The government on Friday said in Rajya Sabha that it is "not in favour" of abolishing the capital punishment considering the "prevailing circumstances" in the country.
The court in its judgment said the RJD chief was guilty of fraudulently withdrawing Rs 3.13 crore from the Dumka Treasury between December 1995 and January 1996, when he was the chief minister of undivided Bihar.
Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, whom Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav earlier gave a berth in the Rajya Sabha, was the surprise entry even for senior ministers who were seen asking each other about the background of the man from Punjab.
This is the first time that no-confidence motion notices have been moved against the Modi government in 4 years.
A lot is riding on the Rajya sabha polls that are scheduled for Saturday. Major parties are whisking away candidates of other parties, while protecting their own, MLAs are being sent to 'camps' in the final countdown to the polls for 57 seats. Here is a state-by-state look:
CM Yogi Adityanath said the BJP was getting widespread support from the people.
The results will be declared on July 20 in New Delhi.
The quantum of punishment will be announced on January 3, 2018.
UP now has 16 ministers, the maximum from any state, in an apparent bid to keep the Dalit and other backward class votebank content.
Dharmendra Kumar Singh says the Bihar chief minister may be fighting a losing battle.
Proceedings in Parliament were paralysed for the third day running over a number of issues, including Telangana and death of 40 children in Muzaffarnagar relief camps, preventing the notices for a no-confidence motion from being taken up on Wednesday.
Government floor managers are busy talking to Opposition members to resolve the stand-off over Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti's remarks, in the Rajya Sabha.
'Nitish is now a helpless junior ally of Hindutva.' 'He just cannot think of reining in the hoodlums raging, marauding and killing in the mohallas,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Former chief minister Jagannath Mishra was also found guilty in the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.62 crore from the Chaibasa treasury in the 1990s.
Major political parties in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday ensured victory for all their candidates despite cross voting in Rajya Sabha biennial polls in which senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal emerged triumphant against the Bharatiya Janata Party-backed Independent socialite Preeti Mahapatra.
'That the commandments to officialdom were issued by a BJP functionary and not a minister is a reflection of the Yogi government's work style.'
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
What Readers thought of Article 15.
Attacking the note ban move, Yechury said the PM's assertion that it will impact terror funding has not yielded any result.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expanded his Cabinet and inducted 21 new ministers. Of these, 4 - Manohar Parrikar, JP Nadda, Suresh Prabhu and Birender Singh were appointed as Cabinet ministers. Other than this, Modi has inducted 17 other ministers of state. Here's a quick look at them:
The former finance minister also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the words he chose to attack his predecessor Manmohan Singh, saying he should remember that the Chair he sat on was used by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use right language.
Why are far right Hindu organisations growing in strength? Why is there a rising subscription to Neo-Wahabism, the Saudi Arabian version of contemporary Islam?
'The horrific episode of January 18 in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is quite different from what happened in Muzaffarnagar, UP, in September 2013. The Akhilesh Yadav-led administration in UP and riot-mongers among our political formations need to learn lessons from the response of the state and society in Bihar's Muzaffarpur,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
