He served as an effective link between the party and government during the two terms of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) between 2004 and 2014. As political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he had access to leadership that no other leader in the party had and worked the channels to work out various issues.
Demand for repeal of the act found echoes in the nation's Parliament with National People's Party (NPP) MP Agatha Sangma, a former Minister in the United Progressive Alliance government, terming the act as 'the elephant in the room which (needs to) be addressed' and seeking the 'draconian' Act be repealed.
His about-turn in the farm laws proves that he sees everything in just one dimension: Politics. That helps sometimes. But not always, observes T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said she had suggested to the Congress that an advisory council comprising prominent personalities from civil society be set up to give a direction to the opposition, but rued that the plan did not materialise.
Journalist Chandan Mitra, who passed into the ages on Wednesday night, will be missed for his courage to go against the grain, mourns Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Vadra rode a bicycle from his Sujan Singh Park residence to his Sukhdev Vihar office in protest against the rising fuel prices.
"The Congress in a way is in the grip of urban Naxals. That is why its thought has become negative," Modi alleged in his 90-minute speech.
In the book 10 Flashpoints: 20 years that is set to be released on December 2, the former union minister has looked back at the security situations that have impacted India in the last two decades.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the Indian economy may have slowed down but there is no threat of a recession.
The Congress urged Modi to come forward and order a JPC probe into the Rafale deal.
The political row had erupted after the National Democratic Alliance government inked the Rs 59,000-crore deal on September 23, 2016 to procure 36 Rafale jets from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation after a nearly seven-year exercise to procure 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft for the Indian Air Force did not fructify during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance regime.
Addressing a press conference, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and the party's chief whip in the Upper House Jairam Ramesh alleged that the government is throttling the voice of the Opposition leaders to prevent them from raising issues of public importance.
The Rajya Sabha member was not keeping well for the past few days and was admitted to a private hospital in Lucknow, where he died around 7 pm.
The Sena also suggested that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should join Pawar's effort to unite the Opposition, only then can a consolidated front gain real strength.
"While there is a protest against reforms, lakhs of farmers are also gathering to express support for bills. Today, thousands of farmers gathered in Gwalior for it," said Tomar while addressing an ASSOCHAM session via video conferencing on Wednesday.
His career as a bureaucrat has been somewhat colourless, which suggests his current elevation is simply a matter of being at the right place at the right time.
Modi said that unlike other parties that believe in keeping people weak so that their dependence on them never ends and their "crown" remains intact, the BJP believes in empowering them and making them independent.
Till Friday, the number of COVID-19 patients in Dharavi reached 808 while the death toll was at 26
BJP leaders, from Union ministers to its MPs, MLAs, all elected representatives besides organisational members, will fan out across the country to attend the programme and speak to farmers as well.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Jagat Prakash Nadda on Friday alleged that Prime Minister's National Relief Fund was donating money to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation during the United Progressive Alliance years while adding that to divert this public money into a family-run foundation is not only a "brazen fraud" but also a "big betrayal" of the people of India.
In 2017, a consortium led by Russian state oil company Rosneft agreed to buy Essar Oil for $12.9 billion in India's biggest foreign acquisition of a homegrown company. Rosneft's buyout of Essar's assets was meant to herald a wave of energy investments in India - over six decades after Esso, Caltex and Shell invested in India's refining sector in the 1950s. But the government has tripped up in its efforts to sell Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), formerly Burmah Shell, a blue chip public sector company. Bidders include a couple of global funds and resources firm Vedanta.
Replying to the debate in Lok Sabha on Motion of Thanks to President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the Parliament, Modi said the Congress' 'arrogance' has not gone away despite multiple electoral defeats and its 'misdeeds' seem to indicate that it has made up its mind not to come to power for the next 100 years.
A fresh political war of words erupted on Tuesday over the Rafale issue as the Bharatiya Janata Party accused the Congress leadership of corruption citing claims of a French media report on 'commissions' being paid during the United Progressive Alliance rule and said the Indian National Congress should be renamed 'I Need Commission' party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader also claimed that the entire controversy was an "international conspiracy by the Left-wing organisations, including Amnesty International," to defame the Narendra Modi-led Central government.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin on Sunday hit back at Union Home Minister Amit Shah for attacking his party with the 2G spectrum scam allegation and dynasty politics barb, saying it was an amusing and conjuring trick ahead of the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
The tumultuous Winter session of Parliament ended on Wednesday a day before schedule with proceedings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha marred by repeated disruptions by the opposition over which the government and the Congress traded charges and the presiding officers expressed their anguish at the conduct of some MPs.
What we have in the Congress is a useful glue to hold a non-cultural, unified Opposition together. That is the sacrifice the Congress must be willing to live with if showing the BJP the door is what the collective Opposition wants, observes Shyam G Menon.
Social activist Anna Hazare said he won't be proceeding with the indefinite fast against the new farm laws and claimed that the Central government has agreed to some of his demands.
Aditi Phadnis predicts frequent stand-offs between the Centre and states in the future.
The substantially increased economic dualism may exert lasting negative influences which could include a reduced potential for economic growth; the persistence of a very weak employment and poverty situation; rising social and political discord; and heightened vulnerability to geopolitical challenges, cautions Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
Speaking to reporters at the Gujarat BJP headquarters, the Union textiles and women and child development minister hit out at Gandhi over his comment that the Congress, if voted to power, would scrap the contentious legislations.
He also said the governments of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BSP and the SP that have ruled Uttar Pradesh in the last 32 years, when Congress was not in power, failed to live up to the expectations of the people and the Congress was set for a comeback in the state.
This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.
On his first visit to Srinagar post the abrogation of Article 370, Home Minister Amit Shah claimed that incidents of terrorism have declined and stone-throwing incidents too have ended in Jammu-Kashmir.
It is wrong to say the Congress doesn't matter. Certainly one set of people who do not believe that for a minute is the BJP. That's why even in his speech in Parliament on Constitution Day, Mr Modi called dynastic politics a threat to democracy, observes Shekhar Gupta.
He said though the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to expand its influence in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state, its goal is to rid West Bengal of the 'environment of terror'. "Bengal is the only state in the entire country where the culture of political violence is flourishing," he told the BJP's virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally.
NCP president Sharad Pawar on Friday said there should be a presentation by the government on what is happening on the India-China border, particularly in Ladakh, where the armies of the two countries are involved in a face-off. Pawar, who is in the national capital to attend a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, said there are other defence-related issues on the table for discussion, but he will make a request that a presentation is made on it.
No government can 'ignore inclusiveness in a democracy', Montek Singh Ahluwalia tells Anjuli Bhargava.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari, United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi paid tributes to Pandit Nehru at his memorial Shanti Van in the nation's capital.
Even Priyanka's formal entry into politics could not act as a saving grace for the Congress. She was made in-charge of the party's fortunes in eastern Uttar Pradesh, but despite her high-octane election campaign, Congress is ahead on just one seat -- her mother Sonia Gandhi from Raebareli.
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