Opposition leaders on Saturday stepped up pressure on Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla for stringent action against Bharatiya Janata Party's Ramesh Bidhuri over his derogatory remarks against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali in the House.
'The BJP has sent out a message that its allies are at its mercy.' 'The allies cannot pressurise or bargain with the BJP any more,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
BJP-led govt will need regional parties' support in Upper House to get legislation cleared. Archis Mohan reports
The govt will have to clear hurdles to push GST by March 2015.
4,809 members of the electoral college comprising MPs and MLAs set to elect the successor to incumbent Ram Nath Kovind.
The bill also makes it mandatory for the Delhi government to take the opinion of the L-G before any executive action.
Mukhar Abbas Naqvi, senior vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is convinced that Narendra Modi will become the next prime minister of India.
'They forget that denial of basic rights has helped create a big political void which is adding to a deepening alienation.' 'This creates a fertile ground for extremist elements and targeted killings which we are witness to once again.'
Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley speaks on the debate on the Andhra Pradesh (Reorganisation) Bill, 2014
Relations between an elected government of Delhi and the LG can never be cordial: It is just the way the relationship is structured.
He has left no one in any doubt about his ability to take bold, even out-of-the-box, decisions, to gauge the feelings and aspirations of the common people at the grassroots and to ensure that polices and schemes do not remain on paper, but are implemented, says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Pawar, who at 30 became the youngest chief minister of Maharashtra in 1978, will have to do a lot of heavy-lifting in the Maharashtra assembly polls, due by October, after severe setbacks in the Lok Sabha polls, reports Sunil Gatade.
A man of perseverance and great survivor, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has an astute political sense honed by decades of experience in Kashmir politics that has stood him in good stead in crafting a delicate alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party to return as chief minister for the second time.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Mehbooba Mufti will be CM while Nirmal Singh will again be the deputy chief minister in the new cabinet, a post he had held in the Mufti Mohammed Syeed's dispensation.
As of now, Azad couldn't be in the BJP leadership's calculus. The BJP has been trying to drill into the J&K electorate that this time around the UT would most certainly have a Hindu chief minister, explains Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
The PDP elected the 56 year old unanimously to succeed her father.
Khan was ousted from power after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership following days of high drama.
The BJP is of the view that Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand governments could collapse and a Modi wave may resurrect its chances, notes Archis Mohan.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti will on Wednesday file her nomination papers from the Anantnag assembly segment which fell vacant on the demise of her father and chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Milind Deora, minister of state for communication and information technology and shipping, is one of the Congress' young guns under Rahul Gandhi. He tells Kavita Chowdhury that the core problem for the United Progressive Alliance in its second term has been its inability to communicate effectively. Edited excerpts:
'Today the real issue facing the Modi government is not about investment, credit and money supply and all those things economists like to talk about.' 'It is whether your average citizen has confidence in the government not to do something utterly whacky,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
The AGP, an ally of the BJP, voted for the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, after Amit Shah's assurance. However, the scale, intensity and, persistence of the anti-CAA protests since then have taken it by surprise.
Keen to scrap the collegium system, government on Monday introduced a Constitution Amendment Bill in Lok Sabha to establish a six-member body for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and the high courts.
Mishra was catapulted to the chief ministership of Bihar following the assassination of his elder brother Lalit Narayan Mishra in 1975.
In democratic India, a citizen can be a patriot and at the same time be critical of the government, unlike China which promulgated a national security law in Hong Kong prescribing patriotism to contest elections, observes Rup Narayan Das.
'If two regional parties in Jammu and Kashmir find common ground to rule the state, they would have given a more stable and efficient government.' 'This was a good possibility of restoring peace in Kashmir.' 'If you really wanted to give peace a chance, we should have allowed them to form a government.'
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj is a fighter who follows her own code. Those who think she's a pushover are making a mistake, says Aditi Phadnis
There were no signs of either the Peoples Democratic Party, the largest group, or the Bharatiya Janata Party, the close runner-up, getting the requisite numbers to stake claim to forming a new government in Jammu and Kashmir as the deadline set by Governor N N Vohra for discussions fast approached.
'Modi swept the 2014 elections for two main reasons: First, the disgust with the Congress government with a non-functional prime minister, and second, more importantly, his promise of performance and hope.' 'He cannot expect to win 2019 on these planks again. His own success in finishing the Congress will take away one plank, and with five years of reign on his CV, he will need to flaunt performance more than promise.'
The motion takes note of the UNHCR statement last month, which described the CAA as 'fundamentally discriminatory in nature', and also of other United Nations as well as the EU guidelines on human rights as it calls on the Indian government to 'repeal the discriminatory amendments'.
It will be heard by a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.
'Continuity in a common agenda is essential, not to disrupt the progress achieved so far,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The sources said friends of India prevailed over those of Pakistan in the European Parliament on Wednesday.
A fascinating excerpt from Arghya Sengupta, Jinaly Dani, Kevin James, and Pranay Modi's Hamn Ast: A Biography of Article 370.Instead came a recommendation from Parliament, acting under the imposition of President's Rule, purporting to convey the views of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This clever act achieved Parliament's purpose optimally. But was it legitimate in law?
"The charge that the two ministers were pro-rapist is absolutely wrong. It was sheer indiscretion on their part," Madhav said.
She defeated her nearest rival, Hilal Ahmad Shah of the Congress party by 12,085 votes. Mehbooba polled 17,701 votes.
The bench was also of the view that no interim order can be obtained unless the parties see the grounds for proclamation for President's rule.
Asserting that Aligarh Muslim University is not a minority institution, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Saturday said the varsity is committing a "big crime" by not implementing the policy of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs.
'The government may backpedal for now to stave off bad international press and diplomatic demarches, but that it will go ahead with putting religion at the centre of citizenship rules is certain.' 'For it is convinced that this is the magic bullet that will ensure its return to power in 2024,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.