Other strong men have stopped Modi and his hordes in states before, but none of them with a footprint or battle cry to shake up New Delhi, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
India is in the midst of its biggest crisis since Independence. It is a national emergency and begs to be dealt with. Politics can wait. Lives need to be saved. We need to vaccinate India at a pace faster than any country in the world, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The decision came a day after the Allahabad high court asked the Centre and the state government to file counter affidavits within a week on a petition challenging the decision to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat on Sunday again created a controversy with his remark over the amount of ration distributed during the COVID-19 lockdown: A family with two children got less ration and they would have got more if they had 20 children.
There was an environment of "indifference" towards the use of technology in governance before 2014 due to which the poor and the middle class suffered the most, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday. He asserted the current government has ensured last-mile delivery of services with the help of technology, including drones. Addressing a gathering after inaugurating India's biggest drone festival in Delhi, he said, "At a time when we are celebrating Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, it is my dream that everyone in India should have a smartphone in his or her hand, every farm should have a drone and every house should have prosperity." The enthusiasm being seen in India about drone technology is amazing and indicates possibilities of an emerging sector of employment generation, the prime minister said.
Some speakers also blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.
A division bench of Justices A S Oka and V L Achliya said the state government will have to take prior permission from the court if it wanted to use the dam water for Kumbh Mela.
The stampede on the banks of Godavari River in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh added to India's notoriety for deaths due to such accidents, when sudden, uncontrollable crowds surge out of control.
Opposition leaders believe this entire plan has been put in place to ensure that Mamata Banerjee is kept out of office in West Bengal.
'In India, there's currently evidence the Centre has not managed a smooth vaccine rollout.' 'It is now falling back on blaming states, which are facing vaccine shortages,' points out Devangshu Datta.
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.
'What was the message that was going to them?' 'The message was, we are a great country and we have beaten Covid!' 'No one talked about the precautions to be taken.'
It will cover the 750-km route between Delhi and Varanasi at a maximum speed of 160kmph
Seven pilgrims from Uttar Pradesh and three from Delhi were among the 12 people who died in a stampede at Vaishno Devi shrine atop Trikuta hills in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir in the early hours of Saturday, officials said.
After Uttar Pradesh played host to world's largest religious congregation during Mahakumbh in Allahabad, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Minister Mohammad Azam Khan have been invited by the HarvardUniversity to share the story of organising the 55-day event.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday described Narendra Modi as his "friend" but sidestepped queries on the possible projection of the Gujarat Chief Minister as Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate, saying he was "not a political person".
From a Vishaw Hindu Parishad platform, Bharatiya Janata Party chief Rajnath Singh on Wednesday raked up the Ayodhya issue saying his party is committed to the construction of the Ram temple.
It is for the second consecutive year that the yatra is not being held due to the pandemic.
Only double vaccinated adults and children above the age of 15 who have taken at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine will be allowed to enter, they said, adding children below 15 years will not be permitted to attend the event.
Unlike the past when G V G Krishnamurthy, J M Lyngdoh, R Peri Sastry, H S Brahma, and V S Sampath held positions in the ECI representing all corners of India, this ECI will be North India-centric.
Jatav youth ask tough questions about surgical strikes, expenditure on statues and organising of the Kumbh festival.
Assembly elections to five crucial states will take place in a few months and the results will be decisive for the BJP, which is eyeing a third successive term at the Centre, in the forthcoming the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
As Anna Hazare's fast entered tenth day today, thousands of his supporters organised mass prayers for the well being of the Gandhian leader. A large number of Anna supporters stayed at the Ramlila ground whole night singing patriotic songs and chanting anti government slogans.
Tej Bahadur Yadav had posted four videos on social media in January, 2017, that showed him complaining about the unpalatable food at his camp along the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir.
A tribute to an incomparable photojournalist who was slain by the Taliban on Thursday night.
Models sashayed down the ramp in saffron dresses amid the chant of mantras for Tarun Tahiliani's 'Kumbhback' collection at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week Autumn/ Winter 2013 in Delhi.
The latest among his donations was the initial corpus of Rs 2.25 lakh to the PM CARES Fund.
The Gangasagar pilgrimage and fair is the second largest congregation of mankind after the holy Kumbha Mela at Prayag.
While it's clear that the world's sacred sites draw millions upon millions of visitors, travel to shrines, churches, temples, mosques or other holy place can come from a mix of motivations.
Home ministry asks IT ministry to order social media platforms to remove around 100 posts or URLs.
Warning that global warming and terrorism have become the world's biggest concerns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said shedding the "holier-than-thou" attitude is the key to overcoming these issues and resolving conflicts.
Solar eclipse brings Maha Kumbh to a standstill
In a move that has ruffled many feathers, the Mahanirvani Akhara of 'naga' sadhus has conferred the honorific title of 'Mahamandaleshwar' on controversial self-styled godman Swami Nithyananda.
"Our party is stronger than the Congress in the state. While the Congress won 40 seats in panchayat polls, we scored a victory in 83 panchayats. AAP got over 40 lakh votes in these polls, where 1600 party candidates contested," Singh, AAP's UP in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said.
India displayed its military might and vibrant cultural heritage on Rajpath on Wednesday with the grandest flypast with 75 aircraft to mark the 'Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav' celebrations being the highlight of the 73rd Republic Day Parade, which was drastically scaled down in view of the Covid pandemic.
"The death of two persons after falling in drain was run as breaking news by channels saying that deaths took place due to stampede in Kumbh. Due to this news, people started moving to the railway station following which pressure increased there," Khan told media persons on Monday night.
The pandemic has changed the way people see the government. It has eroded trust in the administration's ability to tackle a crisis, any crisis, observes Devangshu Datta.
Every 12 years comes a mystical, mind-boggling phenomenon. It is the Maha Kumbh Mela. Harvard experts map the exotic and the mundane at the spectacle. Arthur J Pais reports
This is a national leadership gone so wrong that India's most powerful prime minister in four decades has personally taken charge of medical oxygen shortages, observes Shekhar Gupta.
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