The opposition party, however, said the four eminent Congress MPs and leaders who have been included at the instance of the Modi government will, of course, go with the delegations and make their contributions.
The Congress party has expressed its support for the Indian cricket team ahead of their Champions Trophy semifinal match against Australia, despite a recent controversy involving a party spokesperson's social media posts criticizing Indian captain Rohit Sharma. The party distanced itself from the spokesperson's remarks, stating that they do not reflect the party's position and asked her to exercise greater caution in future.
The opposition has raised questions regarding Jagdeep Dhankhar's sudden resignation as the vice president, with concerns about the reasons behind his decision and its timing.
Several opposition MPs, who had previously criticized former Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, are now praising him following his sudden resignation, with some even requesting him to reconsider.
The opposition on Saturday termed the absence of female journalists from a press conference of visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi "unacceptable" and an "insult to women", and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence in the face of such discrimination exposes the "emptiness" of his slogans on Nari Shakti.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on X that party chief Mallikarjun Kharge has accepted Pitroda's decision.
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday attacked the media for reporting that he had offered to quit the government and work for the party, calling it "juvenile" and refusing to answer any political questions.
A united opposition is set to corner the NDA government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case to railway safety.
Union Minister Jairam Ramesh is back in the Congress's high-profile Group on Future Challenges, which also has Rahul Gandhi as its prominent member. Ramesh, who was earlier the convener of the Group, was dropped after its first meeting late last year, without any official explanation. Confirming his return, senior party leader M Veerappa Moily, who heads the panel said, "Ramesh is now a member of the group".
Opposing 'regularisation of illegality' which he described as 'a peculiar Indian characteristic', Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday said that many times he too has been forced to compromise in cases of violations of green norms.
Wearing white caps with a red cross on the words 'SIR' and "vote chori", the protesting MPs started their march from Parliament's Makar Dwar raising slogans against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar and "vote chori" while carrying placards and banners.
'India's farmers will be unable to compete with the US, given the subsidies that the latter provides its farmers.'
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who has been under fire over his comments on the home ministry's stance on China, has offered to resign.But the Congress top brass has refused to accept his resignation, sources said. Ramesh got into trouble after he criticised the home ministry of being 'overly defensive' and 'alarmist' in its approach towards the entry of Chinese companies in India, while on a visit to Beijing last week.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh hit out at Opposition-backed candidate P A Sangma and one of his key backers Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for playing the tribal card in the Presidential polls.
In an unprecedented move which has left many red faces within the Congress party, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has publicly taken on the prime minister, the prime minister's office, and a senior party colleague alleging in black and white that under pressure he has to tolerate 'irregularities.'
The Kyoto Protocol is the "make or break" issue for UN climate talks in Cancun, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said, as he pointed not only Japan but many other countries are opposed to continuation of the treaty that legally binds industrialised nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
'Something very drastic must have happened.'
The Congress party has accused the BJP of engaging in "damage control" after the party distanced itself from comments made by two of its MPs, Nishikant Dubey and Dinesh Sharma, criticizing the Supreme Court. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh stated that the BJP's clarification was merely an attempt to mitigate the damage caused by the MPs' remarks and that the party's actions were hypocritical, given the silence of the BJP president on similar comments made by other party members.
"This year the Ministry has received 579 proposals from all the State Governments under the National Afforestation Programme out of which 270 have been accorded sanction," Jairam said.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh tendered written apologies to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for his recent remarks on the Union Home Ministry's functioning.
Agri export zones need to be replaced by a structure capable of pursuing a more pro-active marketing strategy and social organisation to increase agricultural exports and deliver benefits back to farmers.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has hit out at Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh for calling the former a 'super chief minister'.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday said he is not sure countries like the United States are prepared for sustainable development which for people of developing countries like India is a question of livelihood.
The Congress on Sunday cited the reported comments of India's defence attache to Indonesia that the Indian Air Force lost fighter jets to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor and accused the government of having 'misled' the country.
The Congress on Wednesday hit out at the government over the women's reservation bill, saying the only appropriate description of what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done with the matter is "it is a post-dated cheque drawn on a failing bank".
Orissa can now divert forest land for the steel project.
The Congress on Tuesday said the country's interests and concerns must be kept paramount and its fight against terrorism has to be uncompromising, amid a row between India and Canada over the killing of a Khalistani separatist leader in that country.
While the tiger will most likely not go extinct in the next half-century, its current trajectory is catastrophic. A combination of poor governance, bureaucratic sloth and lack of leadership is leading us towards an ecological disaster.
In a 14-page letter to Mayawati, Ramesh cited the instances of alleged irregularities and corruption in implementation of the scheme in Balrampur, Gonda, Mahoba, Sonbhadra, Kushinagar, Mirzapur and Sant Kabir Nagar.
Raising questions over construction of Commonwealth Games Village and Akshardham Temple on the banks of the Yamuna River, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the former should not have been given environmental clearance while the Temple never even applied for it.
A notice issued on Monday to the Andhra Pradesh government to put on hold the government project is, in fact, meant to help out the Opposition-ruled states of Orissa and Chhattisgarh whose land is threatened to be submerged because of the project.
Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh was on Sunday gheraoed in Hyderabad by people opposed to the introduction of Bt Brinjal in the country.The protesters from Left-affiliated farmers' outfits and Swadeshi Jagaran Manch raised slogans like 'Bt Go Back' and mobbed the minister on the dais at an event organised at the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture in Hyderabad.
'Three days after the Kargil War ended, the Vajpayee Government set up the Kargil Review Committee on July 29 1999. Its report was tabled in Parliament on February 23, 2000 although sections of it have remained classified -- as indeed they must'
He described how India had negotiations with US for almost 36 hours over the words of the Accord.
A recent World Bank report placing India among the most equal countries globally may present a limited view of inequality, with economists suggesting that broader data sets could tell a different story. According to the report, India's Gini index (or coefficient/ratio), a key measure of inequality, stood at 25.5 in 2022-23, placing the country fourth globally in terms of equality, behind only the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Belarus.
The heightened activity on permissions to power and mining projects, which had been stuck for long, coincides with the run-up to a likely reshuffle of the council of ministers this month.
A no-nonsense high profile minister, Ramesh, an IIT alumnus and an environmentalist, was perhaps the country's first independent thinking environment minister
Taking a dig at developments in the Bharatiya Janata Party, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh described Narendra Modi as 'Bhasmasur', a mythological character known for trying to destroy his creator, and said the Gujarat Chief Minister has "consumed" his mentor L K Advani.
The Congress shared a video clip from a recent podcast Mallya did with social media influencer Raj Shamani in which he claimed he had informed Jaitley before leaving India in 2016.
Rejecting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's charge that his demand for Central Bureau of Investigation probe into Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act implementation was "politically motivated", Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday said he would not hesitate to recommend similar investigation even in Congress-ruled states.
