'He was a true intellectual of this country: Never claiming to be an expert on anything, or the greatest, he just went ahead and followed his beliefs uncaring of how the world judged him.' Jaya Jaitly pays homage to a dear friend, Wendell Rodricks, designer and trendsetter.
The Biden administration has announced that it is delaying the H-1B policy of the previous Trump administration on allocation of the popular foreign work visas by continuing with the lottery system until December 31, 2021, to give the immigration agency more time to develop, test and implement the modifications to the registration system. On January 7, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced to do away with the traditional lottery system in deciding the successful applicants for the H-1B visas. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
The Asom Gana Parishad's fears relating to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill are not misplaced. But does the party still matter in Assam's politics?
Discussions are going on at the highest level of the government and in all probability, the NPR and house listing phase of the Census work will be deferred till the threat of the Coronavirus is over, a home ministry official said.
According to results officially declared so far by the State Election Commission, of the total 5090 ward member posts in panchayat unions, the ruling AIADMK and its allies have won 1,528 ward member posts while its arch rival DMK and parnters bagged 1,895 posts.
Protesters raised slogans against the BJP-ruled South Delhi Municipal Corporation as well as the central government and demanded to stop the action.
Immigrants from five countries -- India, Bolivia, Lebanon, Sudan and Ghana -- stood in a line during the ceremony in the White House.
The citizens' register in Assam does not get to the bottom of things.
Banerjee, the 34-year-old nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, is stated to have sent an email to the investigating officer of the case citing some personal reasons for his non-appearance.
Opposition parties on Thursday alleged that an "undeclared Emergency" has been imposed in the country in the light of restrictions and detention of thousands for defying prohibitory orders to deal with the mounting protests against the new citizenship law in multiple cities. Rejecting the charge, the Centre and the Bharatiya Janata Party said no government can tolerate violence and alleged that the opposition parties were fuelling the protests for vote bank politics.
'And don't underestimate the enabling power of bribery.' 'Hark back to demonetisation.' 'All of the cash did come back.' 'The same thing will happen with the alphabet soup of the NRC, NPR and CAA except that this exercise will deal in documents, not cash.' 'Bribes will be paid.' 'Documents will be magically generated,' points out Devangshu Datta.
'In other parts of India, people may feel their religious identity is more important, but here in Assam, we are Assamese first and then, anything else. So, we are against this CAB (now CAA). It will hurt the interests of us Assamese'
In a dig at Adityanath's earlier warning that rioters damaging public property will have to pay, the Congress general secretary said saffron denotes Hinduism, a religion that does not advocate violence or 'revenge'.
Their demands will be met of course, and this government will move on to the next great idea, without an apology or an explanation, predicts Aakar Patel.
He also accused TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee of nepotism, insisting she wants to politically establish her nephew in West Bengal.
The Madhya Pradesh legislative assembly on Thursday passed a bill that provides for recovery of losses from the people and organisations responsible for damaging public and private properties during protests.
The limit under the Liberalized Remittance Scheme (that was earlier $200,000 and now brought down to $75,000) is applicable per person per financial year.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew and Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee and his wife for questioning in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam in the state, officials said on Saturday.
From Sri Lanka's most popular political family to its most despised -- going by the voices on the streets calling for the Rajapaksas' ouster -- what went wrong for the clan? Veteran Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy offers an insight.
'Javed Ahmed was no mastermind of the riots, and this is not mentioned in the FIR against him either.'
Brajkishore Gupta was fired without notice for calling Indian Muslims 'coronavirus spreaders' and hailing the Delhi riots as 'divine justice' in his Facebook posts, the Gulf News reported.
'I think the President will note that the world is looking to India to continue to uphold its democratic traditions, respect for religious minorities,' the official said.
The modern world will not accommodate bigotry of the sort India is showing the world today, argues Aakar Patel.
Former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah had earlier told the top court that the protest was peaceful and inconvenience being caused to commuters was due to barricades "unnecessarily" put by police on roads far away from the site.
Criticising the saffron party for "undermining democratic values" in the country, the chief minister said, "Democracy exists in Bengal but it is under threat in several other parts of the country."
Government sources had claimed on Tuesday that four persons have committed suicide in fear of NRC so far, while four others had died while waiting in queues to procure the requisite papers.
As and when the pandemic recedes from these shores, rebuilding the economy will be the biggest challenge for Modi in the remaining three years of his term, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The ministry of home affairs on Tuesday clarified India's stand of giving Asylum to Myanmar refugees, saying that the country is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol thereon.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has approached the Supreme Court seeking to intervene in the hearing on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, saying there was a need to take into account the "international human rights law, norms and standards" in the proceedings.
Though dubbed as the 'war hero', the role of Rajapaksa in ending the conflict with the LTTE with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009 is quite divisive as he stands accused of violating human rights, a charge he vehemently denies.
The Madhya Pradesh Assembly on Monday passed a bill that penalises religious conversion through marriage or any other fraudulent means and provides for a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
'Both Pavan Varma and Prashant Kishor questioned the party president in a public forum.' 'That is why we had to show them the door.'
She claimed that this election is a fight to save West Bengal and "protect the honour of the Bengali mother".
Sonowal, a law graduate, is considered to be a rarity -- an honest politician who also worked to unite different communities with his oft-repeated lines 'Barak-Brahmaputra-plains-hills'.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is the world's main banking messaging service which links around 11,000 banks and institutions in more than 200 countries, including India.
As CM, he took decisions that confirmed his image as a Hindutva mascot. Early in the first term, he banned illegal slaughterhouses and the state police cracked down on cow slaughter. But the menace of stray cattle created disquiet among farmers, presenting the Adityanath government with a new challenge.
BJP president Amit Shah, while kickstarting 'Ganatanatra Bachao Yatra' in Bengal, vowed to overthrow the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in the state.
Modi also berated the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress combine in Bihar, calling it an alliance of "double-double yuvraj" (two crown princes) whose sole concern was to protect their "respective thrones".
'You realised there was a struggle outside and now your struggle is to survive, live in prison, to retain your feelings, your humanity, and collectively continue doing inside what you were doing outside.'
He said though the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to expand its influence in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state, its goal is to rid West Bengal of the 'environment of terror'. "Bengal is the only state in the entire country where the culture of political violence is flourishing," he told the BJP's virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally.
