He said the bearer bonds can be purchased by corporate donors and donated to political parties without revealing their identity.
Where do Vijay and his TVK expect to get their votes from? Vijay has a huge fan following among women, but will they automatically become his voters like they had done for MGR's AIADMK, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on May 17 a plea of an NGO seeking a direction to the Election Commission to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of conclusion of polling for each phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday exuded confidence that people have voted in record numbers to re-elect the National Democratic Alliance government and said the 'opportunistic INDI Alliance' failed to strike a chord with the voters who rejected their 'regressive politics'.
Schemes like the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana strain fiscal resources amid rising unemployment and prices of food items.
Pakistan will hold general election by May 16 after the national and provincial assemblies are dissolved on completing their five-year term, a senior minister announced on Sunday.
The Association for Democratic Reforms, an non-government organisation working for electoral reforms, while supporting Election Commission's order to seize unaccounted cash in poll-bound states, has noted that legitimate business transactions based on cash should not suffer.
The senior Congress leader asserted that those calling for reform should have had a discussion with others as well.
Underscoring the importance of voter satisfaction and trust in the electoral system, the Supreme Court on Thursday told petitioners who sought its direction to go back to using ballot papers not to suspect the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and appreciate if the Election Commission does good work.
Kharge termed the high-level committee constituted by the Centre to examine the feasibility of 'One Nation, One Election' a 'gimmick' and alleged the Modi government wants to slowly replace democracy in India with dictatorship.
Telangana has 3,17,17,389 voters: 1,58,71,493 male voters; 1,58,43,339 female voters; 2,557 third gender voters.
While that created a stir so did the decision on his penultimate day at work with the Supreme Court rechristening its summer vacation "partial court working days", an issue that has led to criticism that the apex court judges enjoyed long breaks.
It seems that the West is sending a signal to India that it can return to old hostilities unless India toes their line on Russia. It is no surprise that India is being compared with Putin's Russia in terms of targeting 'dissidents' as the West calls these Khalistani terrorists, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Ron Somers, founder and CEO of India First Group and the former President of leading business advocacy group US-India Business Council said that when Lok Sabha election results are declared on June 4, "I believe that Narendra Modi will win Parliament by the largest majority ever recorded in the country's history.
There are 57 members with criminal background, one with even charges of rape, and 134 crorepatis (74 per cent) in the newly-elected Gujarat assembly, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a non-political group aiming at governmental and electoral reforms. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
The biggest challenge will be to convert his regime into a coalition of minds. But given the fact that he is instinctively an authoritarian leader and supporter of the hard Hindutva line, the survival of his government will depend on his ability to balance between his heart and mind, between instinct and pragmatism, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
'The estimated expenditure is expected to be more than double the Rs 60,000 crore spent in 2019'
'Rather than criticising the kind of candidates fielded by political parties from our living rooms, NOTA in a sense implores the electorate to say this by turning up in person at a polling booth to ensure their protest is registered.'
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
When a senior minister in Uttar Pradesh makes a statement such as 'steal a little, but don't loot', then this bit of data regarding corporate donations to political parties in the past three years would be interesting to take note of. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday deprecated criticism of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and calls for reverting to ballot papers, saying the electoral process in India is a "humongous task" and attempts should not be made to "bring down the system".
The all-party meeting aimed at reconciliation and conferring full powers to Sri Lanka's provincial councils will be reconvened in a month after initial deliberations on Wednesday failed to yield any agreements, party officials said on Thursday.
"The voter turnout data for the first two phases of the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections published by ECI on April 30 has been published after 11 days of the first phase of polling... on April 19 and four days after second phase of polling... on April 26.
40,78,680 voters will elect 20 MLAs in Chhattisgarh on November 7, 2023.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Disruption is totally unacceptable in Parliamentary system, the President said.
'Volumes in F&O trading had gone up rapidly and, in a way, the increase in STT on F&O will protect investor interest.'
Of these, 200 are fielded by the BJP, 196 by the Congress and the rest belong to other political parties.
"The 2017 state election results in India demonstrate broad-based popular support for the Indian government's policy agenda and will facilitate the implementation of further reforms, a credit positive for the sovereign," Moody's said in a statement.
With influential cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri descending on Islamabad with swarms of his supporters, Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Tuesday lobbied with top political leaders, including Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif, to uphold the democratic system.
'The fraud is the electronic voting machine is being manipulated by humans, and not counting the votes that is shown on VVPAT.'
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to produce before it in sealed cover the "up to date" data of funds received by political parties through electoral bonds till September 30, 2023.
Amid a debate on the freebies, the Election Commission on Tuesday proposed amending the model code to ask political parties to provide authentic information to voters on the financial viability of their poll promises.
'Democracy cannot be taken for granted. It has to be fiercely guarded.'
The "opaque" electoral bonds scheme for funding political parties will "destroy democracy" as it promotes corruption and does not allow a level playing field between the ruling and opposition parties, the petitioners challenging the validity of the scheme told the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday observed election funding was a "complicated issue".
The Delhi battlefield may not be a cakewalk for the Rhodes Scholar.
The electoral bonds scheme for funding political parties should not become a tool for "legitimisation of quid pro quo" between power centres and people who are benefactors of that power, the Supreme Court said on Thursday as it underscored the need for reducing the cash component in the electoral process.
Concern about corruption has moved to the centre stage and impacted business confidence and FDI flows, besides hurting the government and its image.
There is no exception for any candidate or political party when it comes to the law, be it the Representation of the People Act, the Indian Penal Code or the model code of conduct, SY Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner tells Rediff.com contributor Upasna Pandey