The Aligarh Muslim University's minority status issue will have to wait to reach a logical end after the Supreme Court majority verdict on Friday asked a regular bench to decide the issue.
On February 1, grappling with the intractable issue of the AMU's minority status, the top court said the 1981 amendment to the AMU Act, which effectively accorded it a minority status, only did a "half-hearted job" and did not restore the institution the position it had prior to 1951.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
The Supreme Court on Friday deferred the question of Aligarh Muslim University's minority status to a fresh bench and overruled the 1967 judgment that said the university cannot be considered a minority institution since it was created by a central law.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the Union Budget strikes a fine balance between growth, employment, and fiscal consolidation, and promotes cooperative federalism. Replying to the discussion on the Union Budget 2024-25 and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Budget in Rajya Sabha, the minister said the government is on track to achieve the pre-announced fiscal deficit target of 4.5 per cent by 2025-26. Sitharaman, also a former defence minister, said the Agniveer Scheme to recruit people in the age group of 17.5 to 21 years, is aimed at keeping the armed forces fit, young and battle-ready.
'Prime Minister Modi should sit with Trump and find a solution to this issue.'
It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
'...still have lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but could have won 140 seats.'
After spending nearly 50 years in a colonial bungalow at 24, Akbar Road, the Congress moved into a new office on January 15. Rasheed Kidwai, who knows the history of the Congress better than the Congress, looks back at the people who breathed life into this address.
Sixteen people of a village in Medak district of Telangana were arrested for allegedly enforcing a social boycott on members of a Dalit family after they refused to play 'Dappu' (percussion instrument) during village ceremonies, police said on Tuesday.
In an embarrassment to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a Delhi court on Thursday termed the arrest of an accused in a money laundering case linked to a UPA-era defence deal with aircraft manufacturer Embraer "illegal" and ordered his release.
The United Progressive Alliance II faced "red lines" that are not obvious unlike UPA-I but the government learnt to adjust and get the allies on board, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
The 54-page document tabled in Parliament detailed how the Modi-government pull the economy from being counted among the most fragile-five in the world to being the fasted growing and the most attractive investment destination.
'Mrs Gandhi had nothing to do in the day-to-day working of Dr Singh's government.' 'People say Mrs Gandhi's office used to give orders, which is nonsense.'
Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday said India is the only country where rates of petrol and diesel have come down between November 2021 and April 2024. Replying to various queries during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, the minister also informed that the government is encouraging dialogue between Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) and dealers regarding margins for the latter. Puri noted that petrol and diesel were deregulated during the UPA government.
In 2009, the UPA government, had announced a slew of measures to boost liquidity in NBFCs. These included a scheme for providing liquidity support to NBFCs having assets size of over Rs 100 crore through a SPV.
Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's effusive praise of US President George W Bush during their 2008 meeting in the White House is revisited as a testament to their close relationship and the impact of the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Singh's statement, while drawing criticism from the Left and BJP, highlighted the transformative nature of the relationship between the two democracies. The article explores the context of their meeting and the broader significance of their relationship in the context of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were among the top leaders who paid homage to former prime minister Manmohan Singh at his home in New Delhi on Friday.
The principal opposition party though appeared content securing 99 of the 543 seats in the 2024 national elections as against its all-time low of 44 in 2014 and then 52 in 2019.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has expressed concerns about the Congress party's leadership role within the INDIA bloc, raising questions about their ability to justify their position. Abdullah highlighted a sense of disquiet among some allies, who feel the Congress isn't doing enough to earn its leadership position. While praising Sonia Gandhi's leadership, he also criticized the alliance's lack of consistent engagement and called for more structured communication to address potential disagreements. Abdullah's comments suggest underlying tensions within the opposition alliance, particularly regarding the Congress's electoral performance and seat distribution strategies.
As a leader, he was ambitious, not for himself but for India and its people. His was not the short-term election cycle calculation of individual political gain. His was a practical vision of how to better the lives of his fellow citizens, asserts Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, who served as foreign secretary and national security advisor when Dr Singh was prime minister.
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
'The Sena has lived with the BJP long enough to know its vulnerabilities and how to hit where it hurts the most,' points out Amulya Ganguli.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna passed away at his residence in Bengaluru early Tuesday morning, his family said.
After being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Trump started his inaugural address with a sentence that echoed Modi's coinage some years ago, notes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'Karna is the greatest warrior in the Mahabharata -- in fact, Arjuna is a nobody in front of Karna.' 'But Arjuna had a better advisor in Krishna than Karna.' 'Karna failed because he listened to the wrong advice given by Salya.' 'It just shows wrong advisors can land even the mighty in trouble.'
Sitaram Yechury strived to have the country's Left movement shed its doctrinaire approach to India's socio-cultural complexities and stitch electoral and social alliances to fight the Sangh Parivar.
Leaders of the JD-U, which has two ministers in the Union government, insist that the resolution also spoke of "special package and other types of help" and that Bihar could still get a lot from Narendra Modi government.
The government will use the Supreme Court order calling the 2005 deal between ISRO's commercial arm Antrix and privately-owned Devas Multimedia a fraud, to counter seizure of its properties, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday as she launched a blistering attack on the Congress for handing over airwaves used by the defence to the private firm for pittance. "It is a fraud of Congress, by Congress (and) for Congress," the minister told reporters as she read out paragraphs from the Supreme Court's January 17 decision allowing winding up of Devas Multimedia because of the fraud.
Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh passed away at the age of 92 on Thursday. He will be given a state funeral with full state honors at Nigambodh Ghat on Saturday. Singh served as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014 and was known for his role in India's economic reforms. Leaders from across the political spectrum paid their respects to the departed leader, highlighting his contributions to the nation.
The new numbers show India's economic growth rate averaged 6.7 per cent during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance regime as compared to 7.3 per cent under the present government. Previous numbers had put the average growth rate during the 10-year UPA rule at 7.75 per cent.
Omar Abdullah will have to negotiate at every step with the lieutenant governor's office and the Modi government at the Centre.
Former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh passed away on Saturday night after a prolonged illness, family sources said. He was 93.
Maha Vikas Aghadi constituents -- the Congress, the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar -- are still struggling to resolve internal differences over certain seats and fix an agreeable formula for the assembly polls even though the deadline for filing nominations is closing on October 29.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to create history when she presents her seventh straight Budget on Tuesday for the fiscal 2024-25, surpassing the record of former prime minister Morarji Desai. Sitharaman, who will turn 65 next month, was in 2019 appointed as India's first full-time woman finance minister when Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a decisive second term.
The preferred format would be for the top BJP leadership in the government to reach out to the alliance leaders on a case-to-case basis.
Can ordinary citizens counter this backward march? Can peace activists ensure that the two communities retain their bonds? Do they have a choice, asks Jyoti Punwani.
The Congress hit back at Nadda, saying his letter to Mallikarjun Kharge is a "4D exercise - denial, distortion, distraction, and defamation".
