Pranab Mukherjee was sworn in as the 13th President of India today. Here is the full text of his speech
Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday refused to add any fodder to the talk of him being the front-runner for the President's post, saying he was himself "in the dark" over the issue that has hogged headlines back home. The past week has witnessed intense speculation in India over who would occupy the Rashtrapati Bhavan next, with Mukherjee and the current Vice President Hamid Ansari being touted as the main contenders.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist asked the Congress to take the initiative in building a consensus on the candidate for the presidential election though it indicated it was not averse to supporting either Vice President Hamid Ansari or Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for the post.
Giving a new turn to the Presidential race, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday ruled out supporting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Vice-President Hamid Ansari or any other candidate who may be put up by the Congress but is open to supporting anyone chosen by the non-Congress parties.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist and Forward Bloc on Monday declared their support for incumbent Hamid Ansari in the Vice Presidential poll but another Left party Revolutionary Socialist Party will abstain.
Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, Union ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh and Rajeev Shukla, and Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi and actor Jaya Bachchan were among the 50 new members who took oath in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
The president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai on Thursday renewed his call to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar to give up violence.
The Lashkar-e-Tayiba's global mission is quite extensive something the West has now begun to realise. Many now assess the LeT to be a bigger eventual threat than the Al Qaeda because the Lashkar has state sponsorship, says Vikram Sood.
The ability of President Hamid Karzai to maintain inter-ethnic unity will determine whether history will be repeated in Afghanistan, says B Raman
590 cricketers -- including 370 Indian players and 220 overseas players -- will go under the hammer during the two-day mega auction in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13.
The slow erosion of the institution of the editor in Indian media organisations is a reality. When media space and media products are treated solely in terms of revenue maximisation strategies, editors end up giving way to marketing departments, says Vice President M Hamid Ansari
Sheikh Hasina, in her maiden visit to Tripura, expressed gratitude to the people for their help and cooperation during Bangladesh's liberation struggle. K Anurag reports.
United States efforts to seek an end to the war in Afghanistan has reached a "critical juncture", American officials have said indicating that Obama's pointman Marc Grossman is rushing to the region to resume preliminary talks with the Taliban.
With zero growth facing Indian industry and the strong possibility of a bleak financial future ahead, the Congress's managers have to show that Sonia Gandhi's authority and charm are not on the wane. Which is why the election of the 13th President becomes crucial, says Sheela Bhatt
Karzai will hold comprehensive talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after which the two countries are expected to ink a strategic pact to streamline the various assistance programmes of India and institutionalise bilateral security dialogue.
On Friday, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai claimed that former president Burhanuddin Rabbani's killing was plotted in the Pakistani city Quetta.
United States President Barack Obama on Friday called his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai to discuss the current economic situation in the war-ravaged country and the progress in security transition.
Slamming the United States for lack of cooperation in the probe into the massacre of 16 villagers in a house-to-house rampage by an American army sniper, an enraged Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Friday said he is at the "the end of the rope".
Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has claimed he had received threatening messages, apparently from intelligence and security agencies, after he criticised the security establishment on his television talk show.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Afghanistan but the dates are yet to be worked out.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Monday said that Pakistan has a key role to play in his government's peace talks with the Taliban because the militant group operates from there. "They operate from there. And a meaningful peace process cannot go well or end in satisfactory results without Pakistan's participation and help," Karzai said. Karzai said he could not hold peace talks with Taliban unless the militants produce a verifiable authorized representative.
Opposition parties want to contest the election to the post of the deputy chairman on August 21 while the Congress is keen to get its nominee P J Kurien get elected unopposed.
"I look forward to discharging my duties as Vice-President of the India and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha to the best of my abilities. I will urge all the members of the House to work towrads the realisation of the aspirations of the people of India, all sections of the people of India," Ansari told media persons in New Delhi
United States President Barack Obama on Sunday met his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai to discuss the transition process in Afghanistan. "We recognise the hardship that the Afghan people have been through. Both of us recognise that we still have a lot of work to do. The loss of life continues in Afghanistan. There will be hard days ahead, but we are confident that we are on the right track," Obama told reporters in a joint press meet.
Samiullah Shenwari produced a brilliant rearguard action to guide Afghanistan to their first World Cup victory with a dramatic one-wicket win over Scotland in their Pool A clash in Dunedin on Thursday.
As tensions mounted in the Persian Gulf, Pakistan on Thursday assured Iran that it will not provide any assistance to American forces in the event of a United States attack on Tehran.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Thursday on a two-day state visit for bilateral talks and to attend a tri-lateral summit of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan that will focus on the regional security situation, officials said.
Pipeline will carry 90 mmscmd gas for 30 years; India, Pak to get 38 mmscmd each, 14 mmscmd to go to Afghanistan
In a moving encounter, Francis blessed them, held their hands and intently listened to their heart-rending tales of escape from the Buddhist-majority nation, in an apparent show of public solidarity towards Asia's worst refugee crisis in decades.
The nation on Saturday remembered former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on her 94th birth anniversary with President Pratibha Patil and Vice President Hamid Ansari among prominent personalities who paid rich tributes to the leader.
Ravi Shankar Prasad is set to become the new deputy leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha with Parliamentary Party chief L K Advani on Thursday recommending his name for the post to the vice president.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday met Afghan President Hamid Karzai and is understood to have discussed with him the regional situation, particularly in the war-torn country.
A number of Union ministers including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad reached the residence of Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in New Delhi to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr on Wednesday.
26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed may become an ugly fly in the soup at the lunch meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday. But senior Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir hopes that the two leaders will focus instead on smaller issues like Siachen, Kori Creek and water
The nation on Saturday remembered former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on her 31st death anniversary with President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari and other leaders paying tributes at her memorial in New Delhi.
Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said all the commissions were functioning and the process of filling up the vacancies was on.
Launching another broadside against Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday said the Taliban, that has launched some audacious attacks in his country will not be able to "move a finger without Pakistani support."
Giving incremental fillip to their cooperation in strategic areas including trade and security, India and Afghanistan on Tuesday inked a partnership pact amid assertions that the agreement was not "directed against any other State or group of States".
Soon after the Rajya Sabha met for the day, members from Bharatiya Janata Party, Janata Dal-United, Bahujan Samaj Party, All India Anna Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam and the Left parties were on their feet seeking a discussion on the issue.
Pradeep Gandhi, one of the 11 MPs expelled from Parliament after being found guilty in the cash-for-query scam in 2005, was seen standing next to Sachin after his swearing-in inside Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari's chamber and was prominently seen during the photo-op later.
