The Punjab Assembly on Thursday passed a resolution against the Centre's Agnipath defence recruitment scheme.
'The size of the investments is important, but equally crucial is the number of jobs that these proposals create.'
A freebie once granted can hardly be discontinued. All that can happen is to substitute it with a bigger freebie, notes A K Bhattacharya.
The name of the Maharashtra chief minister will be announced on Wednesday, a day ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of the Mahayuti government, after the Bharatiya Janata Party elects its legislature party leader, a senior functionary said on Monday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Chandrabhanu Paswan was leading by 3,991 votes over the Samajwadi Party's (SP) Ajit Prasad after the first round of counting for the Milkipur assembly bypoll on Saturday, according to the Election Commission website.
"It is just that Fadnavis and I have swapped our chairs. Only Ajit Pawar's chair is fixed," said Shinde, who was the CM before the assembly elections with Fadnavis and Pawar as his deputies then.
Apart from recruiting 18,000 women in state's police force, Thackeray said all female police stations will also be established in Maharashtra.
Chavan said the Mahayuti and BJP's policy was Viksit Bharat and Viksit Maharashtra, as spelt out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As some BJP pollsters concede, the Modi leadership's sweeping success in elections 2019, especially across central India, owed not to Hindutva ideology, but to welfare schemes, all of them borrowed from Tamil Nadu, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Actor Vijay, founder of the Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party, has declared that his party will challenge the ruling DMK in the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. In a general council meeting, Vijay criticized the DMK's dynasty politics, their handling of law and order, and women's safety. He also targeted the BJP-led central government over issues like the Waqf Bill, delimitation, and the three-language policy. Vijay promised his party's support to working classes, government employees, and vowed to oppose projects harmful to natural resources and agriculture. He assured 100% safety for women and strict law and order if TVK forms the government. The party passed resolutions opposing the Waqf Bill, delimitation, and the three-language policy, and also voiced support for the two-language policy, finding a permanent solution for fishermen's issues, and opposing the Parandur airport project.
Kharge's remarks came after Modi on Friday said the Congress stands "badly exposed" in front of people for promising to them what the party knows it will never be able to deliver.
In Kerala's society, known for its high material standard of living, plunging into a state of having nothing overnight can be terrible for one's social standing and sense of self-esteem. Rehabilitation entails piecing a community back together after a disturbance and while its aim is noble, the act of reassembling will bring alive disparities and inequalities, explains Shyam G Menon.
Attending office for the first time in her fifth shot as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa on Sunday cleared a string of welfare proposals and declared open 201 more eateries under the populist 'Amma Canteen' scheme.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance on Saturday retained power in Maharashtra, pocketing a whopping 230 of the 288 assembly seats, as the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream of wresting power fizzled, with the opposition combine managing to garner just 50 seats.
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday promised to restore the old pension scheme for government employees in Himachal Pradesh if the Congress was voted to power in the assembly elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack on Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, accusing them of "speaking the language of urban naxals" and being "AAP-da" for the youth. He also took a swipe at former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, saying those who entertain themselves by getting photo sessions done in huts of the poor will find the talk about the poor in Parliament boring. Modi also hailed his government's decisions in the Budget and said that the Ayushman Bharat scheme, which his government started for the poor, has been stalled by some states, leaving poor people in hardship.
Asim Munir and his brand of short-sighted army officers give no inkling of paying heed, changing course or learning lessons from the past, observes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
'I wonder if they will keep it up after the elections.' 'I fear they'll start questioning eligibility -- income, age, bank accounts -- and eventually stop the scheme altogether.'
'The government does not want to be transparent or accountable. Therefore, they do not want to appoint information commissioners.'
One fact is irrefutable: Nepal's recent political history tells us that the route to a return of monarchy cannot go through India despite friends in high places, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kangana Ranaut visited some cloudburst-affected areas in Rampur, in Shimla on Tuesday, taking stock of the situation.
The opposition on Sunday asked the Centre to allow discussions in the Parliament on the United States prosecutors' bribery charges against the Adani Group even as Union minister Kiren Rijiju made it clear that the matters to be taken up in the two Houses will be decided by their authorised committees with the consent of the respective Chair.
Ahead of the Haryana Assembly polls, the Congress on Wednesday announced seven guarantees, including the promises of a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) and a caste survey, if voted to power.
On Republic Day the President recognised the daring rescue of 41 workers trapped in a tunnel for 17 days in 2023 by humble rat-hole miners. The award hopefully will bring the forgotten superheroes back into the light.
He also said that it had been decided to give the houses to the MLAs at a certain price and not free of cost.
In his budget speech, the minister said the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilisers, herbicides, and pesticides, has led to a decline in overall soil fertility.
The scam-ridden Congress government in Chhattisgarh has become a model of misrule and people have decided to root it out in the upcoming assembly elections, he said.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party looks set to retain Haryana, the Congress' poll campaign, which was built around various issues including unemployment, farmers' plight and Agnipath scheme, appeared to have failed to click with a majority of the voters.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday released its manifesto for the October 5 Haryana assembly polls, promising a monthly assistance of Rs 2,100 for women, two lakh government jobs for the youth and guaranteed government job for Agniveers hailing from the state.
For all the blame-game over the flood preparedness in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, this is not the first of its kind. Nor would it be the last, given the nature of the north-east monsoon, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said every vote of the electorate in Madhya Pradesh has the power of 'Trishakti', to help the Bharatiya Janata Party form government again in MP, strengthen the PM at the Centre and to keep the 'corrupt' Congress away from power in the state.
Some of his directives had the Supreme Court judges disclose their assets whereas the row over the discovery of cash from a sitting judge's official residence paved way for inquiry.
United States President Donald Trump for the fourth time in recent days claimed that the Biden administration allocated $21 million funding to India for 'voter turnout', evoking a sharp response from the Congress which urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to 'talk to his friend' and strongly refute the allegation.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday claimed that the protest at Badlapur in Thane district over the alleged sexual abuse of two kindergarten girls was politically motivated and aimed at maligning the state government.
'We are happy that the money has come to us immediately after it was announced.' 'For once, the government did what it promised.'
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and other agencies resumed the search and rescue operation for the fourth day on Sunday at Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district where a massive landslide led to the death of at least 27 people, officials said.
In a letter to the Mysuru Urban Development Authority commissioner she said she was allotted the 14 alternative sites in the third and fourth phase of Vijayanagar in Mysuru against the usage of her three acres and 16 Guntas of land in Kesare village under Kasaba Hobli in Mysuru.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership in Himachal Pradesh is making efforts to mollify party leaders who are disgruntled over distribution of tickets to six Congress rebels for the assembly bypolls, former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said on Tuesday.
