It is shocking story of chalta hai (take it easy) attitude of the state and Central government that has caused such misery to people of Bihar. By all accounts, Kosi has not fully flooded yet, says a source in Kathmandu who has visited the area. If more rains hit the area in September then, the situation will be more dangerous than it is now.
A meeting of Opposition parties, organised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will be held in Patna on June 23, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
Gandhi also took a potshot at the RSS, saying it was bent on changing the country's Constitution.
Fernandes has said that a lot of delegates were appointed without organisational elections.
Last ditch efforts have been mounted to avert a contest in the battle for Janata Dal (United) presidentship in which Parliamentary Board chairman Sharad Yadav appears to have an edge over incumbent George Fernandes.
Her lone engineer son, Nishant, lit the funeral pyre. Manju Sinha died in a private hospital in New Delhi on Monday after a prolonged illness.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday met Rahul Gandhi at his residence in New Delhi as the talks on alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar polls gained momentum.
Bihar's ruling JD-U and Lalu Prasad's RJD will contest the state assembly elections in alliance and a 6-member committee will be constituted for seat-sharing talks.
After days of tough posturing between leadership of the Janata Dal-United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar on the issue of alliance for the assembly elections, action has now shifted to the national capital, where top leaders from both the parties will meet to thrash out the differences.
Earlier this week, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi held a series of meetings, including with Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Janata Dal-United president Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan.
"NCP president Sharad Pawar, Loktantrik Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav, DMK chief MK Stalin, Bihar's former deputy chief minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, SP president Akhilesh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal among other opposition leaders will attend the oath-taking ceremony in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh on December 17," said well-placed sources.
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'.
Ahead of the day-long Opposition meeting on Friday, Samvad Bhavan, Rajkiye Atithisala and Sadaquat Ashram have got a facelift.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (United) have reached a no-poaching pact ahead of the polls in Karnataka.
"The BJP is the largest ally in the National Democratic Alliance and it is for that party to take a decision. So, Advani's choice is but natural," he added.
All political parties were asked at the dinner meeting on Monday night to suggest names for the alliance and the same would be discussed and consensus would be arrived at during the deliberations.
Speculation is rife that Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United is likely to support the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance's choice for the upcoming Presidential poll. This ties in with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's refusal to attend the meeting of non-BJP parties called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on May 26. The meeting will discuss the presidential polls and the way ahead for the opposition to tackle the BJP.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
The technology-driven futures trading in gold and silver would fulfill its objectives only if poor farmers and small goldsmiths benefit from it, Sharad Yadav, minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution, said in New Delhi on Friday.
The online gold futures trade on the National Multi Commodity Exchange of India will be launched by Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Sharad Yadav in New Delhi on Friday.
Gandhi's name was the only name discussed when 18 opposition parties met to decide on their candidate for the vice presidential poll, the sources said.
Opposition leaders asked all secular forces to field a joint candidate for presidential elections and have common minimum programme to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party, reports Archis Mohan.
2019 was the Bharatiya Janata Party's breakout year, when it stretched the boundaries of what was thought possible and ended up with 303 seats on its own steam. Now it is forced to play defence, on a pitch queered by too many variables, asserts Prem Panicker.
Kumar also asserted that his efforts should reap benefits for the younger generation, "for people like (his deputy) Tejashwi Yadav".
Kumar, who is now heading an alliance government in Bihar which includes the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and the Left, has reached out to leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, all of whom are opposed to the BJP but not very comfortable with the grand old party either.
Nitish Kumar on Monday escalated the stand-off in the ruling JD-U in Bihar.
The central government on Thursday ruled out the restructuring of the Food Corporation of India and instead asked the states to remove the shortcomings in the public distribution system.\n\n
It is impossible to say when would these leaders stab each other for political gains," it said.
The government has taken action against 28 manufacturers of packaged drinking water and natural mineral water for deviating from prescribed specifications, Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.
With the Modi government battling propriety issues over the Lalit Modi row and the furore on Vyapam scam, leaders of "like-minded" parties will meet for Congress president Sonia Gandhi's Iftar dinner on Monday where they are likely to deliberate on the strategy for Parliament session beginning July 21.
Leaders of several like-minded opposition parties are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday in Bengaluru.
'If unity is not going to be based on values and principles, how will we achieve it?'
In switching over, Nitish has sent out a message that if he could not now become the NDA's PM, then he would need to stay on as CM at the very least, which a third term for Modi would not let him have, N Sathiya Moorthy points out.
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
His son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav lit the funeral pyre. The former Uttar Pradesh CM had died aged 82 at a private hospital in Haryana's Gurugram on Monday.
Amid raging controversy over quality of bottled water, the government on Monday said the high-level inquiry panel probing alleged presence of deadly pesticides in branded packaged water would soon submit its findings.
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