The Election Commission on Friday said there was "nothing particularly wrong" in the speech of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah in which he reportedly described Azamgarh as "a base of terrorists".
The great Indian election is over and now the wait for the results is shrinking with every passing moment. Though exit polls hint at a cakewalk for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his National Democratic Alliance, there are some battles which will be keenly observed on the result day.
It was in 1989, 39 years after the setting up of the Supreme Court in 1950, that Justice M Fathima Beevi was appointed. Meet the brilliant legal minds who have shattered the glass ceiling since then.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to vote in large numbers. "Today, there are bypolls taking place in various places across India. I urge those voting in these seats to vote in large numbers and strengthen the festival of democracy," he said in a tweet.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the nation on the eve of 72nd Republic Day.
There cannot be a 'blanket ban' on media reporting on cases of rape and sexual abuse, it said.
Chaos prevailed at Nepal's only international airport with hundreds waiting to be evacuated from the earthquake-ravaged country.
The next general election is more than three years away. Yet, the Centre appears to be reluctant to take any bold move that might annoy influential sections of the electorate.
The development came a day after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre's offer to start talks as soon as they move to Burari and continued to stay put Singhu and Tikri borders of the national capital.
Cautioning against forces which fan communal tension in order to polarise the situation in their favour, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday voiced concern over the Muzaffarnagar riots and said such violence cannot be allowed to spread.
There have been several instances of traders dumping fruits and vegetables outside mandis. Or of farmers dumping produce outside their villages or feeding them to their animals.
10 women and six minors are among the injured, the officials said.
Even as the BJP dithers over what it needs to do, the Congress has stolen a lead by projecting its chief ministerial candidate -- Priyanka Vadra nee Gandhi, says Nazarwala, the man who called the 2012 UP assembly elections right.
While some CMs suggested reopening economic activity in phases, others pitched for the extension of the coronavirus lockdown, but with a carefully crafted exit strategy
Mauled in the Lok Sabha elections and facing dissidence within, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar resigned on Saturday but interestingly did not seek dissolution of the assembly injecting a dramatic turn in the state politics.
The opposition has attacked the Modi government over the National Democratic Alliance's last full-fledged budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Following her spat, 'Aunty National' Irani took to Facebook to speak out against her detractors. Here's the Facebook post in response to her critics which Rediff.com represents verbatim:
Sher Shah Suri ruled for only a few years, but his huge influence on India continues six centuries later, reveals Farhat Nasreen.
Driving a Tata Nano covered with banners about his son's killing by the Mumbai Police, Kundan Prasad Singh is fighting his first election to get justice for a dead son.
The stage is now set for the first substantial round of polling in the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday, involving nearly 11 crore voters in 92 seats spread across 11 states, including Delhi and the national capital region and the riot-hit Muzaffarnagar.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said there was "some amount" of intolerance in the society which has to be identified and dealt with firmly, instead of generalising it.
Faced with the growing number of acid attacks on women, government is planning to categorise such cases as heinous crimes and fix a time-frame for investigation and trial for speedy justice.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Biju Janata Dal members had staged a walk-out while NDA ally Shiv Sena did not participate in the voting.
'Nitish has no future in state politics.' 'Nitish harassed the Yadav community no end in his earlier tenure as chief minister. So who will the Yadav community vote for in the coming state elections?'
Sylvia Dyer's life began nearly 90 years ago in a forgotten, untamed land. She spent her childhood on a plantation on the Bihar-Nepal border in pre-Independent India, lived through the '65 war as the wife of a decorated army officer and saw an era grow and fade in front of her eyes.
Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj's comments have once again put the Narendra Modi government in a jam. Though the party swiftly slapped a show cause notice on Maharaj, asking him to explain why action should not be initiated against him for his controversial remarks in the recent past, the man denied it, saying it was the 'BJP's internal matter.'
'It is the regional parties and their leaders who are the ones we have to watch.'
A Ganesh Nadar shares interesting vignettes that usually get lost in the heat-and-dust of election coverage.
In the light of the efforts being made to forge electoral unity between scheduled castes and Muslims, Mohammad Sajjad examines what the architect of our Constitution, B R Ambedkar, had to say about the Muslim community.
In the normal course, a high turnout reflects anti-incumbency but there is no correlation between high turnout and advantage to the National Democratic Alliance, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
BJP strategists need to remember even at this late hour that 'negativism' sells when you are in the Opposition as the Indian voter has mostly voted anti-incumbency, and not when you are in power. You still needed to highlight your achievements and promises, and let the voter draw his conclusions, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
As the year 2014 draws to an end, we at Rediff.com take to look at some of the ridiculous remarks made by some blundering politicos.
The Hindutva brigade's silence on the rape may possibly be explained that this incident is an intra-Hindu affair for them. What is even more intriguing is that vocal gender activists have preferred to almost ignore the incident. Why? Is it because homosexual rape does not involve the woman either as victim or as aggressor, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Ishan Bakshi studies the Budgets of six states, their expenditure priorities and outlays to understand the trend.
They cited precedents where no picture of Mahatma Gandhi was used on such KVIC material.
Rediff.com lists a few instances when BJP leaders and ministers shot their mouth off.
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
UPSC toppers -- Ira Singhal, Nidhi Gupta, Vandana Rao and Suharsha Bhagat -- tell Rediff.com how they cracked the tough national exam.
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
