Eknath Shinde, a former auto-rickshaw driver, has emerged as a key leader in Maharashtra, culminating in his appointment as Deputy Chief Minister. His journey from a Shiv Sena rebel to a dominant figure in the state's politics is a testament to his resilience and political acumen. He gained popularity for his pro-people stance and his contributions to infrastructure projects and social welfare schemes, solidifying his position as a powerful player in the Mahayuti alliance.
The Bombay high court on Sunday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by four students against the Maharashtra government's decision declaring a public holiday on January 22, on the occasion of the Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya.
Devendra Fadnavis, a seasoned politician with deep roots in the RSS, is set to become the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for the third time, after his party, the BJP, won a landslide victory in the state assembly elections. Fadnavis' political journey has been marked by resilience and strategic maneuvering, as he has navigated through challenging times, including political upheavals and controversies.
Ravindra Jadeja starred with a 12-wicket haul for Saurashtra, but India's top stars, including Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant, failed to impress in the Ranji Trophy.
BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra in a grand ceremony at Azad Maidan in Mumbai.
When Kasturi Rajamurty won a gold medal in powerlifting at the WPPL World Cup in Russia, she sure had come a long way. From a life of penury to constantly being short of funds to fuel her passion, she had finally triumphed, and how.
Continuing to push back against the stringent quality of service (QoS) norms brought in by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), telcos have informed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that collection and submission of monthly and site-to-cell-level data should be eased, officials and industry sources said. In place since October last year, the QoS norms call for data for network availability, call drop, voice packet drop rate in uplink and downlink, among other parameters, to be collected at the cell level.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress's alliance in Uttar Pradesh came under scrutiny as both parties did not hold a single joint campaign for the bypolls to nine assembly seats. While both parties maintained that the alliance is strong, BJP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) claimed a crack in the alliance. The Congress opted out of the bypolls and announced coordination committees for all nine seats to support the SP. However, the absence of joint rallies raised questions about the alliance's strength. The SP campaign was spearheaded by its chief Akhilesh Yadav, while the Congress cited its leaders' busy schedules in Maharashtra and Jharkhand for the lack of joint campaigns. The bypoll results will be announced on November 23.
'Those who are contesting against Amit, I can expose them all. But I don't want to get into that dirt.'
The Shiv Sena faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has nominated Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora from Worli for the upcoming assembly elections.
The rout of Sharad Pawar-led faction has raised questions over his political future with a potential risk of a further slide in the party flock in future.
Though Ajit Pawar didn't include his mum's name when taking the oath as Maharashtra's deputy CM for a record sixth time, he sought his 87-year-old mother Asha Pawar's blessings before being sworn in.
The PM said the Congress and its allies should not encourage the "Pakistan agenda" and speak the language of separatists.
What India needs more than one simultaneous election is better governance both at the central and state level. Yes, we need reforms, but our priority should be to make elections less expensive, make it more democratic, do away with freebies which are actually bribes before elections, allow only those who are educated to contest, and bring in a bill to make it impossible for criminals to contest, advocates Ramesh Menon.
Ahead of assembly polls, Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasahev Thackeray president Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday declared he will support any chief ministerial candidate announced by allies Congress or Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar to 'save' Maharashtra, repeating a demand for the second time since August.
While this will incur a revenue loss amounting to 0.2 per cent of GDP, it will provide a strong boost to consumer sentiment and spending, points out Rajani Sinha.
The assembly polls were fought under Eknath Shinde's leadership and it is now up to the Bharatiya Janata Party's central leadership to decide on how to maintain his stature, the caretaker Maharashtra chief minister's aide and former state minister Deepak Kesarkar said on Monday.
India pacer Mohammad Shami, playing his third game of the tournament, went for runs as he took 3/61 in 10 overs.
Much drama is likely to continue in the coming year, within the Sangh Parivar as well as involving the Opposition parties and, of course the BJP's allies, predicts Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'Whenever the hike in voting percentage is more, the NDA gains more, and when the hike is negligible, the NDA falls.' 'I have established this in UP, Haryana and Jharkhand.'
Over 100 Indian immigrants, including 33 each from Haryana and Gujarat, 30 from Punjab, and several from other states, were deported from the US after undertaking perilous journeys filled with extortion and hardship. The returnees landed in Amritsar in a US military plane and are now back home, facing huge debts and emotional trauma. Many of them were lured by promises of a better life in the US but fell victim to human trafficking and extortion rings. The families of the deportees are demanding strict action against the travel agents who facilitated their illegal journeys.
The monthly Rs 2500 payment for poor women is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore while the pension scheme of Rs 2000 for every senior citizen will cost around Rs 4100 crore. The Yamuna clean up will cost over Rs 10,000 crore while a similar amount is required to upgrade Delhi's hospitals. Ultimately, the new BJP government will have no choice but to ask the centre for financial support, notes Rashme Sehgal.
The whole incident came to light after one of the guests took photos of this gift packet and posted it on Facebook which resulted in public outrage, the police inspector added.
Following a fatal collision between a ferry and a Navy craft off the Mumbai coast, authorities have made life jackets mandatory for all passengers taking boat rides from the Gateway of India. The decision comes after survivors of the Wednesday tragedy claimed the ferry did not have enough life jackets. Some tourists, however, raised concerns about the effectiveness of life jackets if people don't know how to use them properly.
'We accept EVMs cannot be hacked because it is not connected, but can they be manipulated?' 'Are you allowing us to check if EVMs can be manipulated?'
Former Indian tennis captain Anand Amritraj has criticized top players Sumit Nagal and Yuki Bhambri for not playing in the Davis Cup, stating that money should not be a factor when representing the country.
'But when we actually express ourselves, sometimes our parents can surprise us, because they just love their children.' 'Sometimes it's just that simple. That is what I wanted to show in this film.'
'I've had a 10-and-a-half year journey behind the camera and people don't know who I am.'
'If someone fiddles us on our religion then we will pay back five times more to that person. We have proved that time and again.'
Chavan said the Mahayuti and BJP's policy was Viksit Bharat and Viksit Maharashtra, as spelt out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
BJP leader Vinod Tawde has demanded an apology from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, and party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate for making "false and baseless" allegations against him in the cash-for-votes incident in Maharashtra. Tawde was accused by the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi of distributing Rs 5 crore to woo voters. He has sent a legal notice to the Congress leaders, claiming they were aware the story was fabricated and demanding an unconditional apology within 24 hours. If the apology is not forthcoming, Tawde has threatened to initiate criminal and civil proceedings against the trio.
He further said that he believes Ajit Pawar will play a key role as a "kingmaker" after the elections.
Among urban users, 57 per cent mentioned a preference for accessing Internet content in vernacular languages.
'If the BJP detoxifies the nuclear liability law, it will bring economic, environmental and, most of all, strategic benefits.' 'Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that this Budget promise is met soon -- ideally, before Mr Modi heads to his first meeting with Trump 2.0,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
The attacker's face was captured in CCTV footage. The video showed the assailant, wearing a red scarf and carrying a backpack, scurrying down the stairs from the sixth floor of the 'Satguru Sharan' building, where Khan lives, at around 2.30 am.
The meeting in New Delhi etc is just the BJP being nice to the man who helped it realise its dream by stabbing Uddhav in the back, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
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