There are around 15 lakh diamond workers in Gujarat, including nearly seven lakh employed in units in Surat, which is the largest hub of cutting and polishing of these precious stones.
'You can see both being used in our textbooks already and that will continue in new textbooks'
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is contesting 88 seats out of the total 89, tops this list among major political parties in the fray with 36 per cent of its candidates having criminal cases. Thirty per cent of its candidates are facing serious cases such as murder, rape, assault, kidnapping, among others, the ADR said in its report. The number of candidates having criminal cases fielded by the AAP is 32.
That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
Mevani claimed that Patidar community leader Hardik Patel's resignation from the Congress did not create much impact for the party.
'Mobs are entering north Indian homes and threatening families to leave Gujarat or face consequences.'
According to the spokesperson, Singh has filed a police complaint and the FIR has been lodged for further investigation by the cyber crime cell.
I will tell you one thing, to be the Foreign Minister of Modi government is also a great strength, Jaishankar said.
The Centre has decided not to give a go-ahead to the Par-Tapi-Narmada river link project following strong protests against it by tribals, Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party president C R Paatil said on Tuesday.
According to Gandhi's lawyer Kashi Prasad Shukla, the Congress MP, who appeared before special judge Shubham Verma, said he never made a statement against anyone that could lead to a case of defamation.
AAP's presence in both states has complicated the contests for the BJP and its Congress rival.
Bhutia's nomination was proposed and seconded by Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan state associations. He did not get support from his state association.
A total of 833 candidates from 61 political parties, including Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel of the Bharatiya Janata Party, are contesting the polls in these assembly segments spread across Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Gandhinagar and other districts.
As India suffers and the ruling party is on the defensive, the truth is that the only way that this wave will pass is if exponential growth of the virus stops on its own, asserts Aakar Patel.
When S Jaishankar became India's external affairs minister in May 2019, he was largely considered a political lightweight despite his undisputed mastery over foreign policy.
The AAP has made inroads into Gujarat's politics by winning 27 seats of Surat Municipal Corporation, one of the six cities where voting was held on Sunday.
As required, Modi submitted the affidavit while filing his nomination papers Tuesday as an election candidate from the Varanasi parliamentary constituency, a seat he has held twice earlier.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's unexpected announcement to resign after two days kicked up a strong buzz on Sunday over the names of his wife Sunita and his ministers Atishi and Gopal Rai as his possible replacement.
Despite the upbeat statement, the party is expected to reflect on what caused the sharp fall in its numbers. It is expected to win about 240 seats against the 303 it had won in 2019.
The roadshow was conducted between Dehgam town in Gandhinagar district and the Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) at Lavad village, wherein Modi waved to people standing in large numbers on both sides of the road.
He hinted that the same hue and cry is not made about 1984 riots not being in textbooks.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has ruled Gujarat for 27 years, is trying to retain power in the state for the seventh term in a row.
'The 2024 general elections proved that UP is not Gujarat.'
Neither Modi nor Shah had held legislative or executive power in Delhi before 2014. They have no training in appealing to the diversity of India as represented in Parliament. Their prism is the provincial politics of Gujarat. An exclusive excerpt from Vinay Sitapati's fascinating new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi.
Influential Patel community leader Parshottam Rupala, minister in the first Narendra Modi government Mansukh Mandaviya and three-time MP Darshana Jardosh, all from Gujarat, were among those inducted in the Union cabinet on Wednesday.
Patel also said that although he had taken up the issue of his harassment with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi many times, no action has been taken to address his grievances.
Voting will be held on Thursday for the first phase of Gujarat Assembly elections in 89 seats spread across 19 districts in Saurashtra-Kutch and southern parts of the state where 788 candidates are in the fray.
The party's prime mover in West Bengal and the state Pradesh Congress president was stunned by Trinamool Congress's star candidate and cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan who comprehensively defeated Chowdhury by a margin of over 85,000 votes.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
In his absence, the party stares at uncertainty as many of its other senior leaders are either in jail or in political obscurity.
The government has slashed by up to 20 per cent the supplies of cheaper domestically produced natural gas to city retailers -- a move that may result in Rs 4-6 per kg hike in the price of CNG sold to automobiles, unless excise duty on the fuel is cut, sources said. Natural gas pumped from below the ground and from under the seabed from sites ranging from the Arabian Sea to Bay of Bengal within India is the raw material that is turned into CNG for sale to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households.
The party's CM choice came as a surprise for many as the low-profile, first-time legislator was not seen to be among the top contenders for the post.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider listing a plea challenging the grant of remission by the Gujarat government to 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case.
Nearly half of the MPs elected in the 2019 general elections in India were first-timers.
The old order is changing, but the new one is yet to take shape, and this is expected to firm up after the Gujarat polls. Much will depend on how Narendra Modi fares, and whether he clicks with a disillusioned urban middle class in the country, says Neerja Chowdhury.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday expressed concern over the vandalism of a Hindu temple with anti-India graffiti in the United States, and said extremists and separatist forces outside India should not get such space.
Bihar is no stranger to being at the centre of a tectonic shift in national politics fuelled by turbulent regional forces.
Here stood a man who embodied the legacy of whatever Brand Tata stood for, embellished it, and departed into the long night, leaving the brand legacy for others to further enrich, notes R Gopalakrishnan.
