'He's got a lot of time ahead of him'
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the rescue mission in the landslide-hit Mundakkai region of Wayanad could take a few more days, and appointed a cabinet sub-committee of four ministers to coordinate the rescue efforts.
The Election Commission has said it will allow suspected fake voters to cast their ballots in the Palakkad assembly by-poll, but will take action against them later. The CPI(M), Congress, and BJP have accused each other of enrolling fake voters. The by-poll is scheduled for November 20.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday urged various banks to write off the loans availed by landslide victims and survivors in Kerala's Wayanad.
Communist Party of India-Marxist's acting state secretary and Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener A Vijayaraghavan on Monday said that the Kerala government will have a 21-member cabinet.
Playing in a FIFA World Cup remains a pipe dream for India
According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is the richest chief minister in India with assets worth over Rs 931 crore, while West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee is the poorest with just Rs 15 lakh. The average asset per chief minister is Rs 52.59 crore, and the total assets of 31 chief ministers are worth Rs 1,630 crores. The report also highlights that 13 chief ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves, with 10 of them having declared serious criminal cases.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on Friday, recalled "an old name of Rahul Gandhi" to attack the Congress leader, who a day earlier had wondered why the Marxist veteran was not jailed by the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre, unlike two other chief ministers of Opposition-ruled states.
While his critics described him as a leader 'with no smile on his face, and the most feared politician in Kerala', his party rivals have often accused him of deviating from the party line.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has graduated from being a stalwart of the CPM to a 'strong' mass leader and arguably the 'most able administrator' that the state has seen in over three decades, reports Shine Jacob.
Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain died at a hospital in San Francisco, his family said on Monday.
The Kerala government announced on Wednesday that the Argentina national football team, led by legendary player Lionel Messi, will visit the state next year for an international friendly match, which Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hailed as a tribute to state people's passion for soccer.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
The death toll in the devastating landslides in Kerala's Wayanad district rose to 167 on Wednesday, while 191 were missing even as the rescue teams intensified efforts to find survivors trapped under the debris on the second day of the search operations.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday termed as 'baseless', Union Home Minister Amit Shah's claim that the state government did not heed the Centre's warning regarding a possible natural calamity in Wayanad due to heavy rains.
The chief minister's office said the special team will be headed by IG Sparjan Kumar and will include four senior women IPS officers of the state.
President Droupadi Murmu has approved gallantry awards to 93 armed forces personnel, including two Kirti Chakras and 14 Shaurya Chakras, on the eve of Republic Day. The Kirti Chakras, India's second-highest peacetime gallantry award, have been awarded to Major Manjit from 22 Rashtriya Rifles and posthumously to Naik Dilwar Khan, 28 Rashtriya Rifles. The president also approved 305 defense decorations to Armed Forces and other personnel.
Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Sunday stepped up his attack on the Left government and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan by accusing the latter of directing the police not to lodge a case when he was heckled at the Kannur University in 2019.
The Indian women's kho kho team secured a commanding 80-point victory over Malaysia, ensuring their place in the World Cup quarterfinals.
While Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala mockingly called the CM as "the most knowledgeable" person in the state who has the habit of terming priests "wretched creatures" and "ignorant", BJP leader V Muraleedharan said that Vijayan's remarks indicate that he continues to be intolerant towards those who disagree with him.
CM Pinarayi Vijayan rejected BJP's criticism against the resolution demanding scrapping of the CAA. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had hit out at Kerala government, saying Vijayan should seek 'better legal advise'.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday filed a chargesheet against Communist Party of India - Marxist Kerala Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in a graft case. After receiving Governor R S Gavai's sanction four days ago to prosecute 69-year-old Vijayan, overruling the state cabinet recommendation, the CBI filed the 11-page chargesheet in a special court in Kochi, naming Vijayan and eight others as accused in the case.
In one of the worst natural disasters in Kerala, at least 123 persons were killed and 128 injured in massive landslides triggered by torrential rains in Wayanad on Tuesday. With hundreds trapped under the debris, sparking fears of mounting fatalities, rescue agencies were racing against time to pull out any survivors.
The construction of a Bailey bridge to connect the landslide-hit areas, where several people are believed to be stranded, alongside the deployment of sniffer dogs and over 1,000 rescuers from Central and state emergency response teams conducting massive search operations, constitutes one of the largest rescue efforts in the Wayanad, devastated by a deadly calamity.
If as critics point out, the environmental impact assessment study was commissioned only after the auction process got underway with not all the stakeholders getting to know of it, then the government has already compromised the trust it could have enjoyed with Kerala's public including its coastal communities, points out Shyam G Menon.
'Maybe this has created some minor issues which can happen in any party.'
IM Vijayan lauded Sunil Chhetri for his longevity and urged the youngsters to idolise the 35-year-old's work ethic.
Vijayan said the news that the SDMA had directed scientific institutions and scientists not to visit the disaster-affected Meppadi panchayat in Wayanad and not to express their opinions was misleading.
Legendary India footballer I M Vijayan on Friday urged the country's youngsters to "get addicted to football, not to drugs". The former captain, in his message on the occasion of International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, said instead of seeking a quick solution through drugs, the youngsters should head to the football ground.
Drawing examples from history to prove his point, Vijayan said a Muslim man named Azimullah Khan had coined the slogan 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.
Communist Party of India-Marxist Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan will be the next Chief Minister of Kerala.
The Kerala police on Thursday launched an investigation into an alleged social media campaign against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's Facebook post requesting help for the people affected by the landslides in Wayanad district. The campaign was aimed at motivating people to reject the CM's appeal for disaster relief, it said.
Flaying both the Congress-led United Democratic Front and Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance and a section of the "right wing" media for trying to tarnish the image of the government and its development and welfare programmes, he said the people have rejected their 'vicious propaganda' by giving the Left a decisive mandate.
The 1994 Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) espionage case, in which former space scientist Nambi Narayanan was falsely implicated, was allegedly created by a then special branch officer of Kerala police to justify his illegal detention of a Maldivian woman in India after she spurned his advances, the Central Bureau of Investigation has told a court in Thiruvananthapuram.
Laid-back and relaxed doesn't seem to be a part of this actor's style vocabulary.
A 'man-eater' tiger that killed a woman two days ago was found dead in Kerala's high-range district of Wayanad on Monday and an autopsy on the dead cat revealed the presence of the victim's hair, dress, and a pair of earrings in its stomach, forest officials said.
'If you are going to bypass the technical committee in the head coach appointment, why are we here?'
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money-laundering case against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan and her IT firm for receiving 'illegal payments' from a Kochi-based private firm, official sources said on Wednesday.
The warmth and respect for India were evident wherever I went and noticed how most Latin Americans have Indian gurus either directly or online and yoga was very much in vogue, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.