'...still have lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but could have won 140 seats.'
Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman Finance Minister, broke away from the colonial tradition of carrying a Budget briefcase in July 2019, opting instead for a traditional 'bahi-khata', to carry the Union Budget papers.
Former Comptroller Auditor General Vinod Rai has come out with a stinging criticism of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying integrity is not just financial but intellectual and professional too and claimed that Congress leaders had sought to apply pressure on him to keep the PM's name out of audit reports.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 will present a record eighth consecutive budget that is expected to contain measures to shore up weakening economic growth and ease the burden on the middle class struggling with high prices and stagnant wage growth while being fiscally prudent.
Reform in economic governance and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's unimpeachable integrity could be the answer.
From this point it really doesn't matter whether Sheila Dixit or Suresh Kalmadi retain their jobs or M S Gill and Jaipal Reddy must also bear equal responsibility. The damage has been done, says M K Bhadrakumar.
A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Manmohan asked the Madras high court chief justice to transfer the cases involving the ADGP to another bench as it set aside the directive of the high court asking the police to take Jayaram into custody.
The principal opposition party though appeared content securing 99 of the 543 seats in the 2024 national elections as against its all-time low of 44 in 2014 and then 52 in 2019.
Kharge also accused those in the saffron party of "lynching and beating" people, and committing atrocities against SC/STs.
Indian Overseas Congress chief Sam Pitroda has denied owning any land, home, or stocks in India, responding to allegations by a BJP leader that he illegally acquired 12.35 acres of government land in Bengaluru. The BJP leader, N R Ramesh, has filed a complaint with the Enforcement Directorate and the Karnataka Lokayukta, alleging that Pitroda, with the help of government officials, acquired the land for his organization, FRLHT. Pitroda, in a statement on X, categorically denied the allegations, stating he has never taken any salary during his time working with the Indian government and has never paid or accepted any bribe. He further clarified that FRLHT received a five-year lease on the land for conservation purposes, which expired in 2001 and was extended for another 10 years. Ramesh claims the lease expired in 2011 and the land, now worth over Rs 150 crore, was not reclaimed by the forest department. He has urged the ED to file a criminal case against those involved in the alleged land grab, including the officials responsible.
Foreign Secretaries of the two countries on Wednesday discussed a whole range of issues including the detention and release of Jamaat-ud Dawah chief Mohammed Hafeez Saeed, believed to be the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks.
Preventive detention is an extraordinary power in the hands of the state that must be used sparingly, said the Supreme Court as it set aside an order to detain a man indulging in money lending in Kerala.
Congress leader Virbhadra Singh recently resigned as the Union minister for micro, small and medium enterprises following allegations of corruption. He tells Kavita Chowdhury how he intends to fight both his detractors and his opponents in the upcoming Himachal Pradesh assembly polls
The government has decided to set up a memorial for former president Pranab Mukherjee at the 'Rashtriya Smriti' area complex. Mukherjee's daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and thanked him for the decision. The government has also agreed to set up a memorial for former prime minister Manmohan Singh, with a site being finalised at the same Rashtriya Smriti area in consultation with his family.
The Congress' new headquarters located at 9A, Kotla Road in New Delhi was inaugurated on Wednesday, as the grand old party turned a page in its history after operating from its iconic 24, Akbar Road premises for the last 47 years.
'We are at the fag end of the government's tenure. There is more curiosity when there are chances of a mid-term poll than now. Here, the only curiosity is whether Dr Singh will be able to garner those votes,' says former BJP MP Ram Naik.
According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is the richest chief minister in India with assets worth over Rs 931 crore, while West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee is the poorest with just Rs 15 lakh. The average asset per chief minister is Rs 52.59 crore, and the total assets of 31 chief ministers are worth Rs 1,630 crores. The report also highlights that 13 chief ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves, with 10 of them having declared serious criminal cases.
K Natwar Singh wore many hats as he straddled the worlds of diplomacy, politics and writing but what remained consistent across decades was his sharp-wit and plainspeaking.
Ahead of their planned protest in Chandigarh on March 5, several Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) leaders were detained in early morning raids at their residences on Tuesday and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann denounced the agitating farmer unions, saying they have turned Punjab into a 'state of dharnas' and caused huge losses to it.
'Dharmendra was paying a little extra attention to me and she didn't like it.'
Voting for the presidential election in which NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint Opposition pick Yashwant Sinha began at 10 am and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to cast his vote followed by BJP President JP Nadda.
India needs another shot of difficult reform, of the kind only possible at gunpoint. Mr Trump holds that gun to our heads now. A drastic reduction in tariff protection, other elements of sarkari wet-nursing will force entrepreneurial India to become competitive again, argues Shekhar Gupta.
In a significant move, the Centre on Wednesday announced that caste enumeration will be part of the next population census, with the inclusion of caste details for the first time since independence hailed by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies as a historic step to help design truly equitable and focused policies.
'Had Haji Pir and/or Skardu been taken, the message would have gone out not just to General Asim Munir and his cohort in the Pakistan army but to the Pakistani people that every terrorist incident in India would lead to substantial loss of territory in PoK.'
The Congress on Wednesday expressed sadness over 'pictures of Indians getting handcuffed and humiliated' while being deported from the United States and recalled that America had to express regret over the treatment meted out to India diplomat Devyani Khobragade in 2013 after the then United Progressive Alliance government retaliated sharply.
Shah pulled no punches in lambasting the RJD supremo for alleged nepotism, accusing him of making his wife the chief minister, getting his daughter elected to Parliament and "now both his sons want to become the CM".
New British Prime Minister David Cameron will meet his Indian counterpart in Toronto on Sunday on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit, his first after assuming office last month. Cameron, who heads the Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition government, will meet Singh to take forward his administration's commitment made in the Queen's Speech to 'work to establish a new special relationship with India.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump have vowed to move forward with plans to work together to build US-designed nuclear reactors in India. The decision was made during their meeting at the White House, where they also agreed to significantly expand energy cooperation. The move comes after India announced plans to amend its nuclear liability law and the Atomic Energy Act, which had previously been obstacles to the implementation of the US-India civil nuclear deal.
After spending nearly 50 years in a colonial bungalow at 24, Akbar Road, the Congress moved into a new office on January 15. Rasheed Kidwai, who knows the history of the Congress better than the Congress, looks back at the people who breathed life into this address.
Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, Aga Khan IV, the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, passed away in Lisbon at the age of 88 on Tuesday, February 4, 2025.
Isn't there something significant in the UPI example for all of us to learn from and execute to enable world-scale success for our startups?, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
'Right now, we have no relationship with Pakistan. And the relationship with China is not great.'
Despite the Congress high command's directive to avoid discussing the 'next chief minister', supporters of both Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and Public Works Minister Satish Jarkiholi continue to publicly push for their respective leaders to take the top spot. This comes amidst reports of a pact that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would lead the state for the first two and a half years and Shivakumar would take over for the rest of the term.
Perhaps because the Modi government had some differences of opinion with two of the economist governors (one of whom was appointed by the Manmohan Singh government), there is a view that its political leadership prefers a civil servant to head the RBI, notes A K Bhattacharya.
UPA-2 seems to have completely lost direction in almost every single way be it in governance, national security, internal security, development initiatives, poverty alleviation and corruption eradication, says Pramod Kumar Buravalli.
'The time has come to have a relook at the Constitution as every document has a shelf life.'
Only Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani are ahead of her.
The record lies with first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who did the honours 17 times from 1947 to 1964.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has accused the BJP of rigging the Maharashtra assembly elections and called for a return to ballot paper voting. He also criticized the Modi government for selling off public assets, undermining democratic institutions, and promoting communal polarization. Kharge's remarks come as the Congress prepares for its AICC session in Ahmedabad, where it will present its political and economic views.
'They want us to talk to Shivraj Patil. Vajpayee had appointed Advani for holding talks with us. Advani had a certain standing,' says Hurriyat leader Moulvi Abbas Ansari.
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