Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday embark on a near two-day meditation exercise at the famed Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari, and the district has come under a thick security blanket following the high profile event.
Over 20 states have set weekly case records, and more than 40 states are seeing a pattern of growing known infections. On Tuesday, hospitalisations in the United States topped 50,000 for the first time since August 7.
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition in Maharashtra on Tuesday announced its seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray securing a substantial portion with 21 seats, while the Congress will contest 17 seats, and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar 10 seats.
Three of the four major states delayed testing despite worsening indicators. Only Tamil Nadu quickened the pace after the first signs of deterioration.
Sharma was the key person who looked after Rae Bareli and Amethi constituencies on behalf of the Gandhis.
Three security personnel suffered injuries in the fierce gun-battle and a large quantity of weapons was also recovered from the spot, the state police said.
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
At least one commentator felt that both the BJP's reach and popularity had been underestimated in Kerala. They have shown systematic gain; one that seems personality-neutral and therefore institutionalised, explains Shyam G Menon.
The fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections began on Friday, covering seven constituencies in four states where over half-a-crore voters decide the fate of 74 candidates.
On balance, RG contesting from Raebareli instead of Amethi isn't the masterstroke the party's adherents are touting it to be, but neither is it the blunder the BJP and its tame media is framing it as, points out Prem Panicker.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on X that party chief Mallikarjun Kharge has accepted Pitroda's decision.
Voting was held on Sunday on 117 assembly seats in Punjab and 59 assembly constituencies spread across 16 districts of Uttar Pradesh.
The daring militant attack on an Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir last Friday shook the people of Uri town, situated close to Line of Control in Kashmir, but it did not deter them from exercising their franchise as voters thronged the polling station on Tuesday morning.
With all 29 under its belt, the BJP became the first political party to achieve such a feat after 40 years in Madhya Pradesh.
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
Baseless allegations are being made against Pune MLA Sunil Tigre linking him to the Porsche crash that left two software engineers dead, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said on Saturday.
'We called him Sher-e-Kashmir but we realised he was no lion but a pussycat who surrendered.'
Modi brought up the emotive issue of the gurdwara in Kartarpur Sahib, a place sacred to Sikhs as Guru Nanak Dev spent the last years of his life there, and blamed the Congress for country's partition, saying they did it for sake of power.
In both of these Hindi heartland states, the straight contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress.
The Election Commission on Thursday said that there were 'multiple factors' leading to the delay in the announcement of the Gujarat assembly polls, adding that the recent Morbi bridge collapse tragedy was one of them.
The BSP leader won the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat in 1989, her first electoral triumph.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
The panchayat polls or those for district panchayat chiefs are not held on a party symbol but candidates enjoy the tacit support of various parties.
Lone, who is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Baramulla constituency, said one of the reasons he wants to go to Parliament is to strive and advocate for the same set of laws for the children of Kashmir and the rest of the country.
Amidst tight security, voting is underway on Monday in 95 constituencies in the second phase of Gujarat assembly elections which will decide the fate of 820 candidates including Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, the party's Rajya Sabha members Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha as well as its Gujarat chief ministerial face Isudan Gadhvi also figure in the list shared with the media on Tuesday night.
This will be the first civic election after the fresh delimitation exercise, and the much-awaited poll will be held in the gap between the two phases of the Gujarat assembly elections, which will take place on December 1 and 5.
Writing his views in a separate verdict while concurring with the opinion of Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who was heading the bench, Justice Datta said the question of reverting to "paper ballot system", on facts and in the circumstances, does not and cannot arise.
Seen by political watchers as the favourite to retain power for a third straight term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set itself an ambitious target of winning 370 Lok Sabha seats, a goal aimed as much at projecting its strength as at diminishing the opposition in popular imagination.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The hapless voters fervently hope that they get to make a more equal choice in the next election and political discourse in the country becomes positive and more enlightened. One wonders if the masses would become more politically aware to discern good intent and performance from gimmickry, notes Biswajit Dasgupta.
The fifth and last phase of the state assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir ended on Saturday with a turnout of 76 per cent.
The Congress-AAP alliance this time aims to give a tough fight and stop the division of anti-BJP votes.
Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks on Pakistan sparked a political row on Friday, with his party quick to dissociate itself from the comments while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party latched on to them, accusing the Congress of being an apologist for Pakistan and the terrorism emanating from its soil.
Sources said Rahul Gandhi is likely to contest from Rae Bareli, but a final call is yet to be taken by the first family of the Congress.
Alleging that the BJP would end democracy if it was not voted out, Kharge said it was because of this democracy that a tea-seller's son could become the prime minister of India and he, the son of a labourer, could become the president of the opposition Congress.
Stepping up its attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'redistribution of wealth' remark, the Congress on Tuesday said he will never tell people that more than 40 per cent of the wealth created in the country from 2012 to 2021 has gone to just one per cent of the population, and asserted that only an Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) government can deliver a vastly more inclusive economic growth.aax
The review plea filed on May 10 said, "There are mistakes and errors apparent on the face of the impugned order..., and as such there are sufficient reasons which require review of the impugned order/judgment..."
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