Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
The Supreme Court of India has granted interim bail to Tahir Hussain, a former councillor accused in the 2020 Delhi riots. Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, while granting bail, said the allegations against Hussain were grave but as of now they were just allegations. The bench, however, delivered a split verdict, with Justice Pankaj Mithal opposing the bail. The court also questioned the Delhi Police for the delay in the trial over the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the riots.
The alleged entry of 'plainclothes police personnel' on the university campus on Monday also did not go down well with a section of the students and teachers.
She is the 21st chief minister of West Bengal and 8th person to hold the office.
Uttarakhand has become the first state in India to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), fulfilling a key promise made by the ruling BJP ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami unveiled the UCC notification and launched a portal for mandatory online registration of marriages, divorces, and live-in relationships. The UCC aims to create equal laws for all citizens regardless of their religion, marking a historic moment in the state's legal landscape.
Sporadic incidents of violence were reported from various places that went to polls on Saturday during the first phase of the West Bengal assembly election, even as the overall poll situation was largely peaceful with 79.79 per cent turnout recorded till the end of voting, an official said.
Moments after administering the oath to the ministers of the Mamata Banerjee government, Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday expressed concern over the situation arising out of post-poll violence in the state and said he would soon be visiting the affected areas.
Three persons, including two supporters of the Indian Secular Front (ISF), were killed and several policemen injured in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district as a clash broke out outside a centre where counting of votes for rural polls was going on, police said on Wednesday.
Security personnel had to resort to firing when a mob tried to storm into a vote counting station in western Assam's Dhubri district at around 10.30 am on Friday today, killing three persons and injuring at least five.
One person was killed and six others were injured in a clash between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal's Birbhum district, police said.
The Trinamool Congress moved the Supreme Court on Friday seeking a probe by a court-monitored panel into the alleged large-scale violence during the municipal polls in Tripura.
The PML-N, however, rejected the demand and claimed that it was winning Thursday's elections.
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.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) on Sunday elected its first Dalit president from the Left-backed groups after nearly three decades.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
The party's prime mover in West Bengal and the state Pradesh Congress president was stunned by Trinamool Congress's star candidate and cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan who comprehensively defeated Chowdhury by a margin of over 85,000 votes.
The result is a big blow to the military establishment, revealing the limits of 'political engineering'. It reflected the anger of the electorate, especially its younger voters, who have spoken decisively against the persistent harassment and victimisation of Imran Khan's political party, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
The Union home ministry has initiated disciplinary action against Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal and a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) for allegedly maligning the office of the West Bengal Governor by promoting and spreading canards, a central government official said.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has won 23 seats while the Pakistan Peoples Party was second with eight seats and the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz secured just six seats, the state-run Radio Pakistan reported.
Bangladeshis on Sunday began voting in the general elections expected to be won by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the absence of the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which is boycotting it.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea from the BJP seeking a direction to the West Bengal government, state election panel and other functionaries to prepare a comprehensive action plan and deploy sufficient central police forces to ensure free and fair municipal polls in Kolkata.
'Women' as a political constituency appears to be an idea that has come of age. It is changing India in ways that we only dimly understand, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
Three persons were shot dead and several others were injured as violence and arson marked the conclusion of nomination filing for the three-tier West Bengal panchayat polls slated next month.
As the Queen star found herself in the middle of a row, with the BJP distancing itself and the Congress attacking it, here's a look at some of the controversies, political and otherwise.
The unofficial results were expected by Monday morning which would be announced by the commission headquarters in the capital.
In a terse message to the ruling party, Priyanka in a Hindi tweet said, 'The goons of the BJP involved in 'cheerharan' of the democracy should hear that women will become pradhans, block pramukhs, MLAs, MPs and prime minister, and defeat the government, which gives patronage to those committing atrocities against women.'
Later on while speaking to the reporters, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said the BJP legislators were forced to stage protest as there was no mention of post-poll violence in the speech copy circulated among the MLAs.
'It was a disaster on his part to give an oral remark which allowed ascertainment of the religious character of places of worship.' 'This disrupted the social harmony of the country.'
'Lalu understands that his words can be used by rivals to consolidate Hindu votes which may damage the prospects of his party's social support base.'
India stressed that it is even more extraordinary for a country with a history of rigged elections to talk about political choices, that too in a democracy.
The BJP's Central Election Committee had met on Sunday evening to finalise the party's candidates for the polls.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal's car was pelted with stones during campaigning in the New Delhi constituency on Saturday, the party alleged.
Nearly 13.04 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 9 am on Wednesday in 43 assembly constituencies in Jharkhand where voting is underway in the first phase, officials said.
Terming Naxals the biggest human rights violators, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said security forces have been carrying out 'offensive operations' instead of defensive against the insurgents and have achieved big successes in recent times.
Contractors were seen busy boarding up major stores and businesses from New York and Boston in the north to southern Houston to Washington DC and Chicago in the east to San Francisco in theWest.
Nagaland Chief Electoral Officer Abhijit Sinha said the violence in Akuluto constituency in Zunheboto district left one dead and two injured.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday secured a record fourth straight term as her Awami League party won two-thirds of the seats in the general elections marred by sporadic violence and a boycott by the main opposition BNP and its allies.
Violence had rocked West Bengal's rural polls on Saturday, leaving 15 people dead while ballot boxes were vandalised, ballot papers torched, and bombs thrown at rivals in several places.
The situation in Manipur and the Delhi services ordinance are set to dominate the Monsoon session of Parliament beginning Thursday with the Opposition gearing up to raise these issues to corner the government.
