What some of our leaders were up to this week.
Glimpses from the At Home reception hosted by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Republic Day.
Veteran party leader Anil Vij will seek re-election from his Ambala Cantt stronghold.
Defending champions Mumbai got their Ranji Trophy campaign back on track with an emphatic nine-wicket win over Maharashtra in their second group A league game in Mumbai on Monday, offsetting the heavy loss to Baroda in the opening game.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
Fissures surfaced among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners ahead of the Jharkhand assembly elections as the Rashtriya Janata Dal on Saturday expressed disappointment over the announcement of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Congress contesting 70 of 81 seats in the state.
Monsoon's first spell in Delhi early Friday inundated the most posh areas of the city alike, including the Lutyens' Delhi which is home to several ministers and MPs, giving them a hard time reaching Parliament for the 18th Lok Sabha session.
Eighteen more people lost their lives after allegedly consuming illicit liquor in dry Bihar's Siwan and Saran districts, taking the toll in the tragedy to 24, officials said on Thursday.
The road accident took place late Thursday night when the victims were returning from a wedding function in the Nawabganj area of Pratapgarh, Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Awasthi said.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
Kumar had recently dumped the 'Mahagathbandhan', of which the Rashtriya Janata Dal was a key constituent, and returned to the NDA fold to form the government with support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
He promised a grand city inspired by Cambodia's sprawling Angkor Wat, in the state if his party comes to power.
"Had there been no demolition, probably the courts too would have ordered status quo," he said then. And his last wish, he said, was to live till the temple comes up.
Ramgopal was expelled from the party for six years on October 23.
After the Mahagathbandan rejected his overtures, the need for political survival forced Pashupati Kumar Paras to stick with the NDA. The BJP may reward him with a governor's post after the election.
'Congress leaders are ready to lose the election and not form the government, but are never ready to share seats with others.'
Even as parleys continue in both states, the grand old party is expected to contest less than 110 seats in the November 20 polls for the 288-member Maharashtra assembly.
A summary of Friday's action in the Ranji Trophy matches across the country.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
National Democratic Alliance nominee Om Birla was elected as Lok Sabha speaker on Wednesday after a motion moved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was adopted through voice vote, capping intense debate on the issue with the opposition in a rare move proposing its own candidate.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
'We want to strengthen hands of Modiji and sure that LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest polls as an ally of NDA.'
'Wrong feedback was given against Parasji to the top BJP leadership in New Delhi by a senior BJP leader, who is also a Union minister from Bihar.' 'He deliberately provided wrong information about the RLJP to the BJP leadership to help Chirag Paswan.'
Swami Prasad Maurya, who recently stirred controversy over his remarks on Ramcharitmanas, and veteran leader Azam Khan are also among the 14 national general secretaries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
He sought interim stay of the decision of Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.
A Janata Dal-United leader was allegedly murdered in Bihar's Nalanda district in the early hours of Monday, the police said.
During Monday's net session, Bumrah repeatedly made short work of the batter often sending his off-stump cart-wheeling for fun
'It does not understand economics. The entire focus of this government is skewed.'
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
The government on Wednesday named nine out of 15 members of the 'Shri Ram Janambhoomi Teertha Kshetra' trust constituted for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya as mandated by the Supreme Court. Here's all you need to know about the members of the trust who have been named so far.
JD-U chief whip Shravan Kumar said those defying the whip "will lose their membership" even as he maintained that it was a "routine exercise that takes place ahead of every assembly session".
Rebel Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Ram Kripal Yadav met top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in New Delhi amid indications that he would cross over to saffron ranks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Tuesday resigned as the party's national general secretary accusing the leadership of discriminating against him and not defending him over his remarks.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
