A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Unfortunately, some ill-informed's would rather take swipes at Dr Manmohan Singh-led UPA govt than fight NDA/BJP'
'On the other side, we have an ideology of hatred and violence, a disrespectful ideology that attacks people because of their ideas. And you must have noticed one thing that this is in the nature of BJP and the RSS'
'Many times when Khalistan slogans are raised, it is from those who feel alienated, not because they want a separate state.'
People like Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram, who as finance minister had fully supported the NPS, refuse to exercise their moral and political influence to try and stop Ashok Gehlot and others hell-bent on wrecking the states' finances, notes Virendra Kapoor.
Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav died in Medanta hospital of Gurugram on Monday. He was 82.
If Manmohan Singh was hobbled by allegations of sleaze and a stagnant economy, Modi faces the twin challenges of high unemployment and an uncertain and potentially volatile situation in Kashmir, points out Amulya Ganguli.
'Where is the remote control in the BJP? When I become president, the remote control will stay with me'
United States President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr Jill Biden on Monday hosted a Diwali reception at the White House in what they called the largest since the People's House started celebrating the festival during the George Bush administration.
Mr Modi might have questions to ask himself on the most formidable strategic challenge before India that he inherited from the United Progressive Alliance: The triangulation between China and Pakistan. The failure to break out of it, or even loosen it a bit, is something to reflect on, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a sister organisation of the Bajrang Dal, said its workers carried out the act to register their protest against Gujarat Congress president Jagdish Thakor's recent statement regarding minorities.
Abe Shinzo's murder is a personal loss for Prime Minister N D Modi, one of the Japanese leader's international friends -- Modi was the only world leader Abe followed on social media back in 2014 -- and the two prime ministers charted out a new road map for India-Japan relations that grew stronger in the Abe era and in the years since he stepped down.
Tharoor said the Congress should stand up for its foundational principles.
Hectic preparations were underway at the Congress headquarters for the ceremony where party president Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
Gandhi, who met a cross section of people from Jammu and Kashmir during his yatra, said J-K has the highest level of unemployment in the country.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole on Thursday said if actors Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar do not take a stand on the issue of fuel price hike, then screening of their films and shootings would not be allowed in the state.
In an open letter, they said, "We are witnessing a frenzy of hate filled destruction in the country where at the sacrificial altar are not just Muslims and members of the other minority communities but the Constitution itself."
Sober by temperament and nature, Kharge has never landed in any major political trouble or controversy.
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
Gandhi, then a newly appointed Congress chief, had staked claim to form the government at the Centre after the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had lost the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 1999.
The Congress steering committee on Friday approved several amendments to the party constitution, one of which is to give permanent membership to former prime ministers and former party presidents in the all-powerful working committee.
'Those who are talking of adopting the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh policy must understand now that what was a reform then is no longer a reform now,' argues Sukumar Mukhopadhyay who was associated with the 1991 economic reforms.
The seat got vacant after the death of Bharatiya Janata Party's Rajya Sabha MP Madan Lal Saini in June. Rajasthan has 10 Rajya Sabha seats.
Sources said the process was stuck since Rahul Gandhi is not willing to contest the election for the post of Congress president, although all the efforts to convince him are still going on.
If elected, he will be the second All India Congress Committee president from Karnataka after S Nijalingappa, and also a Dalit leader to hold the post after Jagjivan Ram.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was 'putting pressure' on him to 'frame' the then chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi in an alleged fake encounter case in Gujarat when he was being questioned by the probe agency during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
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 action came after investigations carried out by an inter-ministerial committee formed by the home ministry in 2020.
'I am still the girl who grew up in a close family in Madras, in the South of India, and I am deeply connected to the lessons and culture of my youth. I am also the woman who arrived in the US at age twenty-three to study and work and, somehow, rose to lead an iconic company, a journey that I believe is possible only in America. I belong in both worlds,' says the ex-Pepsico chief in her memoir
A number of Congress leaders including former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Rajya Sabha MP Anand Sharma have tested positive for COVID-9.
Pranabda hasn't given us any indication of the tough period when he realised Sonia Gandhi had decided to give the presidency not to him, but to then vice-president Hamid Ansari. He wrested the presidency from her, and handed her the biggest defeat of her UPA years, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The government on Wednesday reconstituted the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) under existing chairman Bibek Debroy, for a period of two years. V Anantha Nageswaran has been dropped, Rakesh Mohan (former deputy governor of RBI), Poonam Gupta (director general of NCAER) and TT Ram Mohan (professor, IIM Ahmedabad) have been appointed as part-time members of the reconstituted EAC-PM. The other part-time members of the Council include Sajid Chenoy, Neelkanth Mishra and Nilesh Shah.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur hit out at Gandhi over his claims of being under surveillance by intelligence agencies and accused him of maligning India on foreign soil.
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.
Azad was elected to the Upper House from Jammu and Kashmir, which does not have an assembly currently after it was made a Union Territory with the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.
Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge, a staunch Gandhi family loyalist from Karnataka, has become the Congress' first non-Gandhi president in 24 years.
The opposition's presidential poll candidate Yashwant Sinha on Friday revealed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refused to take his calls when he tried to seek the latter's support for his candidature.
A number of world leaders shared their well wishes for former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who is in a critical condition after being shot during a campaign speech on Friday in western Japan.
She posed for the traditional 'briefcase' picture outside her office along with her team of officials before heading to meet the President. She, however, was holding a tablet instead of a briefcase to present the Budget in a digital format.
