Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
Rajasthan Chief Secretary D B Gupta said he and the representatives of a few other states raised objections to a few questions to be asked by enumerators during the NPR exercise. He said the central government officials told them that answers to all such questions are not mandatory.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Seeking to enhance green mobility, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the 'PM-eBus Sewa' scheme under which 10,000 electric buses will be provided to 169 cities under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
'In the larger cities, we can see that 12%-20% of the population making use of the metros. I don't think it is happening in the smaller cities.'
"In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 1 of the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023 (20 of 2023), the central government hereby appoints the 1st day of October, 2023, as the date on which the provisions of the said Act shall come into force," according to a notification issued by Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, Registrar General and Census Commissioner.
'The last year's growth is a foretaste of things to come in the retail credit market.'
One of the teams rescued two lion cubs that had fallen into an open well in Jasadhar Range of Gir East division during the cyclone's landfall on Thursday evening, the official said.
For all its claims to economic glory, the majority of India's population lives vulnerable lives, a situation that has only worsened over the past 15 years, to the extent that the government now fears to release economic data or even conduct a proper Census, notes Rathin Roy.
These include home, industrial development (mining), justice, labour, excise, environment conservation and climate change, disaster management and rehabilitation and civil aviation.
The scheme, which would give Rs 6,000 to small farmers in a year or Rs 500 a month, will add more money to the account of these cultivators than the money he/she saves every month on an average.
'Khalistanis can be divided into three categories: Firstly, hardcore ideological people. They are microscopic, not even 1%.' 'Secondly, those who consider Khalistan a business.' 'The third category that has built the narrative of Khalistan are those who gain from polarisation.'
Eight states and Union Territories have Muslim share of population in excess of national average of 13 per cent. Mayank Mishra report
The order that was passed less than a week ahead of the first phase of polls scheduled on October 10 throws a spanner in the election process.
'As soon as the violence broke out, they should have stepped in and sent a message that the state is there to stop this violence.' 'Had they done it right there, the situation would not have gone out of control.'
The extension comes three days after the Centre constituted a high-level committee under the chairmanship of Registrar General and Census Commissioner Vivek Joshi with Additional Secretary in the Union Home Ministry Piyush Goyal as its Member-Secretary.
Complaints against Prateek Hajela on such issues were raised earlier by others also.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is ahead in 20 seats in Manipur, with Chief Minister N Biren Singh leading by a handsome margin of more than 16,000 votes against his nearest Congress rival in Heingang constituency, Election Commission data showed.
The CBI has named Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi, and daughters Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav, in addition to 12 people who were given jobs in Railway zones of Mumbai, Jabalpur, Kolkata, Jaipur, Hajipur, the officials said.
In what analysts are terming as a political masterstroke, the ruling Biju Janata Dal President Naveen Patnaik Friday decided that his party will field candidates from Other Backward Castes (OBC) for 27 per cent of seats in the forthcoming three-tier panchayat elections in Odisha.
Given the sheer size of the state, achieving a similar turnaround in Punjab as promised could be a different ball game altogether, reports Sai Manish.
Pakistan's election commission has expressed its inability to hold general elections within three months due to legal, constitutional and logistical challenges, according to a media report on Tuesday.
India will either have to create a system in which certain geographical areas will wind up being permanent political outsiders at the Union level or it will have to create a system in which certain votes are weighted more heavily than others, observes Mihir S Sharma.
Nandigram, 126 km south of Kolkata, is Suvendu Adhikari's bastion, where he has vowed to defeat Mamata Banerjee by 50,000 votes or quit politics.
Airtel said it will implement 25 per cent more stringent mobile call drop benchmark of 1.5 per cent versus 2 per cent prescribed by the regulator Trai.
The ministry has got Rs 1,03,927 crore for 2019-20 which is 4.9 per cent more than Rs 99,034 crore given in 2018-19.
No masks, no sanitisers, and many rules of COVID-19 are not in place and every human activity, including marriages and public gatherings continue, thanks to strict standard operating procedure that bars easy entry of people to the island in the Arabian sea.
'... the government provides adequate cash and kind support for the poorest of the poor for survival... ...conditional cash and skilling support for the economically poor to raise their incomes to adequate levels... ...and make functional arrangements for providing unemployment allowance to the vulnerable poor during disasters like the present one.'
For years, elephants have gone through unspeakable torture and abuse at the hands of human beings -- from hunters and poachers targeting them for sport or their tusks, to people trying to tame them for entertainment purposes -- they have been beaten, shocked, and whipped into submission Since there's no concrete way to curb this violence, Kerala has come up with a unique initiative to help them - an elephant rehabilitation centre. Take a look at the home for the gentle giants situated at Kottoor, an ecotourism village situated nearly 35 km from Thiruvananthapuram.
Shedding the stigma around failure, sharing issues with the family and seeking financial assistance from others can help alleviate distress and help people recover faster, says experts.
The Indian e-commerce sector is getting a good response from rural and Tier-III cities, Sharat Digumarti, head (operations), eBay India said at the launch of the eBay India census 2010 at Hyderabad.
Indian seniors face loneliness in their sunset years. And many companies have kicked in to provide various kinds of options for India's elderly. The elderly can now pay and enjoy a variety of services in the comfort of their own homes
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
The BJP knows the CAA, combined with a fresh nationwide NRC process, is an idea that's dead on arrival. Where it lives on is as a divisive, polarising instrument as its rivals have to take a position against it and thereby be exposed to the charge of 'Muslim appeasement' again, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The government had pegged food subsidy at Rs 90,000 crore (Rs 900 billion) in the 2013-14 Union Budget.
>The farmers will go home but the country will not get the agricultural reform it badly needs -- if nothing else, then to prevent a bigger water crisis than already exists, argues T N Ninan.
'Basic Covid protocols were not followed, which is why so many teachers lost their lives.'
Modi is as divorced from reality as Manmohan Singh. He might want to sound expansive and visionary, but to be credible he must have his feet on the ground and know the reality around him. Instead of delivering irrelevant homilies to small and hence poor farmers, the prime minister should be thinking in terms of creating a huge demand for alternative employment, mainly in the construction sector, and his promised hundred new cities is a capital idea, says Mohan Guruswamy.
'When we talk of disaster, it is a combination of hazard and vulnerability.' 'If we reduce vulnerability, it will remain a hazard.'
'No other language can now take its place. English is the language of professional education, which gives you a passport to a bright future,' says T N Ninan.
