Electoral fortunes of 1,302 candidates, including over half a dozen ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, will be sealed on Tuesday with 3.70 crore voters eligible to exercise their franchise across 122 assembly segments in the second and final phase of the Bihar polls.
During Emergency Indira Gandhi acquired absolute power. Lakhs of political opponents, students, activists were arrested.
Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday ruled out divestment of loss-making Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd saying the government would revive the ailing public sector unit.
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One is a budding cricketer and the other is a wannabe actor, but politics is what they have in common. Tejaswi Yadav, a cricketer, is better known as the son of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad's son. Chirag Paswan, who is looking for a break in Bollywood, is the son of Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan.
With nominations for the first phase of Bihar elections closing soon, the INDIA bloc is struggling to finalize seat sharing, while the NDA has announced its candidates. Key political figures are actively campaigning.
"The JD-U and BJP are engaging in shadow boxing. There appears to be an agreement between BJP and JD-U that they would play Hindu and Muslim cards, respectively, to confuse voters," Paswan said while commenting on the recent tiff between the two ruling coalition partners of Bihar.
The Union Minister for Chemicals, Fertilisers and Steel Ram Vilas Paswan on Monday said from April 1 onwards, the prices of drugs would include local taxes.
"The price cap has been imposed taking into account the sharp increase in prices of raw materials used in making of face masks and hand santiser," Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.
Union Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday announced the decision to merge the ailing steel plant with the Steel Authority of India Ltd and said the proposal would now be taken to the Union Cabinet for formal approval.
Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Thursday that the Union government will introduce maximum retail price-based pricing regime for medicines
Apparently angry over the delay in finalisation of seats among United Progressive Alliance allies in Bihar, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday stepped up pressure on the Rashtriya Janata Dal, threatening to go it alone if an alliance does not happen soon. "I have directed my party workers to be ready to contest on all 40 seats in Bihar as the alliance talks do not appear to have fructified till now," said Paswan.
Government has initiated action against six pharmaceutical companies, including Cadilla, Wockhardt and Lupin, for overpricing medicines and launching unapproved formulations in the market.
"We want to make it clear that we have no relations (with LJP), and we do not like this politics of spreading confusion," BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar said.
The long-standing Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal-United alliance stood the test of time again with the combine scoring a landslide victory in the Bihar assembly polls on the development plank.
Outcome of this assembly election could be even more confused -- in terms of forming a government -- than the February poll, says psephologist.
In a bid to prevent a split in the LJ legislature party in Bihar, party national general secretary Suraj Bhan Singh arrived in Patna on Sunday morning to take back the available party MLAs to Delhi to attend a meeting called by Paswan.
'Dynastic politics has become a tool of convenience for political parties. The BJP does not hesitate to accept it when it comes to its own alliance or party candidates. The same goes for the others.'
Team Anna is reaching out to the members of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Lokpal Bill to ensure that their concerns are addressed in the recommendations they will be sending.
Ram Vilas Paswan said that the Congress and its allies would again meet on May 25 to give a final shape to the CMP.
Government on Tuesday warned private steel producers to check prices or be prepared for an intervention, a move that may lead to controlling of prices, which were deregulated almost a decade ago, indirectly.
The Energy Co-ordination Committee, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would meet on Tuesday with gas pricing, gas sourcing and gas allocation as the main topics on the agenda, an official source said.
LJP to tie up with Congress in WB, go it alone in TN, Kerala, Pondicherry
BJP sources said a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance is expected to take place soon to highlight its growing strength and to dispel the impression that the departure of some of its oldest allies such as the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal and the Janata Dal-United have the left the saffron party without a major partner.
While politicians and pundits speculate a strong possibility of their coming together, the two young leaders, however, told prying journalists their meeting was a result of "family relations" that went back to ties shared by their fathers.
The centre on Thursday said a memorandum of understanding with Korean steel major Posco and the Orissa government would be inked by the end of this month.
The poll results give the ruling Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance 170 seats in the 243-member house. The Laloo Prasad Yadav-Ram Vilas Paswan alliance is set to be reduced to 34 seats, according to the predictions.
Government on Friday assured the Rajya Sabha that essential drugs would not come under the new patent regime and companies manufacturing patented drugs would not be closed down.
A delegation of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Members of Parliament, including some union ministers, on Tuesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to demand that an order providing reservation in government jobs be replaced by an Act to bring greater benefits to them. "Members of the SC/ST Parliamentary Forum met the prime minister today to demand that an Act is necessary to provide reservations to SC/ST, which is done through a government order," LJP chief Paswan said.
'If the JD-U wants to join hands with LJP, then it will have to break its alliance with BJP and in case Congress and Left Front want to have alliance with LJP, they are warmly welcome,' Paswan said.
With assembly polls due in Bihar later this year, political parties have gone on an offensive to woo different caste and community groups in the state.
Paswan has said that this is not a vote gimmick but a genuine concern of the party.
With 'go solo' being the mantra for Congress after its success in Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, the party is now set to dump Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal in the Bihar assembly elections scheduled later this year. An indication to this effect came when All Indian Congress Committee in-charge of the state Jagdish Tytler and Pradesh Congress Committee president Anil Sharma recently met party president Sonia Gandhi.
First Goa, now Gujarat!
The march began at the historic Gandhi Maidan, and Paswan and his supporters were detained near the Income Tax roundabout, about 4 km away, as they tried to proceed to the Raj Bhavan in Patna's high-security zone, shouting slogans against the government and carrying placards that read 'Bihar Bachao' (Save Bihar).
The Australian government has supported a proposal from Indian steel companies for acquiring equity stakes in coking coal companies and coking coal properties in the country.
Accompanied by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, 72-year-old Pratibha filed the documents before the returning officer and Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary at the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
The Union government has reconstituted the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its chairman.
