Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dedicated to the nation the 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the tallest in the world, and said it will be a reminder about the courage of a man who thwarted efforts to disintegrate India.
According to government officials, the Indian arm of Turner Project Management, which worked on the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai, is consultant for the project and construction management.
The Rs 1,989 crore statue being built to honour Sardar Vallabhai Patel has taken 3,000 labourers nearly 5 years to complete.
'When you watch Freedom At Midnight, I want you to feel like you are sitting on a ticking time bomb.'
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday sought to defend his widely criticised statement equating Muhammad Ali Jinnah with Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru and saying they helped India get freedom even as an Uttar Pradesh minister suggested a narco test for him for 'glorifying' the founder of Pakistan.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for delaying the approval for installation of gates at Sardar Sarovar dam, and requested him to at least heed the demand of state Congress leaders on the same.
Modi urged women police personnel to engage women in Jammu and Kashmir to prevent youth from taking to terrorism at an early stage itself.
The Narender Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat had banned Jaswant's book alleging that it defamed the country's first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
The Gujarat government, which banned Jaswant Singh's controversial book on Jinnah alleging it was an attempt to tarnish the image of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, has in its notification described it as "highly objectionable and against national interest".
'Hope to see full stands like last time. Under the leadership of Honble Prime minister @narendramodi Amit Shah @AmitShah ..'
India should have learnt lessons from the 1962 war but no headway was made in the development of border infrastructure till 2014, he claimed, adding that the Modi government increased the budget for the same from Rs 3,500 crore to Rs 14,500 crore.
During the procession that lasted for more than three-and-half hours, he passed through 14 assembly constituencies.
Amid a controversy over the cricket stadium in Ahmedabad being renamed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government on Wednesday said the name change involves only the Motera stadium and the entire sports complex continues to be named after Sardar Patel.
The Sri Lanka police on Wednesday said a senior deputy inspector general will head a team appointed to investigate four of its citizens arrested in Gujarat when on an alleged mission to carry out terror activities in India at the behest of the banned Islamic State.
"We should not mock them but learn from their mistakes," Prasad quoted Modi as having told the gathering.
The BJP's Karnataka unit shared photographs of the artworks inside the new Parliament House, including the murals of ancient India, Chanakya, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and B R Ambedkar and the cultural diversity of the country.
It had organised its 83rd anniversary event last year in Jammu after the government asked all paramilitary or CAPF to hold these events outside the national capital.
Arvind Kejriwal, Mr Anti-Establishment, wants to play politics without being branded as the typical Indian politician so that he can make his mark in the 2014 general election. While hiding his political manoeuvring, the Aam Admi Party's maverick leader is seeking fresh intervention in the agenda of the nation by agitating on the footpaths of New Delhi, says Sheela Bhatt.
The PM spent around 20 minutes with his mother before heading towards Raj Bhavan, where he would be halting for a night.
In an interview to rediff.com, Neerja Singh, author of the book Nehru-Patel: Agreement within Difference, argues that both Nehru and Sardar Patel possessed very different personalities and temperaments, yet both were deeply secular
Two days ahead of his 57th birthday, Union Home Minister Amit Anilchandra Shah offered prayers at the Bahuchar Mataji temple in Mansa, north Gujarat, on Wednesday, October 20.
Jagadish and Anukumar were taken into custody from the district headquarters town of Chitradurga by a team led by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Dinakar.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi flagged off 'Run for Unity', which seeks to drum up support for his pet 'Statue of Unity' project, on the 63rd death anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on Sunday.
The way the system works here, it is difficult to think Akbaruddin Owaisi will be ever be punished for uttering those hateful words, laments Tarun Vijay
Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar on Wednesday said there would have been no Partition had Mohammed Ali Jinnah been made the first prime minister, adding to the row on a remark by Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav.
Rediff takes a look at some of the tallest statues and how tall they stand in comparison.
The Statue of Unity will be double the height of the Statue of Liberty in the USA and five times taller than the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The construction is estimated to cost Rs 2063 crore, and will be completed in four years.
Manprit Juneja cracked a patient 79 as Gujarat scored 232 in their second innings against Punjab on the penultimate day of the Group A Ranji Trophy match at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in Valsad on Monday.
Struggling India spinner regained some of the lost touch with a three-wicket haul as Punjab restricted Gujarat to 261 for nine on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy Group A match, Valsad on Saturday.
Sonia Gandhi said that in the last 75 years, India has left an indelible mark on the international arena in all fields including science, education, health and information technology through the hard work of its talented people.
Stating that sports should be kept free of politics, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Friday that the Pakistan cricket team's tour of the country next month should be welcomed.
The state government had earlier said the 182-metre tall statue will be inaugurated on Sardar Patel's birth anniversary on October 31 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Gujarat legislative assembly was adjourned for 15 minutes on Thursday following chaos in the House as the opposition Congress strongly objected to Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former deputy chief minister Nitin Patel's remark on India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Manmohan Singh government has been speaking in far too many voices for some time now. Debate should not degenerate into cacophony, dissent need not turn into turf battles. Perhaps the time has come for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to once again assert his authority. He has been excessively accommodative of ministerial dissidents. May be it's time he cracked the whip.
The prime minister said everyone in the country is proud of Patel's contribution to India before it attained freedom and during the early years after the nation became independent.
His statement comes two days after Pakistan's Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry admitted his country's role in the Pulwama attack during a debate in their National Assembly (Parliament).
Here is the official schedule of United States President Donald Trump's engagements in India as issued by the Ministry of External Affairs.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced an allocation of Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) for building Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue in Gujarat.
The party said it was 'an inexcusable slip-up', for which responsibility was being fixed and action would be taken.
'It is time India withdraws the complaint from the UN and fully integrates the state of J&K into the Indian Union,' recommends Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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