Apart from Smriti, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar took over as law and parliamentary affairs ministers respectively.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday night released the first list of 43 candidates for the high-stakes Bihar polls, giving about 60 per cent representation to those from SC and backward castes in an apparent attempt to target the base of rival Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine.
'Why do the English-speaking class feel they are the only ones who are efficient in work?' 'My own mother was from a village and she was more efficient than me. She used to handle crises better than me.' 'We will have to come out of our elite perception of governance.'
On January 23, the N D Modi government named 21 uninhabited islands in the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar after recipients of Param Vir Chakra, the country's highest wartime gallantry award.
The ruling alliance also has some smaller parties like Republican Party of India-Athawale, Asom Gana Parishad, Mizo National Front, National People's Party, Naga People's Front, Pattali Makkal Katchi and Bodoland People's Front, which have one seat each, totalling seven seats.
Arun Jaitley and Amit Shah and other ministers will listen to PM's radio talk 'Mann ki Baat' while having tea with people across poll-bound Gujarat on Sunday.
A lot is riding on the Rajya sabha polls that are scheduled for Saturday. Major parties are whisking away candidates of other parties, while protecting their own, MLAs are being sent to 'camps' in the final countdown to the polls for 57 seats. Here is a state-by-state look:
Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj also issued a production warrant against Prasad in the case.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expanded his Cabinet and inducted 21 new ministers. Of these, 4 - Manohar Parrikar, JP Nadda, Suresh Prabhu and Birender Singh were appointed as Cabinet ministers. Other than this, Modi has inducted 17 other ministers of state. Here's a quick look at them:
'He (Modi) has spoken of being a prime minister for all Indians but he...presides over and has mostly been silent in the face of widespread communal violence, mob lynching and cow vigilantism'
They are likely to meet Sitaram Yechury following the meeting with Gandhi.
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 48 hours.
A number of senior faces from the outgoing cabinet including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar and Prakash Javadekar are expected to figure in the new cabinet.
Ruptures in the opposition unity emerged barely a week after 17 parties joined hands to put up a joint candidate against the ruling National Democratic Alliance nominee for the July 17 presidential election.
He has also convened the first meeting of the extended CWC on July 22 to chalk out the party's future strategy.
Mamata Banerjee was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the second consecutive time, heading a 42-member ministry.
She said she will go to Ayodhya on Wednesday and visit the makeshift temple to seek Ram Lalla's blessings.
Delhi BJP MLA O P Sharma, who is at the centre of a controversy in connection with the violence in Patiala House court complex, on Tuesday claimed that a group of people had hit him and that his action as "natural".
Heads rolled in the Chhattisgarh police administration on Tuesday with the government suspending Bastar Superintendent of Police Mayank Shrivasta and shunting out Bastar range Inspector General of Police Himanshu Gupta, in the wake of the Maoist attack on Congress leaders.
Five months into office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will expand and reshuffle his Council of Ministers on Sunday, bringing in new faces and is likely to drop a few.
BJP general secretary Arun Singh said that during the course of the meet, discussions will be held on farm laws, Aatmanirbhar Bharat and upcoming state polls.
As vice president and ex-officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Jagdeep Dhankar is inheriting a troubled legacy. Although the government faces no real numerical challenges in the Upper House, political and legal challenges are there aplenty.
The saffron party is assured of victory in eight of the ten seats in UP going by its dominant numbers in the state assembly.
Ahead of the visit of an all-party delegation to Jammu and Kashmir, political parties on Saturday pitched for holding dialogue with "all stakeholders", including Hurriyat, to douse the unrest and banning the use of pellet guns by security forces.
What makes Dhankar so outspoken? Could it because as governor he will be in the driver's seat if the Trinamool Congress performs below par in the elections next year? Shikha Shalini reports.
Members of Parliament on Sunday bid adieu to outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee.
Dalits constitute nearly 16 per cent of the vote and 38 seats are reserved for them in the assembly, reports Satyavrat Mishra
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Rahul Gandhi and BSP supremo Mayawati will descend on Varanasi on Saturday making it their battleground ahead of the last phase of Uttar Pradesh polls, a schedule that has put the administration on its toes.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad swept Delhi University students' union elections by bagging all four positions.
Modi asked MPs to inform the masses about various pro-people features of the budget.
Seeking to end the controversy that erupted over his remarks and stalled parliamentary proceedings, Union minister Anantkumar Hegde on Thursday tendered an apology in the Lok Sabha after a nudge by the Speaker but he said his speech at a function in Karnataka was distorted.
The oath taking took place as the House witnessed a virtual slogan-shouting contest between treasury and opposition benches.
More than 20 national leaders will attend the meeting, TMC sources said. Most of them have already arrived in Kolkata.
The court granted bail to Rabri and Tejashwi Yadav in the CBI case on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of a like amount.
"We won't remain silent if somebody tries to kill our mother. We are ready to kill and get killed. The Uttar Pradesh government's double standards have been exposed. The way in which the incident is being politicised is condemnable," said Maharaj.
Opposition parties in Parliament on Monday vociferously protested the "snooping" on Rahul Gandhi, with the government dismissing their contention saying they were making a "mountain out of what is not even a molehill", leading the Congress to walk out of Rajya Sabha.
In its manifesto, the party made a string of promises, including expeditious construction of a Ram temple, doubling farmers income and the scrapping of Article 370 that gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Lalit Modi's interview with television news channel explaining how Vasundhara Raje took his wife to Portugal for cancer treatment shows that he is seeking revenge against the Rajasthan chief minister.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday began a stock-taking exercise following the party's debacle in assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra even as a clamour for "course correction" grew within its ranks in the wake of the dip in electoral fortunes.
Jaitley slammed lack of ethics in certain sections of businesses and said multiple layers of auditing system chose to either look the other way or did a casual job.
