In a grand ceremony with overtones of a United States presidential inauguration, heads of state and government, India Inc honchos, opposition leaders, Bharatiya Janata Party members and showbiz stars rubbed shoulders as they watched President Ram Nath Kovind administer the oath of office to India's 58 new ministers.
A 58-year-old man died after a power transformer fell on him in Raigad district. 2 people died and 3 were injured in two separate cyclone-related incidents in Pune.
With the monsoon session being a washout, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday directed the National Democratic Alliance members of Parliament to fan across the country to "expose" the Congress whose disruption of Parliament he equated with Emergency when the party wanted power to be concentrated in one family.
Normal life was paralysed in Assam during a 12-hour-long state-wide bandh led by the Bajrang Dal and supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and several other organisations demanding action against the All India United Democratic Front and its leader Badaruddin Ajmal for alleged links with 'jihadi forces in Bangladesh'.
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
Given the depleting mass base of the regional Asom Gana Parishad led by former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, a section of senior leaders of the party are waiting in the wings to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is gaining ground in Assam.
Many BJP leaders are of the view that most key members of the previous Cabinet could be retained.
The external affairs minister said that the dreaded terror outfit Islamic State had killed all the Indian nationals.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Bijnor district where she met families of two persons killed in the violence. Internet services have been suspended in several areas till Monday, while prohibitory orders remained in force across the state.
Besides criticising CM Arvind Kejriwal on scores of issues, Shah alleged the AAP government made only promises throughout its tenure and now in the last three months, public money was being spent on advertisements for its announcements.
These events would include celebrating the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's Champaran Satyagraha in Bihar in a big way. It was Gandhi's first mass agitation in India, where he had led a protest of peasants against forcible cultivation of indigo.
A galaxy of top leaders, including Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari and leaders of BJP's allies such as Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, Shiromani Akali Dal supremo Parkash Singh Badal and Lok Janshakti Party founder Ram Vilas Paswan were present with Shah.
Getting ready to fight the next assembly election in Assam in 2016 on the 'U-turns' on state issues made by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the Centre, the ruling Congress government in Assam has brought out a handbook for its party workers highlighting the 'failures' of the Narendra Modi government to fulfil promises made to people of the state.
Lack of literacy is compromising the ability of farmers in India and China, two of the world's most populous countries with the smallest farm size, to raise productivity without losing soil fertility, says Kunal Bose.
State party leaders admit that Hindu consolidation by itself was not good enough to unseat Didi.
Kumar's comments at the party's national executive meeting came amid a strain in his ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party and appears to be a message to his ally, some of whose leaders have been linked to alleged communal tensions and violence in the state.
Hitting out at the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, he said, they were "shamelessly" opposing the abrogation of Article 370.
Aseem Chhabra lists his favourite Indian films of 2021.
Amid high drama, Bharatiya Janata Party vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was on Thursday arrested along with party leaders for defying prohibitory orders when they tried to enter trouble-torn Makra village in Birbhum district, made out of bounds for politicians by Trinamool government.
The former Union minister had suffered a stroke in 2008 and was hospitalised since then.
Some believe she should no longer be the face of the struggle to free Myanmar from the new military dictatorship, observes Prakash Bhandari.
Twenty-seven South Asian workers, including 24 Indians, were arrested on Monday for alleged rioting in Singapore's worst outbreak of violence in over 40 years even as the prime minister warned to use "full force of the law" against trouble-makers.
'This letter is not a complaint, it's more indignation, because we do not like being used as political tools by people of various parties.'
He, however, asserted that all infiltrators will be thrown out of the country.
Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance in Assam as coming together of "two dangerous forces of communalism and divisiveness", Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "insulting" people of the state
Aseem Chhabra lists 10 of his favourite films that played in various sections at the 74th Cannes Film Festival.
Sandeep Pandey salutes women who have contributed to social transformation in India after 1980.
'China need not worry about a truly 'resurgent India'.' 'It's not going to happen.'
In the Majnu Ka Tila area in New Delhi, Children carrying tricolour burst crackers and shouted 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.
Students' organisations and political parties are participating in the bandh to protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there.
'When workers in other industries enjoy protection, why should sex workers not receive similar protection?' 'Sex work should be treated as work and brought under the work schedule of the labour department.' 'We will only end up giving immunity to the pimps and brothels to buy or sell human beings. This will in turn increase trafficking of young women and children.' Rashme Sehgal reports on the debate over legalising prostitution, a bugle in whose favour has been sounded by the new chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Lalitha Kumaramangalam.
'We cannot be naughty and expect the government to do good!' 'We have to behave ourselves and then we can expect the government to support us.' 'If we are able to protect ourselves well, then we should not be having deaths.' 'Unfortunately, people have gotten into this super scary event participation (mode) -- birthday parties, large gatherings.' 'Among the people who have attended those, 80 to 90 per cent of them have come down with COVID-19.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will focus on extended neighbourhood, particularly the ASEAN and Central Asian regions, says Archis Mohan
If India is to follow a smart cultural diplomacy, it has unmatched advantages over both China and Pakistan, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'It is not that he has not committed any mistakes; he has.' 'But people were willing to forgive you if you were honest.'
India's new policy commission has received a makeover and a dream team has been formed to head the Think Tank, NITI Aayog.
'The cow is sacred to many of us, but these killings are definitely not part of the Hinduism we know and practise,' says Jyoti Punwani.
Trinamool leaders have claimed the NRC process and subsequent verification is vote bank politics. Other critics call it as modified ethnic cleansing. But putting poll rhetoric aside, the issue dates back to a time when many of these leaders had no political relevance.
'On November 8, two women activists were assaulted and left for dead because they were following the illegal mining trail. This is how bad the coal mafia is in Meghalaya.' 'Most politicians own coal mines, some policemen own coal mines and some in the administration own them.' 'So what you have is a nice cocktail and everybody is protecting each other.'
India was ranked 70th of 77 countries in the Female Entrepreneurship Index 2015 released by London-based Global Entrepreneurship Institute
