Trains were set afire and blocked, and public vehicles attacked as protests over 'Agnipath' swept across several places in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu on Thursday amid partisan political voices in favour and against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.
The BJP ignored the principle of the Cabinet's joint responsibility and the adage of the buck stopping at the top, observes Amulya Ganguli.
Late last year, the Cabinet Committee on Security had cleared the proposal for the creation of the post.
'Time and again, through their actions, often more covert than overt, the BJP has shown that it is a power-hungry party and its hunger isn't getting satiated sitting in the Opposition.'
Out of the 932 trains which have been operated so far, 215 are in transit while 717 have terminated at various stations. Sixty-seven more are in the pipeline, an official said.
Amid FY23 Union Budget's focus on investments, leading domestic credit rating agency Crisil on Wednesday said that the capital expenditure is "not as high as it sounds". It, however, was quick to add that considering that governments usually tend to cut capex during a crisis, the government has maintained its focus on growth-spurring initiatives amid the pandemic. The research wing of the agency said, if one excludes the Rs 1 lakh crore of loans to states for capex included in the headline figure of Rs 7.50 lakh crore or 2.91 per cent, the actual spend in FY23, will go down to 2.58 per cent of GDP, which is barely at par with the revised estimate of FY22.
Earlier, Rajnath and Shah were leading deliberations among Union ministers to resolve the issues raised by the agitating farmers.
In a statement, the umbrella body of farmer unions spearheading the farmers' agitation against the Centre's three agri laws, said 'protests will only be intensified until justice is secured' in the Lakhimpur Kheri case.
India logged 3,377 new COVID-19 infections taking the country's total tally of cases to 4,30,72,176, while the active cases rose to 17,801, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Friday.
At an event at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in south Mumbai, Modi first flagged off the the CSMT-Solapur Vande Bharat Express and later another semi high-speed train linking the financial capital to Sainagar Shirdi temple town in Ahmednagar district.
The flood situation in the three districts of Barak Valley -- Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi -- remained critical as the water levels of Barak and Kushiara rivers continued to rise, inundating vast tracts of land, officials said.
Former colleagues recall the veteran political leader as a visionary with strong ground connect.
Hours after 21 ministers took the oath of office and became a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ministry, speculation began on which minister would be handed which portfolio. However, all speculation ended after the list was announced.
India was among the top-five economies with the largest general government capital stock level, said, in 2015, an International Monetary Fund report called "Making Public Investment More Efficient". The report fuelled a debate on countries sitting on piles of cash that could be used better. India was believed to have public assets worth $4.5 trillion. The report urged countries to start asset recycling. Six years after the report, Australia's success in asset recycling has turned India into a believer; despite doing averagely in its previous efforts on roads, railways or meeting its divestment targets.
She asked people who came in contact with her to get themselves tested at the earliest.
The ministers are believed to have discussed the issues raised by farmers, and how the Union government can constructively respond to dispel concerns expressed by them over the farm laws.
The development assumes significance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last month announced 10 lakh government recruitments in the next 1.5 years.
A total of 1,59,632 new coronavirus infections were reported in a day, the highest in 224 days.
The active cases comprised 0.04 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was 98.75 per cent, the health ministry said.
An increase of 4,578 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The top court also directed authorities to consider withdrawing all cases against migrant workers for alleged violation of lockdown norms under the Disaster Management Act.
23 trains have been partially cancelled and five short terminated till September 26 as protesters blocked rail tracks at various places, including Amritsar, Ferozepur, Sangrur, Barnala, Mansa and Nabha.
Paswan, one of India's most prominent Dalit leaders and eight-time Lok Sabha MP died on Thursday at the age of 74.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a forum comprising 40 farmer unions, called for a Bharat Bandh on Monday against the Centre's three agriculture laws. Here is its impact across the country:
In its weekly bulletin of December 27, released on Monday, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said global outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 are increasingly shifting from Delta to Omicron.
"We realised no one is going to come to help us and it is up to us now," 20-year-old Ashna Pandita told PTI over the phone as the train took them to the western city of Ukraine, about 80 km from the Poland border, where the fighting has been relatively less.
The pilot of the MMTS train was trapped in his cabin, which was badly mangled, and efforts were on to rescue him, they said.
The inaugural Sangamam turned out to be a political Hindutva function than a gathering on the Hindu religion, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Strengthening the portfolios of the home minister and the finance minister is a message that should not be missed, points out A K Bhattacharya.
As per the document, these 10 states are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab.
Gandhi said that the BJP government has clearly mishandled the economy that was built by the United Progressive Alliance government, and is now resorting to selling the country's assets as a "last resort" to generate some money.
Could it have been more reformist? Of course, but this is an election year Budget, observes Akash Prakash.
The government, in its proposal circulated among the leaders on Wednesday, offered to amend 7-8 issues, including providing a written assurance of minimum support price.
Every twist and turn in KMC's civil service career is attributed to serendipity, an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. He plays down his capabilities, which took him to the top of the civil service as the Cabinet Secretary or his misfortune in losing a daughter in her prime and suggests that his career was indeed serendipitous, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The daily positivity rate dropped to 3.45 per cent. It has been less than 5 per cent for 8 consecutive days, the ministry said, adding the weekly positivity rate has declined to 4.39 per cent.
The government of Maharashtra on Thursday revised its guidelines for passengers arriving in the state.
