Union Minister Farooq Abdullah on Monday backed the Bharatiya Janata Party's demand for according the Bharat Ratna to former prime minister and veteran leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Setting aside their bitterness, both within and outside Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi shook hands at a function to felicitate NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, who turned 75 on Thursday.
The Congress will make it the main issue when its Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi reaches Jammu and Kashmir early next year.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's all-party meet, People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said peace in the region cannot be restored without undoing the 'illegal' and 'unconstitutional' act of revocation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
>All old signposts have been uprooted and milestones bulldozed. New ones have yet to emerge. The old order stands degraded in the new landscape whose contours are indistinct, observes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
'This is the "naya/new J&K" after Aug 2019. We get locked up in our homes with no explanation. It's bad enough they've locked my father (a sitting MP) & me in our home, they've locked my sister & her kids in their home as well'
His father Somappa Rayappa Bommai was the state chief minister during 1988-1989.
Normal life remained disrupted across the Kashmir Valley for the 26th consecutive day, with markets closed and public transport off the roads.
A photograph of Omar Abdullah surfaced on Twitter on January 25 in which he seemed almost unrecognisable sporting a salt and pepper beard, triggering reactions of awe and anger from netizens, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The Union Council of Ministers was expanded on Thursday with the induction of 59 ministers
'The Election Commission is in the process of updating electoral rolls.' 'Once that is done, the dates for elections will be announced by the ECI at an appropriate time.' 'What can be more democratic than this?'
'They forget that denial of basic rights has helped create a big political void which is adding to a deepening alienation.' 'This creates a fertile ground for extremist elements and targeted killings which we are witness to once again.'
In a break from past, there was no function at the martyrs' graveyard in Srinagar after the government dropped July 13 from the list of gazetted holidays last year, officials said.
'It is not something that is going to unfold in the next few weeks or even the next few months.' 'This process will continue for some time. And that's how it should be.' 'If the politicians are coming on board, then that is a welcome step.'
Amid Covid-19 protocols, here's how the monsoon session looks like.
Jammu and Kashmir has been without an assembly since November 2018 when the then legislative assembly was dissolved by then Governor Satya Pal Malik after the People's Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government fell apart earlier that year.
Two explosions during and before ruling National Conference poll rallies in Srinagar and central Kashmir's Budgam districts left 13 persons injured on Sunday.
The accused in National Conference leader Trilochan Singh Wazir's murder case were planning his killing for the past two-three months and planted fake evidence to mislead the police, taking inspiration from Bollywood movie Drishyam, officials said.
The first-ever district development council (DDC) elections will be held in eight phases to elect 280 members in 20 districts from November 28 to December 22.
Three-time chief minister Farooq Abdullah is under house arrest at his Gupkar Road residence while his son Omar is confined to Hari Niwas, a state guesthouse-turned into a jail, barely 500 metres away. Mehbooba is in detention in a hut at Chashmeshahi near the governor's residence Raj Bhavan.
For the first time since he made the statement in January that his party will accept the verdict of people in case Narendra Modi becomes prime minister, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah in this interview to CNN-IBN, calls the Bharatiya Janata Party' 'bitter' veteran Jaswant Singh and senior leader L K Advani secular, but also says that there is indeed a National Democratic Alliance
Coinciding with the 96th birthday of late Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the first of its seven branches at a function in Mumbai in the presence of United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, coalition leaders Sharad Pawar and Farooq Abdullah, besides Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
The announcement comes on a day a 15-member delegation of National Conference from Jammu met their detained party president Farooq Abdullah and vice president Omar Abdullah in Srinagar.
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described Dr Farooq Abdullah's defence of the beleaguered BCCI president N. Srinivasan 'as part of his cover up to escape punishment for alleged embezzlement in the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association'.
"Okay. Good," a bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said when the counsel of Union Territory administration and Iltija informed it about the release of Mufti, who is the president of the PDP.
The minister said India would make efforts to get the territory back from Pakistan.
Refuting speculations of split in the alliance between Congress and National Conference, Omar Abdullah said his party has no intention of leaving the alliance.
In this interview to Sheela Bhatt, Pilot tries hard to defend his party, government and his leader Rahul Gandhi while talking about Modi.
High drama was witnessed in the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) on Monday with a rebel group electing state Sports Minister Imran Ansari as the body's president in an attempt to end Farooq Abdullah's 35-year rein but the move was stayed by a Jammu court.
Singh is accompanied by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah, Human Resource Development Minister M M Pallam Raju and Science and Technology Minister S Jaipal Reddy.
'The biggest danger is that majoritarianism is getting normalised, insidiously and overtly... We are bringing the worst, not the best in us... We are looking for new enemies - Muslims, urban Naxals, tukde tukde gang, some enemy or the other which keeps this majoritarian wheel turning,' says journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.
The former chief minister said his party was not running away from polls, but wanted the Centre to do justice with the people of Jammu and Kashmir first and take effective steps for the protection of the state's special position.
With his swearing-in, the five-decade-long practice of retired bureaucrats being appointed to the post has ended.
Regional films may have prevailed over the country, but regional leaders still have far mountains to climb to reach Delhi, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
The ruling National Conference-Congress coalition in Jammu and Kashmir received a severe drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections as the coalition could not win even a single seat of the 6 in the state.
'I am not sure of the numbers killed, but they were not as high as the use of the word 'genocide' suggests.' 'There is another meaning you could take, 'cultural genocide', in that the Pandit community is extremely small and their forced departure led to a wiping out of their culture.'
National Conference chief and Union minister Farooq Abdullah on Monday expressed happiness over Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir's remark that the families of death row convicts should be informed in advance about their execution."Today I am happy that not only us, but the Supreme Court also sees it and understands that what has happened was wrong," Abdullah told reporters.
India is befriending China on one hand and remaining "cautious" on the other by deploying more troops in Ladakh region due to "threat" perception, having learnt lessons from the past, Union Minister Farooq Abdullah said on Monday.
Former Army chief V K Singh will attend the rally organised by Haryana's main opposition party Indian National Lok Dal in Rewari on Thursday, the party's President Om Prakash Chautala has said.
India's minister of new and renewable energy, Farooq Abdullah unveiled the no pollution on the sidelines of the three-day world hydrogen technologies convention being held at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on Wednesday.
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