The newly-formed Delhi Cabinet in its first meeting approved the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme in the national capital. The cabinet also decided to present 14 pending CAG reports in the first session of the assembly. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said that the previous AAP government did not allow the health scheme in the city, preventing the people from availing its benefits.
Rekha Gupta had the support of the RSS, which actively participated in the Delhi assembly poll campaign to help the BJP win.
Finance ministers of states demanded an increase in allocation under 50-year interest-free loan scheme, while fiscally stressed states like Punjab and Kerala pitched for a special package and borrowing flexibility, sources said on Friday. In a pre-budget meeting with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, states have also urged for higher borrowing limits to support fiscal activities, besides additional funds for Jal Jeevan Mission.
The ministry of education is yet to take call on the recommendations by the empowered expert committee and the University Grants Commission.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she has written to the Centre, seeking permission to visit the strife-torn state of Manipur.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday asserted that Marathi is the language of Mumbai and Maharashtra and anyone who lives here should learn and speak it. Fadnavis was speaking in the state assembly after Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Bhaskar Jadhav said the government should clarify its stand on senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi's comments that a person coming to Mumbai may not necessarily learn Marathi.
A heated debate erupted in the Rajya Sabha over the ongoing strike by ASHA workers in Kerala, with Congress and CPI(M) MPs trading accusations over responsibility for addressing their demands for a higher honorarium and post-retirement benefits. Congress MP Jebi Mather alleged that both the Kerala government and the Union government had ignored the workers' pleas, while CPI(M) MP John Brittas countered by claiming Kerala provides the highest honorarium to ASHA workers. The debate also saw demands for an AIIMS in Kerala and a hike in MBBS seats, as well as concerns over maternal health, elderly care, and mental health in India.
With the CAA rules being issued, the Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from the three countries.
The newly-elected MLAs of the Trinamool Congress unanimously elected Banerjee as the legislative party leader at a meeting, its secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said.
West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party chief Dilip Ghosh on Saturday said that the party has to fulfil its long-cherished mission of winning the state not only to expand its ideological footprint but also to secure India's eastern borders, which have turned into a 'transit point for terror elements' trying to create unrest in the country.
Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
BJP and RSS leaders are once again pushing to remove the words 'secular' and 'socialist' from the Constitution's Preamble, showing a deeper effort to change India's identity from a diverse, multi-religious republic to a Hindu-first nation, even though they don't have the numbers in Parliament to officially change the Constitution, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The rules for the CAA are likely to be issued before the MCC comes into effect, sources privy to the development said.
Delhi is set to get its third woman chief minister, after Congress' Sheila Dikshit and Bharatiya Janata Party's Sushma Swaraj, as Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi has been chosen to succeed Arvind Kejriwal.
The poll panel has convened a press conference at 4.30 pm.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
Speaking on the resolution, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the CAA is 'against the Constitution and humanity'. The resolution was supported by both the opposition parties Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left Front. The BJP legislature party opposed the resolution.
Political parties have fielded sons, wives and daughters-in-law of legislators who quit after being elected to the Lok Sabha.
Karnataka has the highest number of medical seats in the country at 11,745, of which 3,750 seats were in government institutions and 7,995 seats were in private colleges.
Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation.
However, the Congress asserted that its coalition government led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morchais "completely secure and stable'' and would complete its term.
Days after Bharatiya Janata Party MP Arjun Singh rejoined the Trinamool Congress, at least 20 saffron party leaders in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri have tendered their resignation together from their party posts, accusing the district leadership of taking money in lieu of inducting members in a local panel, a party functionary said on Wednesday.
With two years to go before West Bengal elects its next government, the BJP's internal objective is to scale down the Trinamool Congress tally from 211 to 45 seats. This amounts to an annihilation of the TMC while enabling the BJP to win a record 250 seats in the 295-member legislature, reports Radhika Ramaseshan
This is a complete betrayal of the mandate of the people of the Sagardighi Assembly constituency, Ramesh said on Twitter.
The Trinamool Congress had called the bandh to protest against the West Bengal Block Level Pre-Litigation Conciliation Board Bill, starvation deaths and price rise.
The West Bengal on Thursday became the sixth state to pass a resolution against the three contentious farm laws enacted by the Centre, even as the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party staged a walkout from the assembly amid 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans.
In a blow to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the high court on June 22 ruled that the legislation enacted by her government to recover the land leased to Tata Motors in Singur for its small car project was constitutionally invalid.
The announcement by Banerjee, who is also the chief of the ruling TMC, comes just months ahead of the assembly polls, due in April-May.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
West Bengal, which is governed by the Trinamool Congress, became the second state after Congress-ruled Punjab, where such a resolution has been tabled and passed.
Many anticipate that by the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP may come to power, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
'He fears that the youth tide has gone against him and he will be swept away in the next assembly election in the state.'
Debutant legislator Rekha Gupta was sworn in as Delhi chief minister along with six ministers on Thursday in a grand show of strength full of colour and spectacle to mark the Bharatiya Janata Party's return to power in the city after more than 26 years.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
First-time MLA Rekha Gupta will be the new chief minister of Delhi, capping 11 days of suspense over who will get the top post after the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power after over 26 years ending the 10-year rule of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party.
A Trinamool Congress legislator on Sunday threatened to not support any bill tabled by the government in the West Bengal Assembly in the future and abstain from voting in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in the state if 'atrocities' on his loyalists allegedly by a rival faction continued, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party said the collapse of the Mamata Banerjee government was just a matter of time.
High drama was witnessed on the first day of the budget session of the West Bengal assembly on Monday as Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was forced to table his inaugural address with Bharatiya Janata Party legislators staging a protest in the House over alleged violence in the recently concluded civic elections in the state.
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