Ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Member of Legsilative Assembly P Dhanapal on Wednesday became the first Dalit Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Assembly and said he would strive to uphold the ethos of the House. Party supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa led the assembly in greeting the 61 year-old Dhanapal, who was elected unopposed.
When a resolution, moved by Chief Minister M K Stalin, to urge the Centre to implement the Sethusamudram ship canal project was taken up for discussion in the House members spoke on their party stand.
Top Tamil actor Vijay on Friday announced the launch of his political party, Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam, and said he will contest the 2026 assembly polls in the state.
There are challenges galore before him, and it is not going to be easy. In the next four years, he has to conjure a system that changes the optics about him and the BJP both nationally and internationally so that he can ride back on his own, claim the top slot, and not have to lean on a coalition, asserts Ramesh Menon as Modi 3.0 completes a year in power.
Following in Apple's footsteps, Alphabet - Google's parent company - is in advanced talks with Foxconn to manufacture Pixel smartphones in Tamil Nadu, an industrial state which will also double up as drone-manufacturing hub for the US tech giant soon. According to a state government release, officials from Google will soon visit Chennai to meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin to hold discussion on manufacturing of Google Pixel near Chennai.
DMDK leader Vijaykant is observing a one-day token fast at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to express solidarity with the minority Tamil population in Sri Lanka. Addressing his supporters in Tamil, the actor-turned-politician alleged that fishermen from Tamil Nadu were being kidnapped and killed, while they were out fishing on the high seas.Vijaykant, an actor-turned-legislator in the Tamil Nadu assembly, is known as the 'Black MGR' among his fans and followers.
'Tamil Nadu is a state of temples, it's a holy land. People don't seem to realise that.'
Parliament's approval of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, a contentious piece of legislation aimed at reforming Waqf bodies, has sparked strong reactions from the opposition, who allege that the bill was "bulldozed" through Parliament. The bill, considered the government's most consequential legislation in its third term, was passed with comfortable majorities in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha despite opposition claims of a lack of consultation and an intrusion into religious affairs. Other notable bills approved during the session included the Finance Bill, Appropriation Bill, Immigration and Foreigners Bill, and Tribhuvan Sahkari University Bill. The session, which saw high productivity, also witnessed debates on issues such as economic distress, delimitation, and the three-language policy. While the government touted its achievements, the opposition criticized the government's approach and vowed to challenge the Waqf bill in court.
In a resolution adopted in the assembly, the Jayalalithaa government sought diplomatic efforts by India to change any possible pro-Lanka stand adopted by America in the United Nation rights body.
A Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar, would fix the timelines on July 29 and commence hearing on the presidential reference in mid-August.
Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members were on Monday evicted enmasse from Tamil Nadu Assembly with a couple of them being handed a two-day suspension for disrupting the proceedings.
A fiery verbal exchange between Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam leader Vijayakanth and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in the Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday resulted in the DMDK being evicted. Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier talks to analysts and politicians to find out what impact it would have on the political situation in Tamil Nadu.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Hundreds of anti-nuclear activists and leaders of different political outfits were detained in Chennai on Monday when they attempted to lay siege to the Tamil Nadu assembly demanding scrapping of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. S Saraswathi reports.
A one-day special assembly session convened in the midst of the heightened tensions between the two states on the dam issue passed the resolution reasserting the state's right over the 116-year old dam which Kerala wants to be demolished to build a new one on safety concernsA resolution moved by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa said that 'Tamil Nadu cannot lose its rights over false propaganda by Kerala' on the safety of the century-old reservoir.
Sowmiya Anbumani is the president of Pasumai Thayagam, an NGO involved in conservation of nature.
Around 75 per cent polling was registered in the byelection to Tamil Nadu Assembly from Sankarankovil (SC) constituency on Sunday and the exercise was 'by and large peaceful', Election officials said.
'Prashant Kishor is a businessman before he is a politician, and given that the expected average turnout for JSP candidates is 5,000 to 6,000 votes and since Bihar has a significant number of seats where the margin between the winner and runner-up falls within that range he will capitalise on exactly that to showcase his presence.'
The DMK will not stop till Tamil Nadu got exemption from the central qualifying test, Stalin said.
Capitalising on the boycott by main opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance on Friday expectedly swept the by-polls to five Tamil Nadu assembly seats, trouncing actor-politician Vijaykant's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam by impressive margins.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he has asked Apple CEO Tim Cook to stop producing iPhones in India, and rather make them in the US.
Karnataka has the highest number of medical seats in the country at 11,745, of which 3,750 seats were in government institutions and 7,995 seats were in private colleges.
A war of words erupted between the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the DMDK over a hike in bus fares and milk prices last year, which soon turned into a one-on-one clash between Jayalalithaa and Vijayakanth with members on either side up on their feet, causing noisy scenes.
While the BJP went back to the drawing board to recraft its political and governance outreach and regained momentum by notching up surprisingly big wins in a string of assembly polls, the burst of fresh optimism in the main opposition Congress and other INDIA bloc parties fizzled out.
EPS has had its way on most things, alliance-wise. A week earlier, he reiterated that he would not re-admit OPS and Sasikala Natarajan back in the party. It was a message not just to detractors in the AIADMK. It was even more so for the BJP leadership in Delhi. Even more important for the AIADMK was their demand for accepting EPS as the chief ministerial candidate of any alliance that the party would form, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Given the possibilities that next year's assembly elections could throw up, Stalin told the state assembly that an interim report had to be submitted by January 2026. The outcomes may well find its way into the DMK's poll manifesto, thus seeking to keep the electoral focus still on the BJP-ruled Centre and Prime Minister Modi, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
AIADMK MLAs were on Wednesday suspended till Friday by Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker R Avudaiyappan after they were evicted from the House en masse for creating rumpus over remarks made by a ruling DMK member.
Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Members of Legislative Assembly, including M K Stalin, the leader of its Legislature Wing, were on Monday suspended for two days from the Tamil Nadu Assembly for unruly behaviour in the House. Stalin and party MLAs Govi Chezhiyan, Thangam Thennarasu and Moideen Khan had to be physically removed by Marshals after they squatted in front of the Chair of Speaker P Dhanapal.
Leader of the House K Anbazhagan moved the resolution seeking to suspend A K Bose who represents Thiruparakundram constituency for Thursday's incident in the House.
This special biryani from north Kerala is known far and wide for its distinctive taste that comes from the use of a distinctive rice.
President Droupadi Murmu has exercised powers under Article 143(1) used in rarity to know from the Supreme Court whether timelines could be imposed by judicial orders for exercise of discretion by President while dealing with the bills passed by state assemblies.
The first national flag in Independent India was hoisted at Fort St George in Madras, not at Delhi's Red Fort.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday asserted that Marathi is the language of Mumbai and Maharashtra and anyone who lives here should learn and speak it. Fadnavis was speaking in the state assembly after Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Bhaskar Jadhav said the government should clarify its stand on senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi's comments that a person coming to Mumbai may not necessarily learn Marathi.
Leaders of several INDIA bloc parties met the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and raised concerns over its timing, alleging that over two crore voters of the state may be disenfranchised by this mammoth exercise being done just ahead of assembly elections.
Stalin, in an interview to a daily, has refuted the FM's allegations, saying "everyone present in the Assembly knew it was a drama enacted by herself," referring to the late Jayalalithaa.
Following a complaint by a police inspector, the case was registered at Cubbon Park station, they said.
Speaker K Kalimuthu issued arrest warrants against editor N Ravi, executive editor Malini Parthasarthy, publisher S Rangarajan, chief of bureau V Jayant and special correspondent Radha Venkatesan.
They just wanted their angst noticed, and as a symbol of recognition, Jallikattu, restored without the annual ritual of court cases and adjournments, explains N Sathya Moorthy.
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