Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
Intelligence agencies have warned the Karnataka government of a major terror strike in Bangalore.
Under flak, Munde said the video clip, in which he was purportedly heard making the comments against Pankaja, was edited and fake. He claimed that his remarks were "distorted" to project him as a "villain" by his rivals to win elections.
Springing a surprise, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday picked Mohan Yadav, a leader of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and a three-time MLA, as the next chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, state party president VD Sharma said.
Experts recommend awaiting the findings of the 2021 Census, which is yet to be conducted, before introducing population control policies.
Having failed to get any concrete response from the Centre following their en masse resignations in support of a separate state, Telangana Congress leaders on Monday decided to undertake a 48-hour fast to highlight their cause.
Counting of votes for four legislative council seats representing panchayat quota in the state is scheduled to be taken up on Thursday and the results are expected by noon.
One of the dropped ministers, Bojjala Gopala Krishna Reddy, resigned from his assembly membership.
More than 60 Congress Members of Parliament, Members of Legislative Assembly and Members of Legislative Council from Telangana region on Wednesday met Home Minister P Chidambaram and demanded urgent steps for the creation of a separate state. The law makers, however, expressed "unhappiness" over getting "very little" time to meet the home minister and sat for more than two hours at a conference hall of the home ministry, apparently as a mark of protest.
Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar on Monday said the party's national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has agreed to campaign and spend time in the state, for the assembly elections next year.
The BJP had criticised the MVA government saying that it was "unethical" on its part to issue so many orders in a short span.
The end of the last session of the 12th Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly on Thursday was as stormy as most of its tenure. Almost the entire opposition stormed the well of the House to disrupt the last statement of the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy on the issue of separate Telangana state.
The 61 year-old leader was the Minister for Home Affairs, Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislature in Yediyurappa's council of ministers that was dissolved on Monday and was also the Minister in-charge of Haveri and Udupi Districts.
The Maharashtra government has decided to transfer Pune Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh in the wake of rising crime graph in the city, the Legislative Council was informed on Tuesday.
Chief Minister K Rosaiah, Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and Praja Rajyam chief Chiranjeevi were among the top leaders who paid homage to late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy on Friday night. Speaking on the occasion, Rosaiah said, "Reddy had a unique personality. He always kept his word and his leadership qualities made people admire him. No surprise that he never lost an election in his long political career since 1978."
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, an influential political party in Andhra Pradesh, pulled the rug from under the feet of the ruling Congress government on Monday after terming it "communal, a stooge of Sangh Parivar and anti-people".
Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday said a Rs 1,600 crore financial package has been sanctioned for the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants.
Defending its three-capital decision, the government said since inception in 1956 the state had failed to integrate people from all regions, reports B Dasarath Reddy.
Political parties in Maharashtra will have to gear up for the biennial Rajya Sabha and legislative council polls soon after next month's local bodies elections in the state, with Union Ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh and Rajiv Shukla among those seeking re-election.
A delegation of Congress leaders from Karnataka on Saturday met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh demanding immediate appropriate action on Governor H R Bhardwaj's report to the Centre recommending dismissal of the B S Yeddyurappa government in the state.
The BJP also announced a Rs 5 meal scheme for all, named after religious guru Anukul Chandra, and setting up of a Regional Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in Agartala.
Announcing a Re 1 crop insurance scheme for farmers, the deputy CM said the government will bear the financial burden of Rs 3,312 crore.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and former state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya had also dropped a hint in a recent tweet, saying Yaduvanshi (Yadavs), Ravidasiyo (Jatavs) and Pasmanda Muslims will be brought closer to the BJP so that the lotus 'blossoms' in every booth in UP.
In a telephonic interview with rediff.com, Dhananjay Munde squarely blames his uncle for sidelining him in the state BJP for the benefit of Munde's daughter Pankaja Munde-Palwe, who is currently a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council from Parli, the BJP leader's home town.
"It has been decided that there shall be no change in the leadership and Sushil Kumar Modi, Deputy Chief Minister will continue as leader of the legislature party," party spokesperson Ravi Shanker Prasad told PTI shortly after Modi won the 'head count' of legislators. BJP leadership had decided to go for a 'secret ballot' to assess the view of legislators as a way out to address the demand by some of them that Modi should be removed from the two posts.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar had dissuaded Gopinath Munde from joining the Congress when the sulking Bharatiya Janata Party leader was planning a switch as he felt neglected, according to Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers on Monday amid a heightened buzz about the likelihood of a Cabinet reshuffle following a series of meetings of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's top brass.
Congress leader and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla on Monday filed his nomination for the biennial Rajya Sabha election from Maharashtra. Apart from Shukla, Nagpur-based industrialist Ajay Kumar Sancheti filed his nomination as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, while the Nationalist Congress Party fielded party general secretary D P Tripathi, Pune NCP chief Vandana Chavan and Member of Legislative Council Prakash Binsale.
Within three months of the Samajwadi Party coming to power in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday gave an assurance in the Legislative Council that agricultural loans to farmers in the state would be waived. Winding up the discussion on the Appropriation Bill, which was later returned by the House, Yadav said his government has taken a number of decisions within three months of the SP coming to power.
Sonam Wangchuk, a key campaigner for constitutional safeguards for Ladakh, on Monday said they would launch a fast unto death from February 19 to press their demands and that details of participation of local residents in the agitation were being worked out.
The Telangana government is examining the issue of increasing the salaries of the members of legislative assembly and the council in view of their "grossly inadequate" pay structure.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy today drew flak from his party men and the opposition, which demanded that he immediately step down from his post owning responsibility for the twin bomb blasts that claimed 16 lives on Thursday.
Opposition leader in the legislative council Vinod Tawde, alleged that the local hand in terrorism has been exposed after Abu Jundal's arrest.
The MES and some political outfits in Maharashtra have been pressing for this demand on the ground that the district and a few other neighbouring areas of Karnataka have a substantial Marathi speaking population.
'This means the remedy will be worse than the disease. The thing which you want to avoid will happen.'
"Just bargaining was going on over what he (Ajit) should be getting. As per our information, he has been given a promise of chief minister's post by pushing Eknath Shinde aside with the help of Assembly speaker's decision (on disqualification of 16 Shiv Sena MLAs)," the former CM claimed.
'If the central government does not give rights to the people of Ladakh, then it won't be good for our country.'
he Punjab government had also sought a judicial declaration that the assembly session held on June 19 and 20 was "legal and that the business transacted by the House is valid".
Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker K R Suresh Reddy accepted the resignations of 16 Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs, who had quit their seats to protest the failure of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government to create a separate Telangana state, in Hyderabad on Friday. On March 3, four TRS MPs, led by party president K Chandrasekhar Rao, had submitted their resignations to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. The resignations were accepted.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday said 'vested interests' were responsible for the recent killings of Sarpanches and Panches even as it said it is duty-bound to empower Panchayats in the state and has taken steps in this regard.