70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress gets into the opposition groove but still has miles to go, says Saroj Nagi.
With almost all opposition parties too backing the 'Bharat bandh' and many announcing parallel protests in support of the farmers, the Centre has issued an advisory directing the states and Union Territories to tighten security and ensure peace is maintained.
Farmer leaders on Monday started their day-long hunger strike against the Centre's new farm laws and said protests will be held at all district headquarters later in the day, even as more people are expected to join the ongoing agitation at Delhi border points.
Farmer leaders said unions do not allow any political party to use their stage and accused the government of diverting the issue.
While Congress-ruled states such as Kerala, Karnataka and Assam expressed fears about the sudden demise of the planning process and wondered what it would be replaced with, also worrying about the immediate implications on annual Plan outlays, Andhra Pradesh said it was considering setting up its own NITI Aayog.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has directed party leaders of five election-bound states to keep candidates with criminal background out.
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Rahul Gandhi's experiment of choosing Congress candidates for Lok Sabha polls through the 'primary' system appears to have suffered initial hiccups with two constituencies being dropped from the list of 16.
The double-decker bus belonged to Awadh Depot and was going to New Delhi from Lucknow.
The protest was held on the university campus located at Ludhiana-Chandigarh road past midnight.
Chief Minister O Panneerselvam hugged Modi emotionally on a couple of occasions.
With almost all opposition parties and several trade unions backing the 'Bharat Bandh' and many announcing parallel protests in support of the farmers, the Centre has issued an advisory directing all the states and Union Territories to tighten security and ensure COVID guidelines are followed.
'If the platform is public, then every Indian regardless of his ideology and commitment has got the right to convey his view'
Hundreds of migrant workers from Delhi, Haryana and even Punjab reached Anand Vihar, Ghazipur and Ghaziabad's Lal Kuan area after taking arduous treks of many kilometers on foot to take buses to their respective native places
The Congress is likely to make the Telangana issue a part of its manifesto in the forthcoming elections, reports Vicky Nanjappa
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Sunday raised concerns over India's drugs regulator granting permission for restricted use of Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine and asked the government to explain why mandatory protocols and verification of data has been dispensed with.
A fresh probe is likely with a government-appointed committee recommending constitution of a SIT
Political parties, agriculture experts and progressive farmers demanded such agri reforms for long, he said and attacked the opposition for misleading cultivators on the issue of MSP (minimum support price) and APMCs.
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
Rahul Gandhi's birthday greeting to the DMDK supremo signifies that the Congress vice president is expanding his ambit of functioning and graduating from handling just organisational affairs, reports Anita Katyal.
'The Modi government is not listening to us. So now we are coming to Delhi to talk with the central government.'
With the Congress leadership reportedly inching towards a favourable decision on Telangana statehood demand, a party member of Legislative Assembly and several YSR Congress legislators from non-Telangana regions on Thursday said they have "resigned" in support of united Andhra Pradesh.
The BJP emerged as the single largest party but fell nine short of a majority, while the Congress, JD-S stitch alliance to keep saffron party out.
Delhi MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa said Kamal Nath had allegedly given shelter to five people who were accused in one of the seven cases.
The NHRC issued notice to the Union ministries of home and human resource development seeking a report over the reported ill-treatment of Kashmiri people in the aftermath of the attack.
He interrupted his speech to observe a minute's silence in the House along with other Opposition leaders, mainly the Congress, to pay tribute to farmers who had lost their lives during the two month agitation.
In the midst of mounting pressure from both pro and anti-Telangana leaders, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ahead of the crucial United Progressive Alliance and Congress working committee meetings to take a final decision on the separate statehood issue.
A day ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Jammu and Kashmir, mainstream parties as well as separatists organisations were on the same page asking him to restart the dialogue process with Pakistan in finding a lasting solution to the Kashmir issue.
His mother Maureen was also questioned for some time.
'The party dropped me as a spokesperson for showing a roadmap. It shows that the party either has a high level of arrogance or they are completely detached from ground realities.'
The tumultuous Winter session of Parliament ended on Wednesday a day before schedule with proceedings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha marred by repeated disruptions by the opposition over which the government and the Congress traded charges and the presiding officers expressed their anguish at the conduct of some MPs.
Winning an election may be a breeze for the BJP but the aftermath of victory isn't always painless.
Congress general secretary and leader-in-charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijaya Singh added to the confusion surrounding the Telangana issue on Thursday when he spoke about the possibility of a Constitutional Amendment to create a separate state.
Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu on Monday began an indefinite fast in New Delhi to protest against the split of Andhra Pradesh, accusing the Congress of playing politics in view of the Lok Sabha polls, but remained ambivalent on Telangana.
The United Progressive Alliance coordination committee will meet on July 31 to finalise its stand on the vexed Telangana issue amid indications from Congress that carving out a separate state out of Andhra Pradesh is a foregone conclusion and that complexities involved in the process will be adequately addressed.
BJP alleged that it was an attempt by a "grand alliance of most corrupt parties" to ensure that its "corruption" was not exposed.
As the news of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's proposed press conference in Delhi on Monday came out, political activity in Andhra Pradesh picked up.
With the talks between the Centre and the agitating farmer unions stalled since January, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday expressed readiness to resume the dialogue to resolve their objections to the three new agri laws, but the unions remained adamant on their demands for a repeal of the legislations and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price.
The new Congress president is building a core team of youngsters while waiting for his mother's coterie to retire, reports R Rajagopalan.
A party source said most of the leaders, however, are hoping that Gandhi will continue to lead the party as the Nehru-Gandhi family acts as a "glue" that binds the party together.
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