Shashi Tharoor has also been retained as the chairman of the panel on Information Technology.
Various indicators make it amply clear that there are grave challenges facing the new government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
During the second phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, 30,000 Indians are being brought back in India from 31 countries on board 149 flights between May 16 and 22.
As he snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Bihar's caretaker chief minister Nitish Kumar has once again been pitched as a prime ministerial candidate for the 2024 elections by some, but a majority of the Opposition still view the Janata Dal-United leader with suspicion citing his numerous 'U-turns'.
'I do not want to get into the number game. This time, the BJP will get unprecedented seats and vote percentage in Gujarat.'
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
Both the BJP and the Congress have banked on new and young faces, some of whom have been nominated by the parties for the first time.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The CBI has sought help from authorities in the US in tracking two accused, C Prabhakar Reddy who is also known as "Punch" Prabhakar and Mani Annapureddy, believed to be staying in that country in connection with a case related to alleged derogatory social media posts against judges and the judiciary, officials said on Thursday.
He said his official FB page had been 'hacked and blocked' in 2018 but that there has been no response from the police on a complaint filed by him on the matter so far.
He served as Union minister of information and broadcasting in the IK Gujral government and was allotted different portfolios in the Manmohan Singh government.
With key UPA allies -- the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Trinamul Congress and Nationalist Congress Party members -- clearly expressing their resentment to a new state, sources say the Congress is now looking to find a way out of the situation.
The fight between Jaganmohan Reddy and Chandrababu Naidu for the political supremacy in Seema-Andhra region has taken an interesting turn.
To help the country emerge as a true welfare State, political parties must put the country's interests first before strategising to win elections and short-term goals, argues Ramesh Menon.
India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the United States, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
At a rally on the occasion of the BJP's 38th Foundation Day, the BJP president expressed confidence that his party would win the 2019 polls, "not by giving hollow assurances but on the basis of work done by the Modi government".
Amid signs of increasing bonhomie between her and her Telangana and Tamil Nadu counterparts Rao and Stalin, Banerjee had approached the two on Sunday to set up meetings of opposition chief ministers.
Addressing the valedictory session of the BJP's national executive, Modi stressed that the BJP runs on the values of 'Sewa, Sanklap aur Samparan (service, resolution and commitment)' and 'does not revolve around a family', urging its members to work for people, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav said quoting the prime minister.
The coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions continued to simmer on Friday with protests continuing unabated over the Congress' decision to divide Andhra Pradesh.
The 77-year-old was recently diagnosed with pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital, where he died at 1.28 am, a Congress leader said.
Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin has written to his counterparts in 11 non-BJP ruled states and Goa, seeking their support to oppose the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test and restore 'the primacy of states' in education, the government said on Monday.
Ten central trade unions except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are observing one-day general strike on Thursday to protest against various government policies.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
'They have to be seen as being responsive to the employment woes and economic stagnation afflicting many young people.'
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 1,10,960, while 1,09,461 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
Naidu informed the House that he had received letters from Singh and 13 other MPs seeking leave of absence on medical grounds.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan reviewed the status of passengers coming from the UK to India and found positive in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Goa, Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala and their response measures in a meeting held through video conferencing.
Sidhu made the sharp retort amid speculation that the former cricketer is himself eyeing the top post if the Congress wins next month's assembly polls.
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.
8 Asiatic lions in the zoo in have tested positive for COVID-19 after their saliva samples were thoroughly examined by CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, Rakesh Mishra, advisor of the premier research institute said.
'KCR's plan for the future is three-pronged. He wants to see a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the Centre in 2019 so that he can become the Union minister for home or defence,' says R Rajagopalan.
Recording over 20,000 coronavirus infections for the third consecutive day, India is set to overtake Russia's tally. According to the Johns Hopkins University, which has been compiling COVID-19 data from all over the world, India is behind Russia with 399 cases.
India achieved a major milestone in its vaccination programme against COVID-19 as the cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 200-crore mark on Sunday.
While the DMK dubbed the meeting as only a 'courtesy visit', Rao did not meet the waiting reporters.
The 'Group of 23' leaders who participated included Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik, Prithviraj Chavan, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, besides Sibal who hosted the post-birthday dinner for them.
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