Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hailed the diversity of India and said that while our talent may be restricted by language barriers, pride should be taken in the variety of languages that exist in the country.
Amid the ongoing crisis within the Congress in Punjab, its national spokesperson Supriya Shrinate on Friday expressed the hope that its leaders "talk more in private and less in public."
'They just say we agree to your demands in the meetings, which is lip service. But on the ground they do not implement anything.'
Modi, who addressed a poll rally in the Malwa heartland, asked the electorate to vote for the SAD-BJP combine for the third time, warning that Punjab as well as the entire nation could face a "crisis" if government led by any party other than the alliance comes to power.
As the year 2023 comes to an end, a look at some newsy events that shaped the world in the first half of the year.
"On martyrdom day, I pay my respects to Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru who sacrificed their life for the nation," PM said in a statement.
A handsome victory for the BJP in UP would act as confirmation of its recent political choices. The UP chief minister would be cemented in the popular mind as Mr Modi's chosen heir within the Hindutva fold, and presumably as his successor in New Delhi, observes Mihir S Sharma.
Addressing a press conference, Singh said, "There is an attempt to break the morale of CM Kejriwal.
Modi said different laws related to Hindus, Christians and Parsis and the Special Marriage Act 1954 has determined minimum marriage age of 18 years for a woman and 21 years for man but the Muslim Personal Law holds marriage of a girl legal after she has attained puberty.
The BJP hopes that any vote AAP gets should only be from the Congress. At the same time, it does not want AAP to get too much of it. Because, a declining old opponent is a blessing as much as a rising new rival is a threat, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Under flak from the opposition for 'diverting' Covid vaccines to private hospitals to make a profit, the Punjab government on Friday asked them to return all stock meant for the 18-44 age group.
Clearly, her father hopes that a successful tenure in Lahore will give Maryam the ballast to be prime minister after the next general election.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
Wouldn't it be better to join the celebrations with the vast Hindu majority while at the same time criticising Mr Modi/BJP/RSS for politicising it? notes Shekhar Gupta.
He said in the last five years, under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the role of zonal councils has changed from advisory nature to action platforms.
The IPL, which was perhaps the biggest gamble of his life, turned out to be the biggest success story ever, making Lalit Modi a cult in the echelons of global sport.
'For Modi, it's not just winning, but winning with style.'
For any bowling unit, facing the Dhawan-Shaw duo is a scary proposition.
Channi claimed that the permission given to his chopper to fly to Hoshiarpur from Chandigarh was cancelled.
The Congress now knows that it is the only force -- however weakened it might be -- that stands between the BJP and India's evolution into a single-party Republic. Because, once it is out of the way, the BJP could sort out the other regional powers: Co-opting some, demolishing others, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The BJP-led Centre sent the CBI to conduct searches at Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's residence here just after the New York Times published a positive story in its front page about the Delhi model of education, AAP leaders said.
According to farmer union leaders, peasants from various places including Sangrur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Bathinda districts were headed towards Singhu and Tikri borders.
While the markets have factored in a number close to 350 for the BJP and almost 400 for the NDA, 50 seats fewer could trigger a market correction
The AAP on Wednesday last had posted a video story on 'X' featuring industrialist Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Modi. The next day, the party posted a picture of Adani and Modi, and alleged that the prime minister works for the industrialist and not the people.
It also ordered prosecution of the returning officer for the poll, Anil Masih, a BJP leader, for his 'misdemeanour', after finding serious faults in the conduct of the January 30 election.
Scores of protesting farmers from Punjab and Haryana on Saturday took out protest marches against the Centre's three farm laws even as police used a water cannon to disperse cultivators as they broke barricades at the Chandigarh-Mohali border.
Subhash Shankar Parab, a key accused in the Rs 7,000 crore diamantaire Nirav Modi bank fraud case, was "deported" from Cairo on Tuesday after a long diplomatic and legal process, officials said in New Delhi. A CBI team had gone to Egypt's capital to bring back 50-year-old Parab, who was allegedly kept in illegal confinement in a Cairo suburb by Modi, the fugitive diamantaire, they said. The CBI had been chasing Parab, deputy general manager (finance) in Modi's Firestar Diamond and understood to be a key witness to the Letters of Undertaking (LoU) submitted to the Punjab National Bank (PNB) to siphon off over Rs 7,000 crore, they said.
From playing to the Sikh vote bank because Punjab elections are round the corner, to ensuring that a discordant 'us versus them' note was struck, whatever could be done to exploit every last drop of communal appeal, was done, observes Jyoti Punwani.
"Akali Dal is a part of the NDA but it is a separate political outfit. They have taken this decision because of some political reasons. We have an alliance (SAD-BJP) but both are different political outfits. They (SAD) have taken a political decision," said Sharma.
President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, several central ministers and chief ministers and leaders cutting across party lines condoled the demise of former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday and hailed his immense contributions to the state as well as the country.
However, the farmer bodies said they will again block the rail tracks if the government failed to resolve their issues.
Modi seems to have an innate faith in his capabilities to handle the myriad challenges confronting the nation and would rather manage the affairs of the nation as a CEO would of a large industrial-business empire, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The Congress has consciously contested on a lesser number of seats in this Lok Sabha election as part of a strategy to keep the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) together and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has said.
In his absence, the party stares at uncertainty as many of its other senior leaders are either in jail or in political obscurity.
An official source said Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has desired for the resumption of printing of the prime minister's photo on the Covid vaccination certificates in these states on top priority.
With the CAA rules being issued, the Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from the three countries.
Many senior AAP leaders, including Delhi assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, Deputy Speaker Rakhi Bila, ministers Atishi, Gopal Rai and Imran Hussain attended the day-long 'Samuhik Upwas' at Jantar Mantar in the national capital from 11 am.
This is the first time that the House is meeting after the BJP's overwhelming victory in the recent series of assembly elections held in February-March.
Shah thanked the people of Uttarakhand for giving BJP a chance to serve again.
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
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