Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
Finally the winter sun was streaming through the airplane's window, shining gloriously above the thick, frothy blanket of fog.
The opposition hit the roof and likened rulers of the state to Hitler, Mussolini and Kim Jong Un, though the department came out with a clarification that the controversy was stemmed from 'wrong interpretation' of a paragraph in the missive that ran into many pages.
The cold wave sweeping north India continued to disrupt normal life for the sixth consecutive day on Thursday and the death toll due to the extreme harsh weather is now reported to be over 195. Approximately 31 more deaths were reported from the various districts in Uttar Pradesh with Agra recording a temperature of 5.4 degree Celsius, the coldest in the state.Seven more deaths were reported from Bihar taking the death toll in the state to 21.
The minister was on his way to Motihari to attend PM Modi's rally. He never made it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar supremo Sharad Pawar were among the famous faces who queued up at the polling booths on Tuesday to caste their votes in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Transcending ideological barriers, political parties in Bihar on Friday slammed Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray for his reported statement that influx of North Indians was one of the reasons for growing terror attacks in Mumbai.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Tuesday launched a fresh attack on north Indians, singling out the arrest of terrorists from Bihar, in the 13/7 serial blasts case.
'Corruption has to be removed from the police force... government hospitals should improve to take care of the poor...' Biharis express their expectations from the chief minister.
A parliamentary committee has recommended that the medium of instruction in technical and non-technical higher education institutes such as IITs in Hindi-speaking states should be Hindi and in other parts of India their respective local language. It said the use of English should be made optional.
'The clearest interpretation of the November 8 mandate is that the backwards, Dalits and minorities, and a huge proportion of women cutting across caste and class, displayed massive consolidation to the extent that despite chipping of votes by the Left Front, by the Third Front and by the BSP, Mahagathbandhan candidates won, and in many cases by huge margins,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
It is not in the improved roads or in being able to visit the cinema and restaurants without fear or in the increased spending on education. The biggest change in Bihar is the distinct feeling of optimism -- that something good is finally happening in the state.
The people of West Bengal have lost faith in the state police and therefore their demand for deployment of central forces, Nayak said.
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
The attack on North Indians in Maharashtra generated major uproar in the Lok Sabha on Monday, with demands that Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray be detained under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act and that he be disenfranchised. Members from Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party, most of them belonging to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, expressed grave concern over the attack on North Indians in Maharashtra.
The Rajya Sabha MP said for electoral success 'it is essential that the ideology of Hindutva is never lost sight of'.
Several states of the country are battling grim flood situations that have affected lakhs of people and have also resulted in loss of life and property.
Five days before the Big Opposition rally in Patna, one of the Mahagathbandhan's allies will walk out of the ruling alliance.
'Bringing in Dr Mohan Yadav as the Yadav-OBC face from Ujjain as chief minister, and a scheduled tribe leader Jagdish Devda from Mandsaur district, and a Brahmin face Rajendra Shukla from Rewa, the BJP is making an attempt to put in place a new caste equation in the state keeping an eye on the general elections next year.'
Neighbours of Lalit were surprised to see his images on news channels, recalling him as a reserved individual who seldom engaged with the community at Burrabazar in Kolkata.
Muslim youth are neither meant for being indoctrinated and hired by any destructive foreign agency like the ISI, nor are they meant for being fired by their own security agencies, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Ten sensitive installations in six states and one Union territory have been declared out of bounds for the general public, with the Centre saying any information with respect to certain activities carried out at these premises may be useful to India's enemies.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has announced an ex-gratia of four lakh rupees to the kin of those killed in the incident.
If the Congress reached 90, it would have a pretty good chance of holding the BJP below the 272 mark. A hundred seats will rock national politics, argues Shekhar Gupta.
At least 66 people were killed and over two hundred people injured when a severe nor'wester with a windspeed of 125 km per hour ripped through North Dinajpur district in West Bengal and four neighbouring districts of Bihar.
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Paswan, supporting the 50 % reservation in Aligarh Muslim University, said those opposing it were out to weaken the country's integrity.
Ahead of the day-long Opposition meeting on Friday, Samvad Bhavan, Rajkiye Atithisala and Sadaquat Ashram have got a facelift.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
BJP leaders hit back at the DMK and asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi if he agreed with the insulting remarks of its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partner against the north Indians.
As various social media content of alleged attacks on migrant workers from Tamil Nadu have turned out to be fake, Chief Minister M K Stalin has alleged the "lies spread" regarding such assaults in the state was a fallout of his recent call for opposition unity to dislodge the ruling BJP at the Centre next year.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
A powerful earthquake measuring 6.8 on the richter scale and epicentred in Myanmar on Wednesday shook several parts of east and northeast India.
The toll in the devastating storm that lashed Bihar, West Bengal and Assam on Tuesday, climbed to 124 on Thursday with six more bodies found in Purnia and two in North Dinajpur.
Bihar received a message from Union home ministry seeking a report on the flood relief provided to lakhs of marooned people of north Bihar last year.
Farmers on Saturday evening ended their three-day 'rail roko' stir that hit the movement of trains, causing inconvenience to passengers in Punjab and Haryana.
North India experienced biting cold on Monday, with night-long snowfall in the upper reaches of Kashmir cutting off the valley from the rest of the country for the second day today, even as the toll in the current spell of cold wave rose to 84 with eight deaths in Bihar and two in Haryana. While light showers in parts of Rajasthan led to a further dip in temperature in the desert state, the national capital, which had a clear sky, experienced icy winds.
