Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday termed misleading claims by opposition leaders that if any state is not named in the Budget speech, then it does not get any budgetary allocation. Replying to a Budget discussion in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman asserted that no state was being denied money. She recalled that in the past Budgets by the UPA government also did not mention names of all states in their Budget speech.
Modi is scheduled to visit Palli village of Samba on National Panchayati Raj Day on April 24.
The National Investigation Agency has charge sheeted Dilawar Iqbal -- a right-hand man of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi -- and Kupwara-resident Mohammed Ubaid Malik for allegedly conspiring to disturb the peace and communal harmony of Jammu and Kashmir by attacking security forces, officials said on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the government's decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, which bestowed a special status on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and said steps should be taken to conduct the election to the Assembly in the Union Territory by September 30 next year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation at 8 pm on Thursday in an apparent outreach to people of Kashmir after the recent measures taken by his government in Jammu and Kashmir. Modi's address comes two days after the Parliament passed a resolution repealing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and a Bill reorganising the state into two Union Territories -- Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The vote value of an MLA is calculated on the basis of the total population of the state, based on the 1971 census.
Several states have been reporting an uptick in the number of COVID cases over the last few weeks and nine states and Union territories have so far detected the presence of the JN.1 sub-variant of the virus.
Two more Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including a district president, submitted their resignations from the primary membership of the party on Saturday, citing their resentment against the choice of candidates in their constituencies for the assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
In his first visit to the valley after becoming the prime minister for the third consecutive term, Modi emphasised the importance of enabling the people of Jammu and Kashmir to elect their representatives for the assembly.
More than 40 per cent of the 908 candidates contesting the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are Independents, leading to claims that a large number of them have been propped up by the Bharatiya Janata Party to divide votes.
Ahead of counting of votes, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Monday said his party was open to the idea of taking support of Mehbooba Mufti's People's Democratic Party to form government in the Union territory.
The leaders said the list of seats each party will be contesting, as well as the names of the candidates, will be issued later.
The indication of a timeline comes two days after the Election Commission initiated the revision of electoral rolls in the union territory and prepare the draft rolls by August 31.
Congress leaders were seen giving media bytes at various places at the headquarters, arguing that the trends would change by 1 PM but it did not happen.
The Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh are and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India, the MEA said.
A voter turnout of 69.69 percent was recorded in the third and final phase of voting Tuesday in the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Election Commission said.
After inaugurating development projects worth nearly Rs 5,000 crore for boosting the agri-economy in the Union territory, Modi said he was "elated to be among the wonderful people of Srinagar".
The two women -- Seema Koul and Vishalni Koul -- had moved the high court in 2018 after their provisional selection to the post of legal assistant in the department of disaster management relief, rehabilitation and re-construction under the PM package for Kashmiri migrants in December 1, 2017 forfeited on the ground that they have lost their migrant status having married non-migrant persons.
Voting for this crucial phase, covering 40 assembly segments across seven districts -- Jammu, Udhampur, Samba and Kathua in the Jammu region and Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara in north Kashmir -- is scheduled for October 1.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
The last assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014, five years before the erstwhile state was reorganised into two Union territories on August 5, 2019.
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha's power to nominate five members to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly was at the centre of a political and legal debate on the eve of vote count, with the Congress and regional parties the National Conference and the People's Democratic Party on Monday opposing any such move during government formation.
Notwithstanding protests by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, he said the first session of the newly elected Jammu and Kashmir Assembly is "short in duration but historic in terms of agenda".
In what was perhaps the most critical meeting before full-scale war broke out, Shastri defined India's immediate war objectives to his defence minister, army, and air force chiefs: 'To defend against Pakistan's attempts to grab Kashmir by force and to make it abundantly clear that Pakistan would never be allowed to wrest Kashmir from India; To destroy the offensive power of Pakistan's armed forces...' A fascinating excerpt from Shiv Kunal Verma's must-read 1965: A Western Sunrise India's War With Pakistan.
While Jamaat cannot take part in the elections due to the ban imposed on it by the Union home ministry, it had shown interest in participating in the polls during the Lok Sabha elections if the ban were removed.
'A country that hosts and even celebrates UNSC-sanctioned terrorists, commenting on India whose pluralistic ethos and democratic credentials are exemplars for the world, is a contrast for everyone to see'
Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha assured the newly elected legislative assembly on Monday that the Omar Abdullah government will make all efforts for the restoration of full statehood and constitutional guarantees available to the state.
A Pakistani intruder was also killed in the exchange of fire, they added.
In a strong retaliation to the Pahalgam massacre, India's armed forces early Wednesday destroyed nine terror sites including that of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) using deep strike missiles in a 25-minute-long 'measured and non-escalatory' mission.
The former Congress president is currently on a tour of Ladakh -- his first since the region was made a Union territory after being carved out of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 -- and is likely to visit Kargil next week.
US noted that India has described the actions in J&K as "strictly an internal matter".
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge vowed to fight for the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, asserting that he would remain active in politics until Prime Minister Narendra Modi is ousted from power.
Omar Abdullah will have to negotiate at every step with the lieutenant governor's office and the Modi government at the Centre.
With no agenda announced for the meeting, the leaders from Jammu and Kashmir said they have come with an open mind.
'If you are in a position to give employment to local people, you will find no terror attacks in your area.'
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
"We hope that the parties involved will not allow a new aggravation of the situation in the region as a result of the decisions."
National Conference leader Mohammed Akbar Lone on Tuesday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court reiterating his oath as Lok Sabha MP, saying he will preserve and uphold the Constitution and protect the country's territorial integrity, an undertaking that irked the Centre which claimed it added "insult to injury to the nation".
A divisional level officer said that over 1,900 domicile certificates have been granted to West Pakistan refugees and the process to grant all of them citizenship certificates is going on.
'Pakistan has no locus standi to pronounce on or interfere in matters that are internal to India, including the Indian territories under Pakistan's illegal and forcible occupation'
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