The Tamil Nadu government welcomed the decision, hailing it as a 'grand victory for the 'Amma (Jayalalithaa) government' and the state's farmers'.
The win in UP is especially significant because UP assembly members carry the maximum value of votes in a Presidential election, given the fact that the state is India's most populous.
Rahul Gandhi succeeds his mother Sonia Gandhi, who remained in the post for 19 years.
Kovind may bag over 62 per cent votes but fall short of the 69 per cent votes polled by incumbent Pranab Mukherjee in 2012.
This is the fifth consecutive day that coronavirus infections have increased by more than 15,000. There has been a surge of 3,38,324 infections from June 1 till date.
It was a quiet reopening with few people venturing warily to watch a mix of regional, English and Hindi reruns such as "Chhichhore", "Thappad", "Tanhaji" and "The Spy".
Educational institutions remained closed even as the weather office forecast heavy downpour in the next three days in the state, Puducherry and coastal Andhra Pradesh.
'In countries like Japan, one out of 11.7 tests turns out to be positive, which is among the highest in the world. Italy tests 6.7 persons for one positive test while the USA tests 5.3 persons and the United Kingdom 3.4'
India is currently under the 21-day lockdown since March 25, with only essential services exempted to contain the fast-spreading virus.
Around 52.46 per cent of the patients have recovered, the health ministry said. The number of active cases stood at 1,53,178 while 1,80,012 patients have recovered, it said in the daily COVID-19 update.
DMK blamed the Centre and state government for 'not taking appropriate, timely steps' to ensure conduct of the event and announced a state-wide stir.
The company will operate the IT system for five years.
The Union health ministry said West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh reported a casualty each on Monday, taking the total number of deaths to nine in the country due to COVID-19.
In a nearly 25-minute televised address to the nation, Modi said implementation of the lockdown will be strictly ensured in its second phase and detailed guidelines will be brought out on Wednesday to ensure that outbreak does not spread to new areas.
Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana have announced a lockdown of educational institutions, malls and other places that attract people in large numbers, even as some of them have been reporting increase in positive cases.
'In a party run by 'two-and-a half men', Kovind fits the bill perfectly because, unlike the BJP's previous choice for the Presidency, A P J Abdul Kalam, he is unlikely to return a bill as Kalam did with the office of profit legislation,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
The incredible Usha Silai project.
In a major exercise ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Congress on Thursday night constituted screening committees for all states and union territories for early selection of candidates.
Auroville just turned 50. Aurovilians who grew up in The experimental city speak of how their childhood was marked by a sense of openness and possibility.
In an interview with Rediff.com Puducherry CM spoke about his plans for the state, Rahul Gandhi and his daily friction with the lieutenant governor.
The 10-day-long annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival began on a low-key note on Friday with several state governments prohibiting public celebrations due to the Covid pandemic and devotees taking the virtual route to pay obeisance and join the festivities.
The 10-day Ganesh festival began on Saturday under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, with devotees restricting celebrations to their homes and using online platforms to get 'darshan' of the Lord at temples, amid strict COVID-19 restrictions imposed by governments.
The 47-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family will face the daunting task of restoring lost glory to the party whose fortunes have been dwindling in the recent past.
Various opposition parties like the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Communist Party of India, and the Communist Party of India-Marxist raised vociferous protests in the upper house while opposing the resolution and the bill.
Suspected pro-Tamil protesters attacked and damaged a hotel run by a native of Karnataka in Chennai.
For the government to meet its GST roll-out deadline of April 1, 2017, the states will have to ratify the Bill before Parliament's winter session, starting November.
If Vijaykanth and his party stole the media thunder, which lingered in the viewers' mind even while watching Prime Minister Modi's thunderous campaign speech, the latter suffered also owing to visible 'disconnects', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The death toll also saw a record single-day increase of over 350 fatalities to move closer to the 8,500-mark, more than one-third of which have been recorded in 11 days since June 1 -- the day that marked the beginning of a phased exit from most restrictions imposed under a nationwide lockdown with effect from March 25.
'May it be the guardian which calls for breaking down narrow walls of the mind.' 'May it continue to invite everyone to celebrate the possibilities of humanity's one-ness.' Claude Arpi salutes 50 years of Auroville, a Grand Experiment in Living.
A tweet by the Press Information Bureau said the states which have imposed lockdown in all districts include Chandigarh, Delhi, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Nagaland. The other states are: Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Ladakh, Tripura, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Haryana, Daman Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Karnataka and Assam.
Elections 2024 is not as open and shut as has been presumed. There is some life left in it, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are centred on chief ministerial candidates of rival parties. When Sasikala cannot contest even a panchayat election for six years after her release, even if she were to have sympathetic backers even among apolitical voters, she does not have any 'transferrable vote-bank' even otherwise for a chief minister candidate of her choice, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
TTV Dhinakaran's call to the Congress to break up with the DMK and tie up with him, is aimed at consolidating the traditional anti-BJP votes. The stronger message is to all anti-BJP constituencies in the state, especially the minorities and traditionally aligned sections of the Dalit community, that he could be trusted to take forward an 'anti-Hindutva' agenda more seriously than anyone else, the DMK included, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Union health ministry officials also said India was at the second stage as there is still no 'hard evidence' to say that there has been community transmission of the fast-spreading coronavirus, remarks which may provide anxious citizens with much needed assurance and hope.
President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Union ministers, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and various other top leaders have condoled Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's demise and paid glowing tributes to her.
'The BJP's all-India plans can be expected to become clearer around 2022-2023, particularly if -- as some anticipate -- the senior Congress leadership cracks, broadly as between the Nehru-Gandhi loyalists and those who may be termed 'pro-changers',' observes Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer.
The Election Commission has a fight on its hand as candidates use ingenious methods to smuggle in money to Voters.
'Of equal importance was the AIADMK's precarious assembly membership, what with 11 of its MLAs including deputy chief minister OPS facing court cases for disqualification and by-elections due in another 21. To shore up the party's numbers for anticipated eventuality on the 11-MLAs' front, the AIADMK leadership in general and chief minister EPS in particular, were even more focussed on assembly seats than LS seats, just now,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
From lining up allies to having them accept him as the Opposition's prime ministerial candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress president Rahul Gandhi's real challenge has just begun, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Extensive anthropogenic interference, as part of developmental activities, is a significant factor that increases this hazard manifold. As a result, the landscape in the Himalayan, north-eastern regions and many other regions of India are highly susceptible to reoccurrence of landslides, says Dr Nitish Priyadarshi.
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