The appointment of Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag as the next army chief will not be affected by the change of government, said new Defence Minister Arun Jaitley whose party BJP had strongly opposed the United Progressive Alliance government for elevating him to the top post.
The key architect of the Land Acquisition Act has made notes on his opposition to the amendments suggested by the government
Ruptures in the opposition unity emerged barely a week after 17 parties joined hands to put up a joint candidate against the ruling National Democratic Alliance nominee for the July 17 presidential election.
The key UNPA meet has decided to consult experts on the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal.
More than a year after playing a key role in installation of a Bharatiya Janata Party government in Madhya Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia was rewarded with a berth in the Union Cabinet, a familiar terrain for the Rajya Sabha member who had served as a junior minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
Sibal, a prominent Opposition voice and a former Congress leader, also said that instead of a common minimum programme, the Opposition parties should talk about a 'new vision for India'.
He served as an effective link between the party and government during the two terms of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) between 2004 and 2014. As political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he had access to leadership that no other leader in the party had and worked the channels to work out various issues.
Gandhi also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over unemployment, farmers distress and alleged corruption in the Rafale deal with France.
What Rajya Sabha can do for the states, no other House can do, the Prime Minister said.
Sources within the INDIA bloc said appointing Nitish Kumar as convenor would lend credibility to the INDIA bloc's demand for conducting a nationwide caste census.
The ex-foreign secy was the government's pointsman for China and the US.
'Political meetings will be a mere side show; the main show is economic investment and the business partnership. The success of Modi's US visit will be judged on the basis of India's ability to attract American investment and setting up of manufacturing in India to give jobs to millions,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'In an alliance, you are forced to overlook loyal workers.' 'It sends a negative message and workers turn against the party.' 'I have forbidden this alliance.'
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Expecting the Bharatiya Janata Party to emerge as the single largest party, key United Progressive Alliance ally Nationalist Congress Party on Tuesday aid the country should have a "stable" government which will "decisively govern" for the next five years.
While the whole world is using good words to describe India, its main opposition leader is claiming on foreign soil that the country has been destroyed and democracy is no longer there while the judiciary and the media are in a bad shape, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters.
Krishna said that these two leaders 'have taken the country to great heights and this is not an exaggeration'.
The Congress leader, who served as Union home minister during November 2008 to July 2012 in the United Progressive Alliance government, was one of the key guests at the inauguration event of CBI headquarters, held on June 30, 2011, in the presence of then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The 71-year-old remained Sonia Gandhi's most trusted lieutenant for most of her tenure as the longest serving Congress president, standing by her side through sun and shade.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
Pawar may not be in the Congress and heading a rival party having a love-hate relationship with it. But still he is considered the top Congress leader from Maharashtra, reports Sunil Gatade.
The Congress candidate from Thiruvanathapuram said that the Centre has ignored the concerns and aspirations of southern states and that Rahul Gandhi's decision to contest from the south has made a very effective outreach.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday took a swipe at the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam over dynasty politics and alleged corruption, calling them "2G, 3G, 4G" parties and said the time has come in Tamil Nadu to throw away these and give the power to a "son of the soil".
The young MP earned the praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his speech. In a tweet, the prime minister said the Ladakh BJP MP coherently presented aspirations of people of the region in his speech.
Condolences have poured in from across the globe, including from the United States, Canada and Sri Lanka following the demise of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
The outcome may determine whether Macron's centrist coalition retains power or if France faces a period of political cohabitation with the far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
Amid a series of deliberations over a strategy for upcoming general and assembly elections by poll strategist Prashant Kishor, a group of senior leaders of the Congress has given its recommendations to party president Sonia Gandhi and left it to her to take a call on them and initiate organisational changes.
'The group commands 85 per cent of the global GDP, and if you are able to convey your point of view effectively to this group then you have reached more or less all the important players that matter.'
Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa as the new premier. Sirisena's move has triggered a constitutional crisis in the country. Here are some points about the unfolding crisis and the role of key players:
Our political history tells us this has never worked. A united Opposition does work in some specific, limited situations, especially in the states. But never as some brilliant pan-national collection of diverse interests with no ideological or political core, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Neither the BJP, nor the Congress before it, made any manifesto commitments on defence spending, even though allocations have plummeted from 4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the late 1980s to less than 2 per cent today, points out Ajai Shukla.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Modi and his corporate sector supporters have identified Maharashtra as a key state where the BJP-Shiv Sena can pick up more seats. In fact, it is estimated that if the Thackeray cousins join hands, the NDA partners can improve their tally from the present 23 seats by adding another eight to 10 Lok Sabha seats, reports Anita Katyal.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), a key partner of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), on Friday dismissed as "speculative" media reports suggesting that Samajwadi Party may come out in support of the Indo-US nuclear deal and bail out the Congress-led UPA government.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi greeted him on the occasion, NCP's Praful Patel blamed the Congress party's internal culture for Pawar missing the opportunity to occupy the top post in the 1990s.
The AAP chief also said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi would be to blame if Narendra Modi came back to power.
Shah's rally and other events will be attended by party workers from neighbouring constituencies, including Amethi.
