The ruling Pakistan People's Party has nominated senior leader Makhdoom Shahabuddin for the post of premier following the Supreme Court's disqualification of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. Shahbuddin is also a Sajjada Nashin or the descendant of a Sufi saint like his predecessor Yusuf Raza Gilani.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Neither the BJP, nor the Congress before it, made any manifesto commitments on defence spending, even though allocations have plummeted from 4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the late 1980s to less than 2 per cent today, points out Ajai Shukla.
The Taliban's main challenge comes on the financial and economic front and there Pakistan doesn't have the capacity to be of any meaningful help, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The 73-year-old leader castigated the judges for legitimising military dictators.
Pakistan People's Party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has left on a foreign trip and will not be present in the country when it goes to polls on May 11, according to a media report. Bilawal, 24, will not address any rallies or meetings ahead of the general election due to threats to his life, sources in the PPP were quoted as saying in the report.
The Pakistan prime minister will be from Pakistan People's Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz joint secretary Siddique-ul Farooq said on Friday.
The Opposition PPP on Thursday alleged that the PTI-led government was planning an assault on the Sindh House in the federal capital.
'Minorities should not fear a Modi sarkar... Who has given the right to kill in the name of religion? No one! You are not James Bond 007, that you will just take a shotgun and kill anybody at your whims and fancies. We are not living in a banana republic...' The inimitable Shatrughan Sinha on Narendra Modi as a dabbang action hero, what a Modi Sarkar would be like.
'Everyone knows Pakistan is doing it.' 'But what are we doing? We should not incite more violence.'
A Pakistani court on Wednesday rejected a petition seeking the registration of a criminal case against Mansoor Ijaz, the central character in the memo scandal, for allegedly inciting people against the government. Additional Sessions Judge Wajahat Hussain of Islamabad rejected the petition filed by Khalid Javed, an activist of the ruling Pakistan People's Party.
As Chandigarh braces for a fierce contest between Congress candidate Manish Tewari and the BJP's Sanjay Tandon, its industry leaders harbour a fervent wish: Replicate the success of the National Capital Region model in this Union Territory.
A Pakistani businessman who was inspired by Indian anti-graft campaigner Anna Hazare to begin a fast unto death against corruption ended his protest on Tuesday after parliamentarians assured him of action on his demands.
Struggling to gain political traction on issues of corruption, the West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party is shifting its focus to emotive topics such as the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in a bid to achieve its target of securing 35 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state.
Abbasi will be sworn-in in later at a special ceremony at the President's House.
There is no change in India's Pakistan policy after general elections in the neighbouring country, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Saturday. "There was no change in our policy towards Pakistan," he told mediapersons at the Hindustan Aeronautics complex in Nashik.
Mulk, 67, is likely to be sworn in on Friday, June 1.
Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif has threatened to pull his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party out of the ruling coalition and "sit in the opposition" if judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf are not reinstated by Friday.
The PTI government lost the majority in the lower house of the parliament following the late-night development ahead of the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan on April 3.
'There is a song that fits my father. It is from the Dev Anand film Hum Dono, which goes Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya...'
Former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf's nomination papers for a parliamentary constituency in Rawalpindi were rejected by authorities on Monday, even as the Election Commission completed the verification of nominations of the 24,094 candidates contesting the May 11 polls.
Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said that the office of President of Pakistan was the 'right' of his party and the Sindh province. He added that a dedicated worker of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto's party would soon be installed at the post.''I know it very well that there are some remnants of dictatorship, who want to destabilise the coalition government,'' he said without naming President Pervez Musharraf and his political allies.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
In a sign of growing rancour between Pakistan's ruling coalition partners, Pakistan People's Party chairman Asif Ali Zardari has lashed out at Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Shahbaz Sharif for not taking steps to release his friend, who is in a Punjab jail for nine years on charges of drug smuggling. The PML-N president has reportedly turned down the request though his party is in power in Punjab.
A central leader of radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, Rehmat Salam Khattak, is among 30 arrested in raids following the attack on the temple in Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Karak district on Wednesday, Station House Officer Rehmatullah Khan told PTI.
A day after Pakistan agreed to grant former prime minister Benazir Bhutto an amnesty from prosecution in corruption cases against her, Interpol has put the govt in a fix by enquiring about her status. Interpol had issued red corner notice on Bhutto.
'We are losing the battle of secularism, but we have not lost.'
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari plans to not only disband the political wing of the spy agency but also make it accountable to his country's parliament, reports Amir Mir
"I want to make a promise to the people that the next election will be held on time and will be fair, free and impartial," Zardari told a meeting of workers of his Pakistan People's Party at Khairpur in Sindh province on Sunday
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
The ruling Pakistan People's Party on Friday named former IT Minister Raja Parvez Ashraf as it candidate for the post of prime minister hours before a special session of Parliament convened to elect a new premier.
His comments come against the backdrop of a campaign by Opposition parties, including the Trinamool Congress, which has claimed that applying for CAA would turn legal citizens into foreigners.
Pakistan was "drowning" in debt and it was the new government's job to "sail this ship ashore," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday.
Crucial reforms in Muslim personal law, especially laws related to inheritance and adoption, need to be initiated forthwith; historically speaking, without the State's backing, hardly has any reform taken place or allowed to prevail, asserts Mohammad Sajjad.
India cannot afford to be complacent about a possible Pakistan resort to military options across the LoC, warns Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
Fetching drinking water from a mosque in Pakistan's Punjab province landed a Hindu family in trouble as some people tortured and held them hostage for 'violating the sanctity' of their place of worship, a media report said.
Shah assured members of minority communities that none of them will lose citizenship due to the CAA.
Asked about the PPP's move to link the restoration of judges with a Constitutional package for judicial reforms, Sharif said the two could not be linked. "We have been discussing both since Wednesday and that (Constitutional package) is a separate issue. The restoration (of the judges) will take place through a resolution," Sharif said after a meeting with PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.
This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
