'I have never seen a common man tapping a chief minister on the shoulder and giving him his petition, like needing money for a child admitted in a hospital.'
Tharoor said people of the country have the freedom to watch or not watch the BBC documentary on the 2002 riots and asked who can say the British broadcaster has no right to do a story on the topic.
The Congress on Friday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "taking credit for the commissioning of" India's first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and accused him of "hypocrisy" for not recognising the contributions made by earlier governments.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will meet the Congress high command in New Delhi on Wednesday amid suspense over whether he will file nomination for the post of party president, sources in Jaipur said.
Siddaramaiah's anti-urban bias, which he does not bother to hide, may become the Congress government's biggest weakness unless it is corrected.
The 79-year old leader, who served as the chief minister of Kerala twice, breathed his last in a private hospital in Bengaluru at 4.25 am. His end came while undergoing treatment for cancer, party sources said.
Home Minister Amit Anilchandra Shah, National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday laid wreaths on the mortal remains of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and his wife Madhulika Rawat.
The fight for chief ministership in the next United Democratic Front government has begun in the Congress party ,albeit in a subtle and subdued way. The recent report of the Intelligence Bureau that the Congress-led UDF would win around eighty five seats and head the ruling coalation has set the ball rolling in the Congress party for the post of chief minister.
Congress observers for Rajasthan on Tuesday recommended disciplinary action against three key loyalists of Ashok Gehlot but did not seek any action against the chief minister, as the party scampered to resolve the crisis that has cast a shadow on the election of the party president.
Not an inch of land has been ceded since Narendra Modi became prime minister, Union minister Kiren Rijiju said in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, hitting back at an opposition MP who accused the government of giving away Indian territory "bit by bit to China".
While members from Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland and Tripura are retiring on April 2, five members from Punjab are retiring on April 9.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the Bengaluru-based public sector aircraft builder, has challenged the Indian Air Force's plan to purchase more Pilatus trainer aircraft by building a basic trainer aircraft, using its own funding.
Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Hooda are the members of the pro-reform G23 group who wrote a letter to party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
Union Defence Minister A K Antony on Friday said that two army divisions, comprising around 30,000 troops, have been moved out of Jammu and Kashmir due to improvement in the situation there.
Sources said that Congress leaders, including Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh, Mukul Wasnik, KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, AK Antony, Ambika Soni and Randeep Surjewala, are also taking part in the meeting at Sonia Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence.
'The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think.' 'That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.'
'Vote banks will change affiliations and the BJP will come out with good success in Kerala.'
Tactical systems such as main battle tank Arjun, light combat aircraft Tejas, a family of radars, electronic warfare systems, sonars, torpedoes, armaments and missiles have been successfully developed in the country and many of them are being delivered to the armed forces. The recent success of the DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) in the launch of interceptor missile and Agni-III has taken our country into the elite club of a few developed nations.
The discussions are mostly one-on-one, party insiders said on Thursday, a day of many meetings.
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
Most of the leaders who attended the meeting agreed that Kishor joining the Congress would be beneficial for the party, they added.
The Adarsh scam is potentially the more dangerous than the Commonwealth Games mess since it points to corruption in the armed forces. As a man whose personal integrity is beyond reproach, the defence minister must step in and stem the rot, says T V R Shenoy.
The meeting with Antony comes days after an open rebellion by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot loyalists on a possible leadership change in the state
The interim panel headed by him would take the place of the Congress Working Committee, the apex decision-making body, till a new CWC is formed after Kharge's election is ratified at the party plenary.
The Congress on Sunday wrote to the Rashtrapati Bhavan seeking an appointment with President Ram Nath Kovind for a 7-member party delegation led by Rahul Gandhi to meet him and present a detailed memorandum of facts in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri incident that claimed the lives of eight people earlier this month.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said legislators across the country should be driven by passion, performance and procedural integrity, and desist from disrupting law-making bodies.
It was after a gap of two decades that saw such an occasion where MPs of the upper house enthralled their fellow colleagues at a dinner hosted by Chairman and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu for 72 retiring members.
Singh, 80, had floated the PLC last year after quitting the Congress following his unceremonious exit as chief minister, but his party failed to win any seat in the state assembly polls.
In a day of frantic developments, Digvijaya Singh entered the fray for the Congress president's election as Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot opted out of the race and the suspense over his continuation at the helm in the state deepened with the party saying it would be decided in a day or two.
When the IAF veterans' bail petition came up for hearing, in an unprecedented move, senior serving and retired Air Marshals and Air Vice Marshals rallied behind the accused officers and appeared before the court to give sureties for each, something that has never happened ever before.
No one from the Gandhi family was present at the All India Congress Committee headquarters when the leaders filed their nominations for the election.
"The two former defence ministers had some clarifications and doubts on the situation which were clarified by the CDS and the Army chief," sources said.
Senior AICC member and former Union minister K V Thomas, who has been at loggerheads with the party's state leadership, on Wednesday said he would campaign for the ruling Left Democratic Front candidate Jo Joseph in the upcoming by-poll in the Thrikkakara Assembly constituency, but reiterated that he would not quit the Congress.
France is conducting a high-level inquiry into the killing of two Indian nationals by its troops in the Central African Republic, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told his Indian counterpart A K Antony on Tuesday.
The former party donated Rs 54,000 between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020.
The Indian Air Force has been asked to speed up its inquiry into an incident in Chhattisgarh where its security guards had allegedly abandoned an injured policeman and an armed chopper, Defence Ministry A K Antony said on Wednesday1.
The delegation demands the immediate dismissal of Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
The raft of prompt decisions by the usually sluggish Ministry of Defence have been triggered by the simmering row between army chief General V K Singh and Defence Minister A K Antony. Rahul Bedi reports from New Delhi
The Congress will hold a chintan shivir immediately after the Budget session of Parliament and the CWC will meet again before that, he told reporters
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
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