Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and the Union Territory of neighbouring Puducherry are likely to go to polls in April or May.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's decision for early release of Rajiv Gandhi's killers invited a sharp reaction from the Congress, which termed it as "irresponsible, perverse and populist".
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Tuesday once again adopted the anti-NEET Bill, returned days ago to the government by Governor RN Ravi, with the ruling Dravida Munentra Kazhagam and principal opposition All India Anna DK reaffirming their opposition to the test.
Party leaders, sources said, maintained that Congress cannot afford to have a new leader at the helm for rebuilding the organisation at this juncture and that the responsibility for the defeat is collective and not individual.
Both Houses have been witnessing a ruckus over the Rafale fighter jet deal and Cauvery river issue, among other matters.
A college student and a Communist Party of India-Marxist member, she was administered the oath of office by collector Navjot Khosa at the corporation council hall.
Congress gets into the opposition groove but still has miles to go, says Saroj Nagi.
70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The AIADMK's staying power is not in question, but it has to regain the winning streak. That will require its leaders and leadership to re-wire themselves, to be able to re-think situations in ways different from what they had been accustomed to, suggests Sathiya Moorthy.
In his letter, Singh hinted since the Central Public Works Department's tableau already featured Bose, West Bengal's float was not included for the parade, without saying it in so many words.
The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party will meet on Thursday to finalise its first list of candidates for five assembly polls, with top party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expected to attend the meeting.
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Pandian alleged that Jaya died under unnatural circumstances and demanded a probe on her hospitalisation.
The application, filed through advocate AP Singh, said, "The Acts were passed hastily without adequate discussion... Inherent weaknesses of the agricultural sector cannot be addressed by way of monetization of farmers."
Protesting farmers owing allegiance to different farmers' bodies blocked state and national highways at several places on Saturday, causing inconvenience to commuters.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's political rivals are sharply divided over appealing against her acquittal in a disproportionate assets case that saw her return to power for a fifth time two days ago.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh speaks about the shortcomings of the Grand Old Party, and puts up a brave defence for party vice president Rahul Gandhi in this freewheeling chat with the Indian Express
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If the leadership gets wrong information, what results you can expect?'
The new Congress president is building a core team of youngsters while waiting for his mother's coterie to retire, reports R Rajagopalan.
The decision was taken keeping in mind the party norm that no CPI-M leader can represent the party in the Upper House for more than two terms.
The Bills adopted in 2017 for the same purpose during the AIADMK regime did not get the President's assent.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has called a meeting of chief ministers of 12 Congress-ruled states to figure out how to fill out the vacancies in the Rajya Sabha. Highly-placed sources have said that he wants to cajole Amethis's former feudal lord Sanjay Singh; by giving him an RS ticket, in view of his own weak position in Amethi. Renu Mittal reports.
Coming out against the report of the Supreme Court-appointed Empowered Committee on Mullaperiyar dam, over which Kerala and Tamil Nadu are at loggerheads, Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran V S Achuthanandan on Monday said it was "unilateral and in favour of Tamil Nadu".
The development came a day after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre's offer to start talks as soon as they move to Burari and continued to stay put Singhu and Tikri borders of the national capital.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
Several parties had requested that the session, which was originally scheduled to continue till April 8, be curtailed due to the five assembly elections being held in eight phases till April 29.
Karnataka has stopped releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu since Sunday evening, Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar told the assembly on Monday.Shettar said the government had filed a review petition in the Supreme Court on its recent directive and challenged the Cauvery Monitoring Committee order.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday urged top opposition leaders to rise above political compulsions to take on the BJP in the interest of the nation and start planning "systematically" to realise the "ultimate goal" of winning the 2024 Lok Sabha polls
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Higher education policy may be at the core of the Tamil Nadu assembly polls next May, with a potential to break the ties between the ruling AIADMK in the state and the BJP counterpart at the national level, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Twenty-two proposals comprising 16 states and Union Territories and six ministries and departments have been shortlisted for participation in the parade after a series of five meetings.
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President M K Stalin will try his luck once again from Kolathur constituency in Chennai in the April 6 Tamil Nadu assembly elections while his son Udhayanidhi will make his electoral debut by contesting from the Chepauk-Triplicane segment in the metropolis.
Gadgil and the report prepared by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by him are back in news after over two dozen people lost their lives in landslides and flash floods in the past few days in the hilly regions of Western Ghats in central Kerala districts of Kottayam and Idukki.
RJD president Lalu Prasad on Thursday said Railway Budget has cheated people as it has nothing to offer.
'They plan to purchase votes.' 'We will not purchase people, but win the elections.' 'In our manifesto there are no free gifts. It says what we will do for the people.'
'No, that is not an abbreviation for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha,' says T V R Shenoy, 'but for J Jayalalithaa-Mamata Banerjee-Mayawati-Mulayam Singh Yadav... If the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, and other regional forces do extremely well, we could be heading for a repetion of the 9th Lok Sabha (1989 to 1991) and the 11th Lok Sabha (1996 to 1998), each of which saw multiple prime ministers and neither of which lasted even half of its five-year term.'
Hundreds of migrant workers from Delhi, Haryana and even Punjab reached Anand Vihar, Ghazipur and Ghaziabad's Lal Kuan area after taking arduous treks of many kilometers on foot to take buses to their respective native places
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