Former Kerala Chief Minister and veteran CPI(M) leader V S Achuthanandan, a key figure in Kerala's political history, died on Monday at the age of 101. He was a founding member of the CPI(M) and served as Chief Minister from 2006 to 2011.
For the year 2026, the President has approved the conferment of 131 Padma awards. The list comprises five Padma Vibhushan, 13 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri.
Congress MLA Rahul Mamkootathil, suspended from the party over sexual misconduct allegations, attended the Kerala Assembly session, claiming his presence was not in defiance of the party. The move has drawn criticism and sparked reactions from various political leaders.
Veteran Communist leader and former chief minister V S Achuthanandan, one of the most popular and crowd-puller leaders in the history of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in the state, turned 100 on Friday.
'VS was a man who devoted every moment of his life, from the beginning till his death at the age of 100, to the struggle against the injustices inflicted upon land, nature and the common man.'
As an IAS officer in Kerala, Gyanesh Kumar -- who the Congress described as Amit Shah's 'right hand man' -- had a good working equation with the state's Congress and Left leaders.
M A Baby faces several significant challenges: Helping the CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front secure a third consecutive term in Kerala's 2026 assembly elections, and regaining ground lost in the party's traditional strongholds of West Bengal, Tripura, and other regions.
Former Kerala minister M A Baby was elected as the CPI(M) general secretary at the 24th party congress in Madurai. Baby, who was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1986 to 1998, has been a member of the Politburo since 2012. He succeeds Sitaram Yechury, who passed away last year.
Veteran Communist leader and former Chief Minister of Kerala, V S Achuthanandan turned 98 on Wednesday.
'So, they have taken away the word Waqf from the Bill.' 'It will now be known as the UMEED Act.'
Kerala Chief Minister and Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran V S Achuthanandan filed nomination for contesting the assembly elections from his sitting seat Malampuzha in Palakkad district on Thursday. Achuthanandan filed his papers before joint registrar (co-operatives) A N Pradeepraj, who is the returning officer for the segment.
The Kerala high court has admitted a petition by CPI-M veteran V S Achuthanandan challenging a vigilance court order giving clean chit to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who was a member of K Karunakaran cabinet in 1991-92 when the Palmolein case rocked the state.
Facing heat from the party's top brass, Communist Party of India - Marxist stalwart in Kerala V S Achuthanandan on Thursday publicly admitted that he had committed "organisational mistakes" on issues related to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and the murder of an expelled party leader. Achuthanandan's admission comes two days after the CPI-M central committee censured him for defying the official line on these issues.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist central committee has found serious fault with party veteran V S Achuthanandan for openly attacking the state leadership and rejected his contention that he has been fighting the 'rightist deviations' of the state unit.
Former Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan was on Wednesday unanimously elected as leader of the CPI-M in the assembly. Achuthanandan will also head the 68-member Left Democratic Front opposition in the 140-member house.
Communist Party of India-Marxist stalwart and Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, the star campaigner for the Left Democratic Front in the April 13 Assembly polls, on Wednesday said he would not campaign for Left Front candidates in West Bengal.
Apparently embarrassed by a Lashkar-e-Tayaiba terror suspect's alleged links with Abdul Naseer Madani-led Peoples Democratic Party, Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said on Wednesday that the Communist Party of India-Marxist, which had "cooperation" with it in Lok Sabha polls, will not have any truck with such outfits in future.
The chief minister and the party secretary were at logger heads for the past several years and Pinarayi Vijayan has successfully emerged as the most powerful leader of the CPI-M in Kerala for the past few years cutting to size Achuthanandan who had in fact promoted Vijayan into the higher echelons of CPI-M power ladder.
Kerala's iconic Marxist and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan turned 90 on Sunday.
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.
Communist Party of India-Marxist Central Committee's endorsement of the expulsion of three personal staff of former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan is being seen as a setback to the veteran leader locked in a bitter feud with the dominant faction led by state Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan
Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan has been removed from the Communist Partyof India-Marxist politbureau but will continue in the Central committee and will hold the post of the Chief Minister till the coming assembly elections. This was revealed by a press release of the CPI-M central committee after the marathon deliberations at the AKG Bhavan in New Delhi.
The 84-year-old Marxist veteran also likened the party's action on Saturday to suspend him and state party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan to 'punishing children when they commit mistakes'.
The Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Fund has alleged that absence of Bharatiya Janata Party candidate against Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan in Malampuzha is part of a clandestine understanding between the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the BJP as they are now together in opposing the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre.
His own party -- the Communist Party of India Marxist -- might have sidelined him. But V S Achuthanandan -- the octogenarian chief minister of Kerala, has eventually found a place in the international arena of communism.And Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee -- once the 'poster boy' of communist governance in a capitalist society -- will miss a chair as his party organises the 11th Communist and Workers Parties International Meeting to discuss a rescue path from the financial crisis.
The Supreme Court will hear on December 9 a petition filed by former Kerala chief minister V S Achuthanandan challenging the premature release of ex-Congress minister R Balakrishnan Pillai from jail by the state government in the Idamalayar dam corruption case.
With the Communist Party of India-Marxist state secretariat deciding not to provide Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan a seat to contest in the coming assembly elections, sources say that the Congress-led United Democratic Front is all set to emerge as a clear winner.
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Alleging a conspiracy in leakage of telephone conversation between state Information Commissioner, K Natarajan and Vigilance officer V J Kunju, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader V S Achutanandan on Tuesday submitted before Kerala high court that efforts were on to implicate him in the land assignment case.
Shiromani Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal (94) became the country's oldest candidate to fight elections as he filed his nomination papers from Lambi on Monday.
Election rallies have been on for weeks, but nothing captures the immediacy of an election like the sight of candidates filing their nomination papers.
'What The Kerala Story is trying to do is take the fake hate propaganda which we saw earlier only on WhatsApp to the big screen now.'
The LDF would meet on Sunday to discuss matters related to ministry formation, Vijayan said when asked about the nature of the new ministry.
Amid protest over the proposed ambitious semi-highspeed SilverLine rail project, also known as K-Rail, the Kerala government on Saturday published the detailed project report that estimated the cost of project to be Rs 63,941 crore.
Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan accused his Maharashtra counterpart of "lying" on the CVC P J Thomas appointment fiasco to "hide his fault."
Communist Party of India-Marxist Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan will be the next Chief Minister of Kerala.
Ignoring the Communist Party of India-Marxist official line, party veteran V S Achuthanandan today set out to Kundankulam to pledge solidarity with anti-nuclear protesters but was stopped by Tamil Nadu Police at the border town of Kaliyikkavila near Thiruvananthapuram.
Unfazed by the organisational consequences, Communist Party of India-Marxist stalwart V S Achuthanandan Wednesday said he was dropped from the party politburo a few years back for telling the truth about a corruption case in which state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan was facing inquiry.
The Kerala government on Thursday assured the Supreme Court that it would provide Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan a copy of the charge-sheet in the 1997 ice cream parlour sex scandal, involving the state's top politicians, judicial officers and others.
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