Expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazahagm leader VK Sasikala on Tuesday arrived in Chennai, 23 hours after her departure from Bengaluru, where she had served a four year jail term in a corruption case and also underwent treatment for COVID-19.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was left embarrassed on Thursday when suspended Denied Member of Parliament and former Union minister M K Alagiri called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
As the merger brought to an end weeks of suspense during which there was tough negotiations, the two factions said steps would be taken to expel party chief V K Sasikala.
The rate of doubling of COVID-19 cases has increased to 12.6 days
The case of the two Shiv Sena factions for legitimacy and the party symbol, 'Bow and Arrow', is now before the Election Commission. Whichever way the EC findings go, the other can be expected to move the Supreme Court. They would need a final verdict before the parliamentary polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Aslam Hunani analyses the train mishaps that will mark Suresh Prabhu's tenure as railway minister.
'We are warning that if you get these 3.5 lakh additional non-medical people with licence, our infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate will deteriorate'.
The presence of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was not the only reason why Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa stayed away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Maharashtra legislative assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a bill which makes Marathi a compulsory subject across all schools in the state. The development came on `Marathi Bhasha Din' (Marathi language day) which is celebrated on February 27, the birth anniversary of poet and Jnanpith award winner late V V Shirwadkar. The state legislative council had passed the legislation, titled `Maharashtra Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Marathi Language in Schools Bill, 2020', on Wednesday.
Nirmala Sitharaman's elevation not only to full Cabinet minister but also pitchforking her to the elite Cabinet Committee on Security group with the defence portfolio is undoubtedly the biggest takeaway from Sunday's reshuffle, says Rajeev Sharma.
The Bharatiya Janata Party asked former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress to answer allegations of "improper compromises" by three former chief justices of India during the United Progressive Alliance rule, saying the matter was "unfortunate".
In an army that favours officers who have spent the bulk of their service years doing counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir, General Anil Chauhan is that rarity: A China specialist who has logged plenty of service years along the Line of Actual Control and the McMahon Line with China.
There is the problem of regions in the North East being theatre for power-play by nations with borders and influences converging in those parts, which in turn requires a sizable presence of the armed forces, notes Shyam G Menon.
Jaitley says govt is open to scrapping 1% additional tax on GST
If the Congress lost in Tamil Nadu in 1967, never to return, or the DMK and the AIADMK have kept their place in power and electoral politics since then, it owes not to their love or hatred for gods or for one religion over another. Instead, they had always been linked to performance and incumbency/anti-incumbency factors. There may be something in such constructs for Rajini's strategic team to consider, especially if the superstar is to enter direct politics by around this time next year. But then, they would need to brush up their homework more than at present, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Awaiting the outcome of a meeting convened by the Centre, Karnataka Cabinet on Wednesday decided to defer till Thursday a decision on release of 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu as per the Supreme Court direction.
'Nobody will think like him. It was a treat for us to listen to him. He was meticulous in his argument. We got trained by listening to him,' says senior criminal lawyer R Shanmugasundaram, who had known Ram Jethmalani for almost 40 years.
A PTI tally of figures announced by states and UTs, as of 9.30 pm, showed the total number of confirmed cases having risen to close to 2.1 lakh and the death toll to approximately 6,000, showing an increase of nearly 9,000 cases since Tuesday evening and at least 273 more fatalities in this time period.
NITI Aayog was set up as a think-tank for the Centre and states on January 1 replacing over six-decade old Planning Commission.
There were reports that some Commission officials were against the Rajan panel's suggestion to replace Gadgil- Mukherjee formula with Rajan Committee's Multi Dimensial Index for allocation funds to states.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
In her letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi three days ago, Kidwai said she was relinquishing charge as party general secretary and Mahila Congress chief as he felt that Rahul Gandhi should be given the necessary space to bring in younger leaders of his choice
Sasikala's declaration of staying away from politics does not necessarily have to mean that she was retiring for good. She is only taking time to evaluate the post-poll chances of hers before digging in again, if possible, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sibling rivalry between Stalin and his elder brother M K Alagiri came to the fore recently, when the latter claimed that true loyalists of Karunanidhi were with him.
Narendra Modi's promise to allow states a bigger say in strategising and building foreign policy is unexceptionable, says TP Sreenivasan.
K Pandiarajan has filed a petition in the apex court in which he has sought a direction for quashing Speaker P Dhanapal's decision rejecting the demand for a secret ballot to determine the outcome of the floor test.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday shot off a letter to the vice-president and Supreme Court Chief Justice, seeking removal of Press Council Chairman Markandeya Katju saying a person with continuous outbursts and temperamental behaviour is not fit for holding office.
The state government held talks with the protesting youth to sort out the matter.
Around 52.46 per cent of the patients have recovered, the health ministry said. The number of active cases stood at 1,53,178 while 1,80,012 patients have recovered, it said in the daily COVID-19 update.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'My parents were there to see me enrol as a lawyer. From afar itself, I could see tears in their eyes.' 'Three days after, I appeared in court for my first case, and my father was there to see me. He had tears in his eyes.' 'And even before I completed two months as an advocate, I won a case!'
Trying to guess Subramanian Swamy's motives or next step has been a rather difficult exercise for decades, says Archis Mohan
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
This was the sixth consecutive day when coronavirus cases increased by more than 14,000. Consequently, India has added 92,573 cases since June 20, and over 2.82 lakh this month alone since June 1.
A number of senior faces from the outgoing cabinet including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar and Prakash Javadekar are expected to figure in the new cabinet.
Modi, Shah and Nadda have created a strategy to boost the BJP and the government's image.
Today, as Jayalalithaa's friend, advisor and 'sister' Sasikala is also lodged in Bangalore Central jail, the former Tamil Nadu chief minister is where she was before: alone, all alone
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said nobody could imagine one would profiteer from the immeasurable suffering of millions, saying the 'scam was an insult to every Indian'.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday said it will "unequivocally" oppose the Communal Violence Bill when it comes up for discussion and passage in Parliament as it is a "threat" to communal harmony and an "attack" on the federal structure.
