The free food scheme is driven by electoral considerations, but its long-term fiscal risks outweigh the short-term gains, cautions A K Bhattacharya.
The tumultuous Winter session of Parliament ended on Wednesday a day before schedule with proceedings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha marred by repeated disruptions by the opposition over which the government and the Congress traded charges and the presiding officers expressed their anguish at the conduct of some MPs.
The culture of freebies burdens coming generations with the huge bill for the flagrant abuse of power by preceding governments, points out Virendra Kapoor.
BJP Delhi president Manoj Tiwari said the 'AAP is loosing elections' that is why it is raising such issues.
Modi's gestures have fuelled speculations that the BJP wants to bring Yediyurappa into the centre-stage of its campaign plank leveraging his mass appeal for the Assembly elections, due by May.
They just wanted their angst noticed, and as a symbol of recognition, Jallikattu, restored without the annual ritual of court cases and adjournments, explains N Sathya Moorthy.
Millions voted in the United Kingdom on Thursday in the country's closest polls in decades as Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party and opposition Labour were locked in a dead heat electoral battle with migrant voters, including the Indian diaspora, expected to be the deciding factor.
With organisations like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which is a front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, telling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman they want OPS back, the government is in a bind, report Shiva Rajora and Aditi Phadnis.
The BJP launched an all-out and aggressive personalised campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, but voters went by local rather than national issues.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi rejected the contention of the petitioners, who said that in a form along with the annual data of a United Kingdom-based company in 2005-06, it was allegedly mentioned that Rahul Gandhi is a British citizen.
Prime ministers turning up with such frequency to launch trains is an indication of the political mileage resident in public transport. Will our railways step out of the government's shadow? After all, they are the ones manufacturing trains and running them, notes Shyam G Menon.
Demonetisation and Agniveer reveal the two mindsets India has become. In both these government schemes, one sees a desire to play the country like an orchestra anchored by conductor/conductors, argues Shyam G Menon.
The 69-year-old billionaire reality TV star has now won three of the four early nominating states, after convincing wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire.
In case the EC doesn't hold elections within six months, the duration in which Banerjee has to become an MLA, the Trinamool Congress is ready with Plan B.
The Congress' central election authority on Thursday issued a notification for the All India Congress Committee president polls, setting the ball rolling for electing the successor to the longest-serving party chief Sonia Gandhi.
The CEC said when people lose elections, they blame their defeat on EVMs, but when they win they don't do so.
The voting will be held on November 30, December 7, 12, 16 and 20.
The message for 2024 is that the man on the street is not going to be euphoric if the G-20 crowns Modi as king-emperor for 2023, or if India sends its first man to space just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Even a 'temple consecration' in Ayodhya, or a Uniform Civil Code, or both of them together, may not have enough electoral purchase if fuel and commodity prices are not rolled back, and money-in-the-pocket does not fatten, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sharad Pawar will be elected unopposed as Mumbai Cricket Association president after BJP leader Gopinath Munde's appeal against the rejection of his application to contest for the top post in Friday's polls was turned down.
The Election Commission had earlier asked Twitter to remove the tweet by Mishra, a candidate from the Model Town seat.
As many as 19.31 lakh applications have been registered so far as part of the ongoing summary revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra and voters would have the opportunity to enrol themselves until the last date of filing of nomination papers, the Election Commission of India said in Mumbai on Tuesday.
'Strategy is to divide and polarise electorate on communal lines.'
Asma Khatoon said it is not biryani that has attracted women to the protest at Shaheen Bagh, while holding that such vilification campaigns will have no effect on the agitation.
The speculations fuelled as August and September are times of floods in the state and this period will be followed by festivals like Bakri Id, Dushehra, Muharram, Diwali and Chhath slated for October and November.
Interacting with state chief ministers, Modi underscored the enormity of what he described as the world's biggest vaccination exercise, which begins from January 16, saying over 30 crore citizens will get the jabs in the next few months in India against only 2.5 crore people vaccinated so far in over 50 countries in around a month.
The much-awaited schedule for the Lok Sabha polls will be announced by the Election Commission on Wednesday.
Strengthening the party's communication strategy to improve public engagement is foremost on the Congress agenda after Rahul Gandhi had stressed that they "have to go back to the people" at the Udaipur meeting.
Indian-American hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal on Thursday pleaded guilty at a court in New York to violating federal election laws by using straw donors to secretly funnel money to political campaigns and will pay a million dollars to the US as part of his plea agreement.
After healthcare and frontline workers, priority will be given to those above 50 years of age and the under-50 population groups with co-morbidities numbering around 27 crore, it added.
The Congress won 40 seats in the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly while the BJP got 25 seats.
In another blow to Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jammat-e-Islami, the cabinet has decided to strip the voting rights of people convicted of "crimes against humanity" during the 1971 liberation war.
AAP chief has violated of model code of conduct, claim BJP, Congress.
The term of the 243-member Bihar legislative assembly comes to an end on November 29.
Assembly elections in Bihar, where the Bharatiya Janata Party is set for a battle against a united Janata Parivar, are likely to be held sometime in September-October when extensive central forces and a reworked expenditure monitoring system will be deployed to curb money and muscle power.
Mistry said the election authority is in the process of finalising the AICC delegates who will vote in the crucial election for the top party post.
The poll holding exercise has witnessed a whopping jump by 80 times to Rs 846 crore since 1952 when it was mere Rs 10 crore.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, for whom the temple town sharpened its Hindutva plank, is facing a challenge particularly from the Samajwadi Party in the ongoing state polls.
The court also made clear that the second opportunity has been granted to the citizens keeping in mind the "magnitude" of the issue.
Successive elections have demonstrated that the BJP campaign switches towards polarisation when it is faced with palpable discontent among the electorate, notes Utkarsh Mishra.
The Election Commission of India has decided to seize both licensed and illegal weapons before the Lok Sabha election and will reject requests from political parties for change of poll dates because of festivals in Assam.
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