The economic situation has led to huge protests with demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Rajya Sabha member Raut questioned why Gandhi was raking up issues which touch the people's emotional chord and giving the Bharatiya Janata Party a chance on a platter to divert attention.
'The army has neither any role in the country's electoral process nor has it any desire to do so,' he said.
Failure to reinstate salary even two years after the drastic cuts has landed the airline industry in a massive industrial relation crisis. While employees of Air India had organised a strike back in 2011, it is for the first time that private airlines are facing serious stress related to workers. IndiGo witnessed two of them, back to back. In the first instance, around 50 per cent of the IndiGo flights were delayed as a large number of crew members went on mass sick leave, apparently to participate in a rival airline's walk-in job interview.
Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi had convened an emergency meeting of newly reconstituted Council of Ministers in view of the 'Bharat Bandh' call given by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) to protest against the three agri laws, an official statement said after the cabinet meeting.
The opposition strategy to corner the government on Manipur will continue in the Rajya Sabha as well, the sources said.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said they will pose three questions a day to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue.
The consequences are dire as essential medical treatments, including dialysis, and medicines for cancer and anti-AIDS drugs remain out of reach for those in desperate need.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was hurt mildly on his forehead in stone throwing by Left Democratic Front workers protesting against the solar panel scam in Kannur on Sunday.
The Supreme Court on Monday extended till September 15 its order asking the Manipur police not to take any coercive steps against four members of the Editors Guild of India (EGI) in connection with two FIRs lodged against them for alleged offences, including promoting enmity between two communities.
Kovind said he always considered himself as a part of the larger family, which included the members of parliament.
The MCA stadium at Gahunje in Pune will host the remaining six 'home' matches of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings (CSK) after these were shifted from the southern city following protests over the Cauvery water-sharing issue in the Tamil Nadu capital.
Without naming the Congress, he said the frustration of a party, which ruled for four generations, was at the root of this politics of opposition for opposition's sake.
The hunger strike between 8 am and 5 pm is part of the farmers' plan to intensify their agitation from Monday.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is currently facing public demand for his resignation over his mishandling of the economic crisis, is the man who ruthlessly ended Sri Lanka's nearly 30-year civil war with the LTTE with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009.
He said the prime minister has received global recognition and India was rising under his leadership.
Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting at various borders of the national capital for more than a month against the laws and are demanding that these be repealed.
Tikait has been at loggerheads with various governments on a range of farmers' issues, including loan waivers, minimum support price, power tariff and land acquisition in states such as UP, Haryana Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh.
While seven of the suspended MPs belonged to the TMC, six were from the DMK, three from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, two from the Communist Party of India-Marxist and one from the Communist Party of India.
The remarks came as farmer leaders Darshan Pal, Balbir Singh Rajewal, Gurnam Singh Chaduni and Rakesh Tikait of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha held an interaction with the press at Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border.
A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office on Monday said that Mahinda Rajapaksa intends to propose a new Constitutional Amendment to the cabinet in order to fulfil the people's aspirations.
The Congress leader also accused the Central government of lying on national television.
"Dialogue is the only solution to the ongoing crisis in Manipur," Shah said.
Community kitchens punctuate the sea of farmers who have descended on the site and are in no mood to relent or retreat until their demands are met by the Centre.
India's capital -- New Delhi -- is witnessing farmers from Punjab and Haryana sitting in at the Singhu and Tikri border points for the past five days, braving water cannons, tear gas and the biting cold. Their reason to protest - the Centre's new farm laws. Here's what it looks like.
Ghanwat, also a senior leader of Shetkari Sangathan, said he will mobilise one lakh farmers and bring them to Delhi in the next couple of months demanding farm reforms.
Modi hit out at deleterious influences from abroad, referring to them as 'foreign destructive ideology', as well as a new "breed" of agitators -- 'Andolan-jivi' -- in the country who cannot live without a tumult.
With assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh nearing, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been expressing confidence of winning for the third consecutive term, is facing dissidence over ticket distribution to some sitting members of Legislative Assembly, party sources said.
Participating in the discussion on the Motion on Thanks to President's Address to the joint sitting of Parliament, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and Congress member Ghulam Nabi Azad suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself should make the announcement on repeal of the laws. Modi was present in the House at the time.
Scores of PTI workers and policemen suffered injuries in the violent clashes. So far, no casualty has been reported.
MPs from 10 Opposition parties on Thursday wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla saying that the situation at Ghazipur border was like that of India-Pakistan border and condition of farmers resembles prisoners in jail.
Mamata alleged that the BJP and the CPI-M were provoking doctors and giving communal colour to the issue.
'The committee was confident that the recommendations will pave the way to resolve the ongoing farmers' agitation'
Describing the protests as a "mutiny against Pakistan", the government on Tuesday turned to Parliament for support as demonstrators continued to put pressure on a defiant Nawaz Sharif to quit as prime minister.
Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Sunday reiterated that the Centre was ready to talk to the farmers protesting against the new agriculture laws, and said that mere gathering of crowd does not lead to revocation of legislations.
Expressing her anguish over the pain of farmers, Badal, leader of the ruling BJP's erstwhile ally, said, "It is strange that farmers are spending nights in open during the chilling winters and even then their demands are falling on deaf ears."
Hours after making the statement, the Haryana agriculture minister said he has seen "twisted" statements, attributed to him, on social media.
A youth was injured in a clash and 35 people were detained in Jammu, which witnessed a shutdown for the fifth consecutive day on Tuesday as the protests demanding an AIIMS in Jammu continued unabated.
Amid protests and anger in some quarters against observing 'Hindi Diwas', Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said on Wednesday his government is bringing in a legislation to make Kannada "mandatory" in the state.
As many as 37 farmer leaders, including Rakesh Tikait, Yogendra Yadav, Darshan Pal and Gurnam Singh Chaduni, have been named in a first information report in connection with the violence during the tractor parade that left 300 police personnel injured even as two farmer unions on Wednesday withdrew from the agitation against the farm laws.
