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