Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has ensured that her two junior ministers have an equal amount of work and equal responsibilities. She has entrusted them with seven states each. While Minister of State E Ahamed will look after Bihar, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Assam and Jharkhand, the other MoS K H Muniayappa has been allocated Karnataka, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
India's COVID-19 active cases count has decreased to 36,18,458 with a net decline of 55,344 cases being recorded in the active caseload in a span of 24 hours, while the daily positivity rate dropped to 16.98 per cent, the Union health ministry said.
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
Gujarat tops the chart with total seizure worth over Rs 510 crores, followed by Tamil Nadu at Rs 270.15 crores, Andhra Pradesh over Rs158 crores, Punjab Rs 155.91 crores and Uttar Pradesh Rs 142.31 crores.
If Meena resigns, it is likely to put pressure on other ministers whose areas also saw poor performance in the general elections.
Asked about some Shiv Sena MLAs issuing verbal threats, Rane said, "I wonder whether they had ever killed a mouse."
'The state should be setting the pace for 21st century India; instead it is falling behind every day -- and its leaders apparently could not care less,' says T V R Shenoy.
The central government plans to increase the number of highly beneficial neem trees in the country from the existing one tree for every 50 Indians to one tree for every 10 Indians to meet the rising demand from different sectors for neem oil. Presently, India has 18-20 million neem trees in the country, of which 40-45 per cent are in Uttar Pradesh, followed by Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu, among others. To achieve the target, the number of neem trees has to rise to almost 140 million.
Revenue deficit of the state is the highest among Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
Many senior BJP leaders and outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs, including seven Union ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav, have not been renominated by the party for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls amid strong indications that several of them may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Addressing BJP workers at the party headquarters, Modi also referred to the next Lok Sabha polls, scheduled for 2024, saying he hopes that political pundits will note that his party's win in the four states has also made clear the verdict for the next general election as they had linked its win in 2019 to its sweep of the Uttar Pradesh elections in 2017.
Gandhi, then a newly appointed Congress chief, had staked claim to form the government at the Centre after the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had lost the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 1999.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Maharashtra continues to lead with more than 13,000 recoveries while Andhra Pradesh has contributed more than 10,000 to the single-day recoveries.
After paying obeisance to Ramlalla and overseeing the construction work of the temple, Shinde said he is happy that the dream of "Hindu Hriday Samrat" Balasaheb Thackeray and crores of Ram bhakts is being fulfilled.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
All of them were sent to a shelter for medical examination and a bus was being organised for their further transit, he said. A video of workers emerging from the small hole of the cement-mixer in the presence of police has gone viral on social media.
Senior officials, including those from a central team, were present during the night-long operation and a close vigil is being maintained on further movement of locusts, Katiyar said. Two fire brigade vehicles loaded with insecticide had been deployed in all four Jhansi tehsils besides six vehicles were kept ready at the district headquarter. Ten municipal employees with two insecticide spraying machines were posted in every block.
Simply put, tax evasion occurs when any trust, individual, or firm, seeks to avoid paying taxes by illegal and unfair means, by, for example, deliberately hiding income from the tax authorities to reduce the tax liability.
Narsinghanand has several cases against him, including for allegedly making a hate speech at a conclave in Haridwar in December 2021, and was out on bail.
Poonawalla was talking to media persons amid rising cases of coronavirus infections in the country since March.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
Unorganised sector workers from over half a dozen states have formed an all-India organisation to demand early enactment of a law to provide them social security.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has busted a multi-state racket of imposters and arrested four of them for allegedly attempting to cheat people of Rs 100 crore with false promises of Rajya Sabha seats and governorship, officials said.
For the first time, non-upper castes are in a majority in the board, as the party continues with its outreach to traditionally weaker and backward sections of society.
Elections will be held on June 10 to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states falling vacant due to the retirement of members on different dates between June and August, the Election Commission said on Thursday.
According to the Federation of Resident Doctors Association, during the indefinite strike, all outpatient departments, operation theatres, and ward duties will be shut, but emergency services will continue to operate as usual, ensuring that urgent patient care remains unaffected.
The Samajwadi Party and Congress on Monday decided to jointly contest the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, with the SP also seeking alliance in four other states including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Special judge Kaveri Baweja directed the Tihar jail authorities to take care of his medical needs in judicial custody.
The curious onlookers that greet the candidates are, however, unaware about the importance of history. They are just there to catch a glimpse of 'Rani Ma' Amrita Roy or Mahua Moitra.
Many low-lying areas in West Bengal's sub-Himalayan region were reeling from a flood-like situation while major rivers in Bihar were flowing above the danger level at several places as unabated heavy rain lashed the country's eastern parts on Sunday.
Cumulatively, these five states reported 536 deaths in a day which is over 65 per cent of the total fatalities registered in the country during the period. India reported 69,921 new instances of coronavirus infection in 24 hours taking the country's tally of cases to 36,91,166.
The death toll has climbed to 5,24,157 with 54 fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The raids, taking place mainly in South India, was termed by the NIA as the 'largest ever' investigation process 'till date'.
A total of 1,226 cases of COVID-19 sub-variant JN.1 have been reported in the country so far with Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh recording the highest number of cases till now, according to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) on Thursday.
Why is the police action being questioned, the Rajya Sabha MP asked.
The active cases constituted 0.04 per cent of the total infections, while the national recovery rate was recorded at 98.74 per cent, the health ministry said.