What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
APCC president Ripun Bora said following discussions with various parties, it has been decided that the Congress will join hands with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist and the Anchalik Gana Morcha.
Noting that a very important policy for advancement of SCs and STs was Schedules Caste Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan, Raju said the group has recommended a central and states' legislation on them.
The development came on a day Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah arrived on a three-day visit to the state capital.
Once more women assume leadership roles and join the nation-building process, he said, adding they will become a guarantee of the country's bright future.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the oath taking of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairperson-designate Justice (retd) Umesh Kumar, while deciding to examine the constitutional validity of a provision of the Centre's recent ordinance governing such an appointment.
The meeting also discussed the validity of the appointments made by Sasikala before going to jail.
The father of the man arrested for allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl in Ujjain on Friday demanded capital punishment for his son, while the local bar association appealed that no lawyer should defend him in the court.
A bench of Justices SK Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia said the Centre cannot preclude reservation from being extended to women in civic bodies by saying it doesn't apply to tribal areas.
The poll process for the second tier of the Panchayati Raj system will be completed by November 5, he said.
The BJP appointed Sunil Bansal, one of the party's key election managers, as its national general secretary and in charge of three opposition-ruled states -- West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana -- in run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
India, along with 12 other United Nations Security Council members, abstained on a resolution by Russia on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
BJP president Amit Shah is chairing the meeting attended by top party leaders from across the country.
Sources said there was no need 'immediately' to look into legal aspects or consider anything else (such as the possibility of political interests over the dismissal and a counter-strategy to frustrate it), as the dismissal was now on hold.
A revealing excerpt from Mani Shankar Aiyar's fascinating new book, The Rajiv I Knew.
The internal feud in the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam intensified on Thursday with the high command ordering suspension of five loyalists of M K Alagiri, elder son of party chief M Karunanidhi, over recurring instances of "mischievous posters" in Madurai.
Ever since Nitish embarked on the slippery path of trying to unite the Opposition against the BJP, he has repeatedly rebutted suggestions that the exercise was aimed at bringing himself centre stage. The problem is: It is not enough if he says so. Others have to say so as well, especially Congress, observes Aditi Phadnis.
Karunanidhi made the announcement in his concluding remarks at the meeting of the party's key decision-making body, the general council, on Sunday to rapturous applause from members, reflecting the anti-Congress mood in the party ranks.
Though another 75 candidates are in the fray, the Elangovan-Thennaruasu fight has become a prestige battle for the DMK and AIADMK, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed as not maintainable, a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging the organisational polls of the opposition AIADMK, where incumbents O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswami were elected unopposed as Coordinator and Joint Coordinator, respectively, of the party.
Manipur Police has registered a first information report (FIR) accusing the Assam Rifles of blocking their vehicle after an altercation between the two groups last week, while the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace Assam Rifles 'by any other paramilitary force permanently' from the state.
Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pankaja Munde on Friday said she was planning to take a break for "one or two months" as she was anguished at her integrity being questioned time and again.
As cess levied under GST isn't shared by states, most states oppose it on the ground that it would set a wrong precedent and distort the GST structure.
To elect, or re-elect a chief minister, the AIADMK needs to call only the MLAs for a meeting. But to elect a new general secretary, it would have to conduct direct elections with all registered cadres participating and voting. And that is just the beginning of its problems, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sibling rivalry between Stalin and his elder brother M K Alagiri came to the fore recently, when the latter claimed that true loyalists of Karunanidhi were with him.
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Lok Sabha secretariat for inauguration of the new Parliament building by President Droupadi Murmu.
Two days after Anil Vij denied having information about any intelligence input on a possible build-up of tension in Nuh, the Haryana Home Minister on Sunday said Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar can update on the issue stressing that he has 'all the information'.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked about the "source of power" of the lieutenant governor under the Constitution and the law to nominate 10 aldermen to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) without the aid and advice of the elected government.
How does it matter for people whether the Aligarh Muslim University is a minority institution or not when it has continued to be an institute of national importance without the minority tag, the Supreme Court said on Thursday as it underlined that the intent of Article 30 of the Constitution is not to "ghettoise the minority".
Elections may be a few months away, but the government may get into election mode much earlier than that, predicts A K Bhattacharya.
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kushwaha was referring to 'Luv Kush' rally in Patna, a veritable gathering of Kurmis and Koeris upset with supposed hegemony of numerically powerful Yadavs which Prasad, then helming Bihar, was seen as embodying.
Exhorting her supporters to ensure a "complete win" for the party so that the United Progressive Alliance could be ousted from the Centre, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Thursday said her party would fight the next Lok Sabha polls on the plank of peace, prosperity and progress.
'The BJP would like to build a 'rainbow' coalition of different castes and communities buttressed by the appeal of nationalism and Hindutva.'
A Ganesh Nadar captures the mood and scenes from outside the hall in Vaanagaram where Sasikala was appointed as the new party chief.
'Religion has divided our country like it never had done.' 'I can't remember a time of such focused hatred.'
Paying tribute to Tamil Nadu's former chief minister J Jayalalithaa on her birth anniversary, expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader VK Sasikala said that they (the AIADMK and the Amma Makkal Munnetra Katchi) should contest elections together.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday observed that giving the lieutenant governor the power to nominate aldermen in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi would mean that he can destabilise an elected civic body.
On Thursday, he had visited relief camps in Churachandpur, one of the worst affected towns in the ethnic rioting, which has plagued the northeastern state for the last two months.