Defying predictions of his political eclipse, Nationalist Congress Party chief Ajit Pawar has not only consolidated his position in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti, but also fortified his place in Maharashtra politics by becoming deputy chief minister for the sixth time.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
He drew the roadmap of India's economic reform, unshackled it from the licence raj and pulled it back from the brink when even its gold reserve was pledged.
He was colourful. He was dramatic. He was The Master of His Craft. There never will be an editor as versatile as Pritish Nandy, notes Nikhil Lakshman.
Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, in his latest book, argues that Pranab Mukherjee should have been made Prime Minister in 2012 instead of Manmohan Singh, who was then recovering from health issues. Aiyar believes this would have prevented the "paralysis of governance" and "doomed" any prospects the Congress might have had to form UPA-III. He also criticizes the government's handling of the Anna Hazare-led agitation and the Commonwealth Games scandal, which he believes contributed to the party's downfall in the 2014 general elections.
'We are going to need more technical people in government.' 'You can't expect a generalist to understand the complicated world of financial engineering.' 'I regret to say that most of our politicians have no competence to deal with these things. Nor is there a willingness to learn.'
Allowing the Centre's review of the August 23, 2022 verdict, a bench Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra recalled the judgement delivered by a three-judge bench headed by former CJI NV Ramana.
Perhaps because the Modi government had some differences of opinion with two of the economist governors (one of whom was appointed by the Manmohan Singh government), there is a view that its political leadership prefers a civil servant to head the RBI, notes A K Bhattacharya.
It's time India re-visited its Western alliances for the attitude and approach that the West reserves for the nation when it comes to security cooperation of the kind that they might not have visualised outside of China, India's bug-bear, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
No single individual, institution, or action is to blame for this. The BJP is responding in kind -- definitely not without checking with its government. And they wait for Mr Trump, notes Shekhar Gupta.
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Pankaj Mithal said when reasonable care, expected of the medical professional, was extended or rendered to the patient unless contrary was proved, it would not be a case for actionable negligence.
'Today, when we talk of success of PSLV and GSLV Mk III, we owe it to important inputs that the Prof. Narasimha committee gave'
Chiranjeevi's upcoming magnum opus Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy looks grand, especially the action sequences.
The judgment from a five-judge Constitution bench, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, offers clarity on licensing regulations and is expected to prevent insurance companies from rejecting claims based on the type of licence of drivers involved in accidents.
Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy is a larger-than-life spectacle that deserves a theatre viewing, feels Karan Sanjay Shah.
'Despite our being a part of a welfare state, benefits are not trickling down to the intended beneficiaries at the desired levels. People's aspirations about leading a dignified life are often met with challenges. One of them, primarily, being poverty'
In a major setback to Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party government, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the law 'expressly enables' the lieutenant governor to nominate aldermen to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and he is not bound by the advice of the council of ministers in the matter.
Former Indian Space Research Organisation chief G Madhavan Nair has expressed his unhappiness over top scientist Roddam Narasimha's decision to resign. Narasimha announced his resignation from ISRO in protest against the blacklisting of Nair and three other scientists over the controversial Antrix-Devas deal. Talking to reporters, Nair said he hoped the respective authorities would be able to convince Narasimha to stay on.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
The hotly debated 1998 JMM bribery case judgment, which protected former Union minister Shibu Soren from prosecution, was overturned by a seven-judge bench on Monday, ironically following a petition by his MLA daughter-in-law Sita Soren.
Senior-most Supreme Court judge Sanjiv Khanna on Wednesday recused himself from considering pleas seeking review of the apex court's judgment last year declining legal recognition to same-sex marriage, sources said.
A blame game began in the Congress on Tuesday as it failed in its bid to come back to power in Haryana after 10 years, with senior party leader Kumari Selja saying the party high command should assess all reasons that led to the disappointing result and identify the people responsible.
According to the cause list of July 10 uploaded on the apex court website, a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud would consider in chambers the pleas seeking review of the October 17 last year verdict.
'I give a lot of credit to Rahul Gandhi for standing up and fighting it for a long time and surviving, nobody else would have been able to survive'
The record lies with first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who did the honours 17 times from 1947 to 1964.
'I want to ask the Congress only one question: What is more important than election management in politics?'
Today even those who support Prime Minister Modi feel there is a certain sense of listlessness in this government. What is it intending to achieve? This is not easy to say, notes Aakar Patel.
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In its landmark verdict which held that MPs and MLAs taking bribe to vote or make a speech in the House are not immune from prosecution, the apex court said its ability to reconsider its decisions was necessary for the organic development of law and the advancement of justice. The apex court verdict overturned the 1998 judgment of the court in the JMM bribery case.
As Prabhakaran was leaving his house, Rajiv Gandhi called his son Rahul and asked him to fetch his (Gandhi's) bulletproof jacket. He put the jacket on Prabhakaran's back and remarked with his usual charming smile: "Take care of yourself."
Top aerospace scientist Roddam Narasimha on Saturday remained non-committal on the government's request to reconsider his decision to quit the space commission.
The film may appeal to his die-hard Ravichandran fans in the rural pockets.
'The expeditious enactment of labour codes and strategic measures to bridge the skills jobs gap are critical.'
President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday conferred Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour, on former prime ministers P V Narasimha Rao and Chaudhary Charan Singh, agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan and two-time former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, posthumously at a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
Determined not to be arm-twisted into delaying the execution, he decided to hold a late night hearing at his residence. In the pitch blackness of the night, the original verdict was upheld. The next morning, on 9 October 1992, General Vaidya's assassins were hanged until death.
Because of his proximity to Indira Gandhi, he was able to intervene directly at the level of the PMO, which he did in the days leading up to the partition of Pakistan in 1971 when he transferred crucial information about Pakistan's moves via information handed to him by an East Pakistani diplomat in Poland where he was posted.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Subhash said the Congress never gave respect to its own leaders and especially to Narasimha Rao who is known for his economic reforms in the country when he was prime minister.
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