Members of a parliamentary committee on Thursday raised the issue of Twitter temporarily locking the account of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in 2020 as well as misrepresentation of the Indian map by the micro-blogging site, sources said.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
The apex court within hours took suo motu notice of it and a five-member bench started hearing the case on Monday.
'For politicians, winning the next election has become more important than economic stability of the country and broader national interest.'
The Congress on Thursday slammed the Centre after a May 4 video of two women being paraded naked in Manipur surfaced, with party president Mallikarjun Kharge accusing the Narendra Modi government of turning democracy into 'mobocracy'.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
Gandhi's remarks drew massive protests from the treasury benches and a rare intervention from the prime minister, who slammed the Congress leader for calling the entire Hindu community violent.
In a major escalation of the tussle with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Friday warned that he could recommend President's rule in the state and also initiate criminal proceedings if his letters are not answered.
One should not allow politics to enter home, Pawar, who is currently on a statewide 'Jan Samman Yatra', told Marathi news channel Jai Maharashtra.
Trumponomics, poor growth, and high valuation certainly don't make a bullish recipe for Indian markets, warns Debashis Basu.
Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi state convener Gopal Rai on Thursday said his party's alliance with the Congress was only for the Lok Sabha elections and hinted that the ruling party in the city will go solo in next year's assembly polls in Delhi.
Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar on Monday said he is not bothered about his criticism by others and is only concerned about what key leaders of the ruling Mahayuti alliance say.
Holding simultaneous polls for the Lok Sabha and all assemblies would need any no-confidence motion to be coupled with a 'confidence motion' by a leader proposed as next prime minister or chief minister, while any mid-term election can be conducted only for remainder of the term, the Election Commission had said earlier.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, the CM said, "There is no situation for revisiting it at the government level. There is no such intention, there is no such proposal."
'Every Haryana assembly seat has its own unique problems to earn victory for a political party and you as a politician need to know what are those issues and tackle it.'
The Upper House was earlier adjourned twice in the afternoon session when it took up the discussion on the Budget after Prime Minister Narendra Modi finished his speech on the motion of thanks on the President's address and the motion was passed.
'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.
"What the RTI Act did was to make available to citizens any information that could be provided, that the government was obliged to provide to a Member of Parliament (MP). In theory, that channel remains open to us," says prominent economist and RTI activist Reetika Khera about how Indian citizens could still have access to information that they want
Veteran party leader Anil Vij will seek re-election from his Ambala Cantt stronghold.
The former chief minister said if there was any danger of his losing from Budgam, then his party colleagues would not have allowed him to contest from Budgam.
After taking oath, he hailed his state Telangana, Bhimrao Ambedkar, apart from raising the AIMIM's slogan for Muslim, along with the West Asian country.
'Don't be surprised if the Census forms come with a caste box.' 'I will be surprised if it doesn't. It will be a point conceded to Rahul Gandhi and his allies,' asserts Shekhar Gupta. The BJP machine could take all 3 in its stride, but this election has changed that, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'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.
The PDP looks a distant third in the race, observes Mohammed Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir politics.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, had called representatives of Facebook to hear their views "on the subject of safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space," according to agenda of the meeting.
Even as parleys continue in both states, the grand old party is expected to contest less than 110 seats in the November 20 polls for the 288-member Maharashtra assembly.
Sheikh Hasina, who was elected for a record fourth consecutive term and fifth overall term this year, was always admired by her supporters as "Iron Lady", before the dramatic development that abruptly ended her 15-year-rule in Bangladesh.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is expected to name the committee's chairperson soon.
The increased numbers of the Opposition bloc would mean that their MPs are likely to head several more panels than the four that they did by the end of the term of the 17th Lok Sabha.
'We are not secessionists, we want to coexist with our countrymen but not on the terms that will strip us off our dignity and a right to peaceful existence.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to achieve a clear majority in Rajya Sabha after bye-elections for 12 seats scheduled next month, which would help the party get the nod for key legislations such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
The turbulent relations between Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and INDIA bloc parties came to a head on Friday with sources saying that the opposition is considering submitting a notice for moving a resolution to remove the vice president from his office.
This comes at a time when there are growing concerns about safeguarding citizens' data privacy and election interference through social media platforms.
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.
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.
'Just because the NDA has a majority and the BJP is the single largest party does not mean that this Modi government enjoys a majority in the Lok Sabha.' 'It is always possible that some members (of the NDA and even the BJP) may defect, some members may not want him to be the prime minister and they might vote differently (against Modi) in the confidence vote.'
Any direction or rule of the House cannot subvert the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech granted to members of Parliament, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said, asserting that any criticism of the government and its policies can never be equated with the "dignity" of the Council of States.
'The RJD is a family centric party and its top leadership's main concern is only to promote the family.'
After Modi is elected the leader of NDA MPs, senior members of the alliance like Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu, Janata Dal-United's Nitish Kumar and Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde will join the prime minister for a meeting with President Droupadi Murmu to present her the list of parliamentarians supporting him, some alliance members said.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
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