While 44-year-old Sunak was at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden on Sunday to promise to keep trying to "make the community proud", 61-year-old Starmer chose another north London Swaminarayan Temple in Kingsbury on Friday to reiterate his commitment to building a "strategic partnership with India".
'What my Labour government will seek with India is a relationship based on our shared values of democracy and aspiration. That will seek a free trade agreement (FTA), we share that ambition, but also a new strategic partnership for global security, climate security, economic security'
Alamgir Alam had distanced himself from the activities of Lal while speaking to reporters after the ED raids, pointing out that he had earlier served with other ministers of the state government too.
Investors' wealth soared by Rs 10.58 lakh crore in three days of the market rally, where the BSE benchmark jumped over 2 per cent, and hit an all-time high on Monday. Extending its winning momentum to the third day running, the 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 363.20 points or 0.49 per cent to settle at 74,014.55. During the day, it zoomed 603.27 points or 0.81 per cent to hit its record high of 74,254.62.
It is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
RSS joint general secretary Manmohan Vaidya, apparently referring to the Congress's Bharat Jodo Yatra, described it as a "political gimmick" that will not serve its stated purpose of uniting masses.
'In Western UP, last time a lot of Dalits voted for the BJP.' 'This time, there is a rethink among Dalits about the extent of their support for the BJP.'
Crucial reforms in Muslim personal law, especially laws related to inheritance and adoption, need to be initiated forthwith; historically speaking, without the State's backing, hardly has any reform taken place or allowed to prevail, asserts Mohammad Sajjad.
The National Human Rights Commission in a statement said the allegations raise a serious issue of violation of human rights and also restriction on the freedom of the press.
Bangladesh is in turmoil, which is not good news for India, which shares a porous 4000 km border with it. There is a danger of fundamentalism growing there, and India has to move in to reset its ties with the new dispensation before China and Pakistan make capital out of it, alerts Ramesh Menon.
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.
More than predicting the nature of elections, a closer scrutiny of seat and vote share difference yields an important tool to assess the value of our democratic process, say economists Yugank Goyal and Arun Kumar Kaushik
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said she declined the offer of the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest elections pleading that she did not have the 'kind of funds' required for fighting the Lok Sabha polls.
Hasty, ill-conceived steps show how isolated Mamata Banerjee had been from the national political trend. A fascinating excerpt from Sugato Hazra's Losing The Plot: Political Isolation Of West Bengal.
Times have changed, situations have changed, but the basic nature of superpower geo-politics remains the same and so also India's diplomacy -- call it non-alignment, strategic autonomy or neutrality; it all depends on the time scale, notes Rup Narayan Das.
'...without looking into yourself.' 'What matters most is human relationships and the human mind.'
Power distribution company officials said several areas, largely in central and east Delhi, were affected due to the failure. Some areas in north Delhi also faced outages.
Equity investors suffered a massive loss of Rs 31 lakh crore on Tuesday as markets went into a tailspin with the BSE Sensex tumbling nearly 6 per cent as vote counting trends showed the BJP may not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Erasing the record-rally of the previous trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 4,389.73 points or 5.74 per cent to settle at 72,079.05. During the day, the benchmark tanked 6,234.35 points or 8.15 per cent to hit a nearly five-month low of 70,234.43.
Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) continued their buying spree and poured close to Rs 4,800 crore in the Indian equity markets in the first week of January driven by confidence in the country's robust economic fundamentals. Additionally, they injected Rs 4,000 crore in the debt market during the period under review, data with the depositories showed. With expectations of a prolonged decline in US interest rates in 2024, there is an anticipation that FPIs will likely escalate their purchase, particularly in the initial months of the New Year leading up to the general elections, V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.
'The chances of The Shameless passing through the censorship board in India are slim to none.'
...close to the 2024 general election. The BJP calling the Congress 'seasonal Hindu' is as laughable as the saffron party sparing itself the title of 'seasonal extreme Hindu.'
How else should one describe its election campaigns of the past years?
It was typically obsessive religion and personality cult with economic development for fig leaf, asserts Shyam G Menon.
Stock markets are expected to remain under pressure this week due to the overhang of US presidential polls and uncertainty over global growth due to resurging cases of coronavirus, according to analysts.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Macroeconomic policy aimed at short-term political gains does not augur well for a poorly performing economy.
A Cornell University professor, Basu took over as the CEA in the Finance Ministry in December 2009 and his term ended in February. However, he was given extension till August as the government was in the process of formulating the proposals for the Budget for 2012-13.
In a dazzling resurgence, foreign investors have graced the Indian equity markets with an influx of nearly Rs 1.5 lakh crore in 2023, fuelled by optimism over the country's resilient economic fundamentals amid shadows of a gloomy global scenario. Experts believe that the positive trend may continue in 2024. This follows Indian equities witnessing the worst-ever net outflow of Rs 1.21 lakh crore by FPIs in 2022 on aggressive rate hikes by the central banks globally after net inflows for three consecutive years.
Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of former premier Nawaz Sharif, is expected to become Pakistan's new prime minister as the coalition of leading political parties led by them is set to comfortably cross the simple majority mark to form the next government after elections produced a split mandate.
'Make in India' could suffer the same fate as did privatisation and the command economy, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
'The politicians waiting to grab the space left behind by Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti do not have any credentials,' says Athar Parvaiz.
'In anything in life, privilege helps.' 'Privilege means access. Access means connections.' 'Does it help? Of course, it does. In whatever you do.'
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
Luck appears to be on the government's side. It needs to take full advantage of it by initiating long overdue economic reforms without delay, says A K Bhattacharya.
The 54-page document tabled in Parliament detailed how the Modi-government pull the economy from being counted among the most fragile-five in the world to being the fasted growing and the most attractive investment destination.
India's exports may have touched an all-time high of $422 billion in 2021-22 but recession in key western markets and geo-political crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine war are expected to impact the growth of the country's outbound shipments in 2023. All the global trade promoting factors like political stability, movement of goods, adequate availability of containers and shipping lines, demand, stable currency and smooth banking systems are in disarray. Adding to the woes, COVID cases have again started rising in countries like China, Japan, South Korea and the US.
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
The Bengal outcome can have a marginal impact on national politics. Whereas elections in UP next year might still change the course ahead of the parliamentary poll in 2024, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'There shall be no change in India-Japan ties,' predicts Rajaram Panda.
If Pitroda's blunder cost him his office, what should the BJP's unrepentant attitude cost it?, asks Shyam G Menon.
The main Opposition BNP of former premier Khaleda Zia, 78, who is under house arrest, is boycotting the elections amidst violence.
'Our study finds that only about 20% of Indians are vegetarians and the rest of the 80% are non-vegetarians or meat-eaters.'
