Pak foreign office said that it was a scuffle between 2 Muslim groups and attempts to paint this incident as a communal issue are 'patently motivated'. It also said that claims of acts of 'desecration and destruction' are not only false but mischievous.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari and senior party leader L K Advani would address NDA's public rally in Hyderabad on Thursday against the Central government, highlighting the issue of corruption.
Noted educationist and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malviya was on Monday posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award, by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Other decisions piled up include rationalisation of GST rate slabs, correction of inverted duty on certain items and inclusion of petroleum products.
President of newly-formed Punjab People's Party, which is emerging as a third force in the state, Manpreet claims the results of Punjab elections would be quite different than expected.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the Parkash Singh Badal-led Shiromoni Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government in Punjab, saying the state which was once a frontrunner in all spheres had now fallen behind.
The two leaders also discussed the special category status promised to the southern state.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday started his three-day fast at the Gujarat University Convention Centre for "peace, harmony and unity in the state".
Chief Ministers of a number of states including those from Gujarat, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal on Saturday skipped the meeting of the prime minister-led National Integration Council in New Delhi.
The National Election Watch has put out a report pertaining the chief ministers of the five states going to polls -- Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
Brigadier Gagneja (retd) was attacked by bike-borne assailants on August 6 in Jalandhar.
'People belonging to all religions reside in our country and this is our strength that they stay together as a team. Why should you exclude (them)?'
The decision of its two oldest allies to walk out means that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is also president of the Janata Dal-United, is now the oldest BJP ally besides being the most powerful.
Ahead of the first meeting of the top decision-making body in nearly eight months, finance ministers of eight states ruled by non-Bharatiya Janata Party and like-minded parties -- Rajasthan, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Kerala and West Bengal -- have devised a joint strategy to press for a zero tax rate on Covid essentials, sources said.
Amid apprehensions that Sikh hardliners might object to the customary address by the Akal Takht jathedar at the Golden Temple, Amritsar city was turned into a fortress with about 5,000 security personnel comprising seven companies of paramilitary forces being deployed to maintain law and order.
Eighty five-year-old Shiromani Alkali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal today created two records in one go by becoming the chief minister of Punjab for the fifth time and the first in the reorganised state's history to return to power for the second successive tenure heading the SAD-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance ministry.
A day after his party got a miserable drubbing in the Assembly polls, Peoples Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal on Wednesday accused Shiromani Akali Dal of using money power to garner votes.
The Punjab CM said he was overwhelmed at receiving the Padma Vibhushan.
Speaking at an event organised to remember former Prime Minister IK Gujral on his 100th birth anniversary, Singh said, "When the sad event of 1984 took place, Gujral ji that very evening went to the then Home Minister Narsimha Rao and said to him that the situation is so grim that it is necessary for the government to call the army at the earliest. If that advice would have been heeded perhaps the massacre that took place in 1984 could have been avoided."
Though the Congress lost the battle in 2007 to the Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance, it hopes to regain power in Punjab this year. The party, which is banking on the anti-incumbency factor, believes it "will throw Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and Bhartiya Janata Party out of power".
A Bharatiya Janata Party MLA in Punjab was allegedly thrashed and his clothes torn by a group of farmers at Malout in Muktsar district on Saturday, police said.
The Indian men continued their winning streak by clinching the fifth Kabaddi World Cup title, while women bagged the crown for the fourth consecutive time.
Farmer outfits on Friday started mobilising more batches of peasants from Haryana and Punjab to head towards Delhi's borders to join the ongoing agitation against agri laws, even as political parties such as the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Indian National Lok Dal threw their weight behind them.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday claimed that victory of the Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance in the Bihar assembly elections reflects the national mood against Congress party.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal expressed his gratitude to Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh for his efforts in cleaning polluted rivers in the state. Badal appreciated the central minister's efforts through a unanimous resolution adopted by the state assembly on September 30, which thanked Ramesh for his "whole-hearted assistance to the scheme to make the state of Punjab pollution free."
The Akali Dal-BJP alliance won on four seats and the AAP bagged one.
Amarinder, 75, was sworn in as the state's 26th chief minister along with nine ministers, including Navjot Singh Sidhu.
The AAP bagged 20 seats in Punjab while losing all seats in Goa
'However, this time it looks like that is not working.'
In a reprieve for Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, a local court in Mohali on Friday acquitted him along with his wife, son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal and eight others in a seven-year-old corruption and disproportionate assets case. The case was filed against them during the Amarinder Singh-led Congress regime. Additional District and Sessions Judge R K Aggarwal acquitted 11 of the 15 accused, saying no incriminating evidence was available.
A goof-up by Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal's security coordination committee led the helicopter carrying him to the wrong destination.
Warning the inefficient and corrupt employees in the state, the Punjab government on Wednesday said it will soon launch a systematic drive to identify laggards and weed them out.
Rahul's babalog have forged an alliance that is now formidable. This is a challenge to older congress MPs. Second-timers and third-timers cannot be very happy with this development
Kovind requested Modi to advise him about the names of others to be appointed members of the Union Council of Ministers; and indicate the date and time of the swearing-in ceremony to be held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan
"Chandigarh is ours. They (Haryana) have no right over it," Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said on Wednesday.
The series of meetings are being seen as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to reach out to allies who have either been criticising or expressing their dissent with the party and also to strengthen the National Democratic Alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
The balloons were first seen by a villager near his house on Friday and when he found the note written in Urdu, he handed them over to the police.
Sukhbir was having none of that. He saw Manpreet taking the V P Singh route to oust him (in the interests of austerity, Manpreet drives his car himself, has minimal security and refuses to touch cashew nuts offered to ministers at public functions, according to newspaper reports from Punjab).
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday described the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as "fourth holocaust" of the community and said the upcoming Sikh carnage memorial being built by Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee will preserve history of this barbaric incident.
'It is just an excuse to say that the Centre has run out of money.' 'Pruning these schemes would mean hard time for the people of India.'