This is first picture of 49-year-old Omar to have appeared in public domain after five months of captivity. It showed him smiling in a snow covered jacket and sporting an unkempt greyish beard.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha will be the consensus presidential candidate of several opposition parties, including the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party, the parties said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
'The biggest danger is that majoritarianism is getting normalised, insidiously and overtly... We are bringing the worst, not the best in us... We are looking for new enemies - Muslims, urban Naxals, tukde tukde gang, some enemy or the other which keeps this majoritarian wheel turning,' says journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.
With his swearing-in, the five-decade-long practice of retired bureaucrats being appointed to the post has ended.
Ruling National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah on Thursday said the party's apprehensions about the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government working towards abrogation of Article 370 have come true.
'Everyone is unhappy with the lieutenant governor's administration, which is ignorant, high-handed, and inaccessible.'
Dressed in colourful attire, members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday got their group photograph clicked in the old Parliament building, hours before legislative proceedings shift to the new Parliament House.
Families of two civilians killed in the Hyderpora encounter in Srinagar held a protest here on Wednesday, demanding justice for the victims and the return of their bodies.
His father Somappa Rayappa Bommai was the state chief minister during 1988-1989.
The BJP senior leadership believes the YSRCP is a more reliable potential ally post-2024 Lok Sabha election than the TDP.
They said preliminary investigation revealed that terrorists hurled a grenade at a naka (patrol) party near Nishat Park in the district in north Kashmir, causing splinter injuries to five security forces personnel.
More than 20 national leaders will attend the meeting, TMC sources said. Most of them have already arrived in Kolkata.
National Conference president Omar Abdullah on Sunday evening met Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra in the winter capital Jammu and staked claim to form the government. Omar was earlier chosen as the leader of the NC legislature party and state Congress president Saif-ud-Din Soz and another senior party leader Chowdhary Mohammad Aslam met Vohra and handed over a letter pledging the party's support to the NC.
The Centre is planning a series of political initiatives in Jammu and Kashmir which may include discussion with mainstream parties of the Union Territory and elections to the assembly in the early part of next year, officials said in New Delhi.
The BSF opened fire in Pakharpora near Charar-e-Sharif area to quell stone-pelting protesters in which at least one person was killed and five injured.
Nine people including three women were killed and 33 injured as a bus carrying pilgrims from Uttar Pradesh and Delhi plunged into a deep gorge after an ambush by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district on Sunday evening, police said, as political leaders cutting across party lines strongly condemn the dastardly attack.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday launched a veiled attack on Congress leaders and said he gave sweat and blood for the party unlike those who are spreading 'falsehood' through social media.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's all-party meet, People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said peace in the region cannot be restored without undoing the 'illegal' and 'unconstitutional' act of revocation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Leaders of 13 Opposition parties Sunday urged the Centre to launch a free mass vaccination drive across the country in view of the unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases.
Restrictions continue to be imposed for the 66th consecutive day since the abrogation of the state's special status under Article 370 on August 5.
A day after India opened up vaccination for those over 60 years and within the age bracket of 45 to 59 years with specified co-morbidities, more politicians took the vaccine jabs on Tuesday, including Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, who, along with his wife, took the first dose of indigenously developed Covaxin at the Delhi Heart and Lung Institute.
Main markets and other business establishments across the Valley remained shut and public transport was off the roads.
The situation in the Valley is tense as the fresh order directing the zonal SPs to provide the list of mosques here and its management committees has added to speculation about some major decision in the offing regarding Jammu and Kashmir's special status.
Classes were not held in most schools across Kashmir as students did not turn up due to the prevailing situation, they said.
According to the Aam Aadmi Party, it has received permission from the authorities concerned to hold the rally of more than 20,000 people.
Though markets and commercial establishments remained shut and students stayed away from schools.
'Use of the word 'genocide' for Kashmiri Pandits is absolutely wrong.'
A man of perseverance and great survivor, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had an astute political sense honed by decades of experience in Kashmir politics that has stood him in good stead in crafting a delicate alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party to return as chief minister for the second time.
Union Minister Farooq Abdulla on Monday said there was a "massive" public opinion in favour of revoking the Armed Forces Special Powers Act but maintained that all the stakeholders should discuss the issue and take a collective decision.
The last assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014, five years before the erstwhile state was reorganised into two Union territories on August 5, 2019.
It has never been the practice to discuss in the public domain the details of deployment and movement of paramilitary forces deployed in a particular theatre.
'If Modi is re-elected again, we can forget these things for a long time.'
The clarification was issued through an advertisement in local dailies after facing political backlash, including from parties perceived close to the government.
The new idol of Lord Ram was placed in the sanctum sanctorum of Ayodhya's Ram Janmabhoomi temple on Thursday afternoon, ahead of the January 22 consecration ceremony.
Sibal, who quit the Congress last year, said the party's Kanyakumari to Kashmir Yatra "optically" seems to have succeeded and gotten the support of non-Congress elements as well.
Most leaders agreed for early finalisation of poll plans for 2024 stressing that there was no time left with them and mere meetings would not help.
Cricket climate change to medical practice, dropped candidates have their non-political life sorted.
"Okay. Good," a bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said when the counsel of Union Territory administration and Iltija informed it about the release of Mufti, who is the president of the PDP.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
