In a firm indication of fast-changing political equations in the influential sugar belt of Western Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party have shaken the monolith of Congress-Nationalist Congress Party clout ingrained in the cooperative network with spectacular gains in the Assembly elections.
While Delhi reported 19,486 Covid cases in the last 24 hours, Maharashtra logged 63,729 infections.
An editorial in the Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' termed the Supreme Court order as the victory of "women power", and said the Centre needs to change its attitude and vision. The apex court's verdict meant there was a problem in the central government's "mental frame", it said.
'While it is very easy to blame the chief minister, the bureaucracy should be held accountable. Chief ministers come every five years but bureaucracy is a permanent setup. The bureaucracy is trained for handling such situations with alacrity.'
Intelligence sleuths have started probing the links of Shailesh Jadhav, an ex-armyman arrested by the Pune police for involvement with the Inter Services Intelligence.
There were no reports of damage to life or property following the tremor which had its epicenter in the Koyna dam region in Satara district.
Lakhs of people, including men and women, students, working professionals, lawyers and doctors from the community, participated in the march, under the umbrella of 'Maratha Kranti Muk Morcha'.
Incessant rain has lashed parts of Mumbai on Tuesday morning, disrupting local train services and road traffic with water logging in several low-lying areas. The weatherman has predicted widespread rainfall in the state during the next 36 hours.
"Both the number of new patients and that of deaths are highest for a single day so far," an official said. 79 persons tested positive for COVID-19 during the day, taking the number of such cases in the country's financial capital to 775, the civic body said.
The RPI-A is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Over 20,000 people were evacuated to safer places in these three districts. State capital Mumbai too witnessed water-logging in many areas after overnight rains on Thursday.
High-profile figures Eknath Khadse and Vindo Tawde are missing from it.
The Congress leader submitted his resignation as an MLA to Assembly Speaker Haribhau Bagade at his office. Bagade accepted his resignation, along with that of Congress MLA Abdul Sattar and state minister Girish Bapat.
Two low intensity tremors, whose epicentre lay close to Koyna dam in Satara district, shook parts of Maharashtra, including Pune and Mumbai, on Tuesday.
35 districts have been reporting high active COVID-19 caseload and fatality rate. These 35 districts comprise all 11 districts in Delhi, Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and 24 South Parganas in West Bengal; Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Kolhapur, Sangli, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Raigad, Jalgaon, Solapur, Satara, Palghar, Aurangabad, Dhule and Nanded in Maharashtra; Surat in Gujarat; Pondicherry in Puducherry and East Singhbhum in Jharkhand.
In potentially controversial remarks, Union minister and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday asked his party workers to take advantage of the multi-phase polling in the state by voting twice, first at their hometowns and then at their places of work.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com presents 10 dynasts of the BJP who have managed to get elected this time round.
If their resignations are accepted, they may even go back to Bengaluru, they added.
An ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh, including an immediate relief of Rs 50,000, was announced by the collector for the kin of the deceased.
'Indians are not greedy people. They don't want the moon. But they have a right to demand basic necessities. And these Indians have now become vociferous about these demands,' says Anandrao Vithoba Adsul who will receive the Sansad Ratna award for raising the highest number of questions in Parliament.
Facing a storm of protest over his "urine" remarks on drought situation in Maharashtra, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar sat on a day-long 'aatma-klesh' (penance) fast at Karad in Satara district Sunday morning.
The exit polls have predicted the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena alliance getting elected in Maharashtra but have differed in their projection of a number of seats.
The Bihar Assembly on Tuesday strongly protested manhandling of students and parents hailing from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in Satara allegedly by workers of Maharashtra's Navnirman Sena of Raj Thackray.
Amid clamour for his resignation over controversial remarks on drought, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said any decision on the issue would be taken only after consulting party legislators.
A mild intensity earthquake with a magnitude of 3.2 on the Richter scale stuck the Koyna dam region in Satara on Monday night, officials said.
A local court has ordered the police to issue a Non-Bailable Warrant against a doctor couple in Parli, Maharashtra -- Sudam and Saraswati Munde -- in an illegal sex determination case. In 2010, Satara-based social activist Varsha Deshpande had carried out a sting operation at Sudam Munde's hospital in Parli tehsil of Beed for allegedly conducting illegal sex determination tests.
The income tax department has conducted searches at the premises of Maharashtra minister Bhaskar Jadhav, after he came under scanner for the lavish wedding hosted at Chiplun, when many parts of the state were facing the prospect of a severe drought.
Model-turned-actress Sshakshi Chovan will play a pivotal role in the Tamil film based on the Pakistani terrorist's life
The Shiv Sena on Friday targeted the Centre by questioning the "efficacy" of the 2016 surgical strike and said the perception that it would demoralise Pakistani terrorists remained an "illusion" as Indian soldiers continue to get killed in terror attacks in Kashmir. Accusing the Modi government of boasting about how Pakistan was straightened out after the surgical strike, the Sena sought to know whether it has really happened. It also observed that troubled borders were not good for the country's well-being.
Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar, who resigned as Maharashtra deputy chief minister after allegations of irregularities in irrigation projects, today launched a veiled attack on chief minister Prithviraj Chavan over 'tardy pace' of clearing files.
While FMCG companies were not barred from carrying out their operations during the 21-day lockdown, since most manufacture staples and essential products, capacity utilisation remained poor, owing to the restricted movement of raw materials, finished goods, and labour.
Founder of India's first rural bank for women, Chetna Sinha says more women run banks will empower them financially and lead to betterment of our society.
Rediff.com brings you a combined update of the effect of Thursday's Bharat bandh, called by the National Democratic Alliance, Left parties and Samajwadi Party to protest against the latest hike in petrol prices, from various parts of the country.
Pankaj Vasani tells us how he moved from an unhealthy life to walking and running 20 kilometres a day.
Over the last decade, individual Muslims have started breaking from the tradition of sacrificing animals on Bakra Eid, motivated by the thought that the considerable amount spent on buying and sacrificing animals would be put to better use for the community's welfare, specially education.
Nearly 6,000 passengers were stranded as train services on the Konkan Railway route in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district were suspended on Thursday after a river overflowed following heavy rains, while incessant downpour badly hit road and rail traffic in several parts of the state, including around Mumbai, as authorities called in NDRF to help the administration in rescue efforts.
The police, fire brigade, teams of the National Disaster Response Force and local trekkers were making efforts to pull out all bodies from the accident spot, a senior police official said.
