Ahmedabad has been ranked as the best mega-city in India.
'Painting opponents as the enemy of the State, using fake news, making wild allegations about rival parties, curtailing civil liberties and challenging the Constitution itself are worrying developments.'
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
'...are the deep ruts and fissures in the rotting fabric of our cities and the incompetence of elected leaders and administrators,' notes Sunil Sethi.
According to officials, Punjab, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Assam and Telangana wanted the lockdown to be continued, some of them wanted the powers to decide the zoning of districts -- green, orange and red -- as per the COVID-19 situation.
These 10 cities have maintained cleanliness throughout
None of them had anything to do with the violence at Bhima Koregaon, where they were not even present, points out Aakar Patel.
There may not be a third wave of coronavirus in the country if strong measures are taken and effectively implemented at the state, district and city-level, the country's top scientific officer said on Friday, two days after he warned that this wave was inevitable.
People aged 45 and above account for about 88 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in India making them the most vulnerable section, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday, a day after the government opened up vaccinations for all those in the age bracket from April 1.
"After the order, GUDA has started the work of reopening the shops," advocate for the shop owners Pinakin Rawal said.
This comes ahead of the resumption of the functioning of metro rails across the country from September 7.
While more students are open to entrepreneurship as livelihood option, a whopping 71 per cent fear failure as a stumbling block in their entrepreneurial journey
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said state governments should emulate the concept of 'Gujarat International Finance Tec-City'
'Where should shudra-OBCs go because of whom the nation is surviving?'
'How can the police, especially the Gujarat police, earn their laurels if they stick to the rule book?' asks lawyer Susan Abraham.
Unfazed by the Governor sending back Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's much talked about compulsory voting bill, the state government re-introduced the legislation without any changes in the assembly on Tuesday.The bill making voting mandatory in elections to self governing bodies was returned by Governor Kamla in April on the grounds the legislative measure is against individual freedom.
The dry-run was being conducted in state capitals in at least three session sites. Some states also included districts that are situated in difficult terrain or have poor logistical support, according to officials.
With India poised to receive its first import of liquefied natural gas, the government has drawn up plans to expand in a big way the CNG supplies to several urban areas in the country.
Mina Guli wants to complete 100 marathons across the world to raise awareness of water scarcity and save water.
'With more and more young people relocating outside their home states for work, an all-India MLDA of 21 would be a good way to ensure that more Indians can go with the flow,' recommends Kanika Datta.
The six municipal corporations, which comprise major urban areas of the state like Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar are going to polls after October this year.
For the first time in seven years the prime minister finds himself at his most vulnerable, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The PM will spend much of Friday outside Delhi; will devote day attending official events in Jharkhand and a political rally in Banka, Bihar
Extensive arrangements have been made due to the COVID-19 pandemic including personal protective equipment kits for election staff, more polling booths, thermal screening, sanitisers, masks and gloves for voters and markings to ensure social distancing, officials said.
Normal life was thrown out of gear as moderate to heavy rains lashed south and central Gujarat, with Ahmedabad recording 210 mm rainfall overnight.
With COVID cases declining, Delhi will see further relaxation in lockdown, including reopening of markets and malls and resumption of metro services, from June 7 while Maharashtra will implement a five-level plan to ease curbs based on weekly positivity rate and occupancy of oxygen beds in districts.
Narendra Modi's candidature from Varanasi will help the Bharatiya Janata Party gain more seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh as well as neighbouring Bihar and lay the foundation for a National Democratic Alliance government, his close aide Amit Shah said on Monday.
After the easing of lockdown in mid-May, auto companies were able to resume production in a phased manner, but the ramp-up was slow due to a broken supply chain, and lockdown-induced restrictions.
In his campaign blitzkrieg in poll-bound Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused the Congress of seeking to divide the people on caste and religious lines.
'There will be greater communalisation. He talks about development, but his people tell his critics to go to Pakistan and brand Muslims as 'butchers'. This is the true colour of the BJP.' 'He deliberately does not stop them because that is his real agenda; he wants to make sure that the Hindu votes come to the BJP,' says senior journalist Kalpana Sharma. Ritu Jha/Rediff.com listens in.
Nirma detergent brand has shed its affordable tag for a more premium positioning against Surf, as rival Ghadi consolidates its position as a mass-market player.
During the UPA government's second term in office, rural India's consumption expenditure grew at a faster pace than urban India's - for the first time since 1991.
If Modi's truly a reformer and a believer in minimum government, he would bury the Vodafone ghosts now. He would also then go to Bihar, campaigning on his politically controversial reforms. Both will need him to dip deep into his accumulated political capital and risk it, suggests Shekhar Gupta.
Maharashtra is in the beginning of a second COVID-19 wave, a central team report has said, highlighting that there is very limited active effort to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts, and there is no adherence to COVID appropriate behaviour among people in rural and urban areas in the state.
'This is millions of Indians standing up for values rather than an individual gain.' 'This is why this protest is unique and this is why this protest has for the first time made this government uncertain and doubtful of what to do next,' says Aakar Patel.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi asked partymen to focus on Bharatiya Janata Party's return to power at the Centre instead of projecting anyone including him as the prime ministerial candidate.
Besides Surat, which will also be the world's fastest growing city during 2019-35, the other nine cities are Agra, Bengaluru Hyderabad, Nagpur, Tiruppur, Rajkot, Tiruchirappalli, Chennai and Vijayawada.
Reasons include include dropping out of education, raising children and family pressure
'The BJP has taken too much of credit for sweeping urban local elections.' 'It is true in the mayor segment. But in the smaller cities, semi-urban and rural areas, the BJP has done badly and so have the other parties.' 'Nobody can claim they have swept the elections.' 'What Mayawati failed miserably to do in the assembly election, she has managed to gain that in this election.'
As India launched the world's largest vaccination drive against the coronavirus pandemic, showing the light at the end of a 10-month tunnel that upended millions of lives and livelihoods, here are some of the quotes from politicians across parties and other people who took the jab:
