Communist Party of India-Marxist's acting state secretary and Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener A Vijayaraghavan on Monday said that the Kerala government will have a 21-member cabinet.
Rescue teams on Friday used GPS coordinates from aerial drone pictures and cell phones, including the last location of people who lived in the landslides-hit areas of Wayanad to help locate survivors, amidst accelerated search operations after the completion of the 190-foot-long Bailey bridge by the Army.
"One can understand when a woman is raped once. But what if she repeatedly says it. A woman with self respect will either die by suicide after she is raped or try not to be sexually assaulted again."
'Rahul Gandhi is the face of the INDIA alliance. If he contests against a BJP candidate and defeats her/him, it will send a strong message.'
Another former Congressman and the current BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said nothing has changed in the Congress since he was 'forced out' of the party for 'speaking against dynasty'.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's tally in Rajya Sabha has dipped below 90 for the first time in several years but the party and its allies are expected to not only recoup the their losses but also make some gains when by-elections to fill the existing vacancies are held in the coming weeks.
In a stunning electoral victory, the ruling Communist Party if India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), rode back to power in Kerala winning 99 of the 140 seats, bucking the over four decade long trend of Communists and Congress-led United Democratic Front coming to power alternatively.
The Congress leader said his sister Priyanka Gandhi will be representing Wayanad if the people give her an opportunity and expressed confidence that she will do an excellent job at being their MP.
Wayanad will continue to support Rahul but not to the same extent as in 2019, when his margin of victory had been enormous. Articulate, to the point and speaking in fluent Malayalam, CPI's Annie Raja, had the people who gathered to see her, listening in rapt attention, notes Shyam G Menon.
Shashi Tharoor, who is eyeing a fourth consecutive win from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, has declared assets of over Rs 55 crore in his nomination papers.
Apparently rattled by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's Malabar tour, Leader of Opposition in the Kerala assembly, V D Satheesan on Tuesday said any kind of sectarianism or parallel activities would not be allowed in the party and warned that such moves would be dealt with 'seriously'.
The recently held presidential election and the historic victory of Droupadi Murmu are likely to create political ripples in Kerala as the NDA candidate received an unexpected vote from the southern state.
Sources within the Congress, including those who have been members of the teams that drafted its 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha poll manifestos, said the Karnataka government decision lacked any empirical basis.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
'Initially, I didn't think much of him. But when I walked alongside him, I realized he has what it takes.'
The meeting of the Joint Committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill took an ugly turn as the Trinamool Congress MP smashed a glass water bottle and threw it towards panel chairman Jagdambika Pal of the Bharatiya Janata Party during a heated exchange of words with BJP's Abhijit Gangopadhyay, a former Calcutta high court judge.
Much drama is likely to continue in the coming year, within the Sangh Parivar as well as involving the Opposition parties and, of course the BJP's allies, predicts Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Gandhi, a former Congress president, represented Amethi in Parliament from 2002 till 2019.
Kadoth Govindan Nair had remained in the fray for the Rajya Sabha elections despite the wishes of Sonia Gandhi.
Both parties refusing to yield on the key issue of number of DIC-K candidates contesting on Congress symbol.
A Congress source termed the process of drafting and presenting of the Bill before the state cabinet on Monday as a "unilateral" effort by the chief minister's office and ministers that are close to him.
Modi hit out at the Congress for its president Mallikarjun Kharge's attempt to play down his party's poor show in the polls by describing it as "small state elections".
It has decided to drop proceedings in the palmolein import case in which former CM figures as an accused.
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
The fallout from the Justice K Hema Committee report on harassment and abuse in the Malayalam film industry intensified on Monday as a case was filed against well-known filmmaker Ranjith, and several female actors stepped forward with disturbing accounts of the mistreatment they faced at the hands of their various male counterparts.
Even as political pressure was building against Ranjith, actor Siddique quit as the general secretary of Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) amid voices from within his fraternity seeking his resignation.
Sunil Ambekar, RSS Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh, said caste and caste-relations were a "very sensitive issue" for the Hindu society and it is an important issue "for our national unity and integrity".
The direction came on an application filed in a suit by Congress member Pridhwyraj P, who was suspended from the party in 2019, seeking directions to quash the suspension order on the ground that it was in violation of the party's rules and by-laws.
Stepping up the campaign for a new dam at Mullaperiyar, State Finance Minister and Kerala Congress (M) chief K M Mani is observing a day-long fast at Chappath in Mullaperiyar on Monday while his colleague and Water Resources Minister P J Joseph is fasting in New Delhi.
In a boost to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala on Wednesday retained the Piravom assembly seat with its candidate Anoop Jacob winning by a margin of 12,070 votes. While Anoop Jacob (Kerala Congress-Jacob), a constituent of the UDF, garnered 82,756 votes, Left Democratic Front's S M J Jacob got 70,686 votes. Bharatiya Janata Party's K R Rajagopal polled 3241 votes. There were nine candidates in the fray.
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will have to resign within two weeks from one of the two seats he won in the just-held Lok Sabha elections, a constitutional expert said citing provisions in the law as well as the Constitution.
Democratic Indira Congress (K) state vice president and former Kerala minister P Sankaran on Wednesday announced that he was quitting the party and returning to the Congress.
Singh targeted the Congress using a 'snakes and ladders' analogy, saying the party will fall to zero from 99 after being bitten by a snake -- referring to the grand old party winning 99 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
Tension gripped Kerala as an unidentified person allegedly hurled an explosive substance at the state headquarters of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist on Thursday night.
'Kerala is on a par with global standards.'
The three and half year old Achuthanandan cabinet is on the verge of expansion with three ministers getting into the ministry after taking the oath of office.
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