While Lok Sabha members across party lines demanded an inquiry, hundreds of students continued their protests near Rau's IAS Study Circle in the west Delhi locality where the horror unfolded Saturday night, killing the three students trapped in the basement illegally used as a library as floodwaters rose outside.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
Shah said the new laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the colonial-era laws that gave primacy to penal action, and made reporting of crimes even easier by recognising e-FIR, Zero FIR and electronic or digital evidence.
Ramesh, however, said it was too early to talk about all this right now as the Congress' first priority was the upcoming elections in Karnataka and the string of state polls this year.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
One-line resolutions from states authorising the Congress high command to decide candidates in elections could be a thing of the past with Rahul Gandhi set to tone up the functioning of the party.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
'Shivakumar is an andhbhakt of Congress ideology and principles.'
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
For those having any 'fear or doubt' in their mind, Tharoor said, the party has made it clear that it will be a secret ballot.
Fears of the Congress not having a credible face, after the death of its three-time chief minister Sheila Dikshit last July, and ceding its vote bank to the Aam Aadmi Party came true with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party capturing the space once occupied by the grand old party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday named 72 more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and former chief ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.
The Congress president during his year at the helm of the party has repaired the citadel for far more challenging years ahead, and played a crucial role in shaping the Opposition alliance.
In the wake of several Congress leaders quitting the party and its Punjab unit in turmoil, Sibal demanded that an immediate meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) be convened and wondered who in the party was taking decisions in the absence of a full-time president.
The Congress has been in the crosshairs after demeaning remarks on Ranaut and Mandi were posted on the social media handles of its leaders Supriya Shrinate and H S Ahir.
Despite the towering image of BRS supremo and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, along with the party's extensive grassroots network and welfare programmes, the perceived inaccessibility of its leaders contributed to the growing anti-incumbency sentiments.
The Capital appears to be heading for assembly elections within next six months with all three major parties -- the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress -- contending that there was no option but to seek people's mandate afresh for formation of a new government.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
As Mallikarjun Kharge won the Congress president poll, his electoral rival Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said the 'democratic contest' has galvanised vibrancy at all levels and has prompted a healthy and constructive discussion on change, which will serve the party in good stead in the future.
The speculation on whether Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Sonia Gandhi will attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony continued with the party on Thursday saying that their decision would be conveyed at the 'right time'.
The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
The BJP attacked Kejriwal after he refused to comment on the Maliwal "assault" matter during a press conference in Lucknow. He was flanked by Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh.
Notwithstanding the focus on women, Rahul Gandhi's scheduled interaction with state Congress leaders in New Delhi on Friday and Saturday will virtually be an all-male affair.
A delegation of opposition party leaders on Friday met the top brass of Election Commission to raise its concerns over poll code violations by the ruling party leaders, and also flagged concerns over delay in release of voter turnout figures for the first two phases of the polls.
Gandhi said Modi's top priority now is to get his Speaker in Parliament and is not bothered about NEET .
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
The Bharatiya Janata Party sealed its alliance with the Telugu Desam Party on Saturday for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, with former chief minister of the southern state N Chandrababu Naidu asserting that the combine will sweep the polls.
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.
The new TDP government will have to mop up over Rs 10,000 crore to fulfill the financial requirements for July, a retired senior bureaucrat said.
Sources said senior leaders of the party have been told to reach out to other leaders of the alliance and talks with some parties have begun.
Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath on Thursday claimed that the `G-23' group of Congress dissidents never demanded that a leader from outside the Gandhi family head the party.
The Congress will launch a two-month door-to-door campaign across India from next week to spread Rahul Gandhi's message among the masses, senior leader Jairam Ramesh said on Friday.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
It's obvious to all that the Congress is overestimating its success and the BJP is underestimating the people's message delivered through the ballot box, notes Sheela Bhatt.
Priyanka Gandhi said that biggest problem in the state is recruitment and the youth are disappointed.
With its landslide victory in Punjab assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party has achieved a major milestone in its journey so far and emerged as an alternative in the national politics.
At least six police personnel and some people were injured in the incident, while 106 protesters were detained and released later, an officer said.
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
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