The monthly Rs 2500 payment for poor women is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore while the pension scheme of Rs 2000 for every senior citizen will cost around Rs 4100 crore. The Yamuna clean up will cost over Rs 10,000 crore while a similar amount is required to upgrade Delhi's hospitals. Ultimately, the new BJP government will have no choice but to ask the centre for financial support, notes Rashme Sehgal.
"For boosting the morale of our workers, these posts are justified," said a top state BJP leader.
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed an interim stay on directives passed by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route must display names of owners.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi held a meeting with senior party leaders on Wednesday amid reports that a final call on the fate of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna will be taken soon.
Dhami, who is a two-time MLA from Khatima in Udham Singh Nagar district, replaces Tirath Singh Rawat who resigned on Friday night.
The meeting was attended by 26 participants including Chief Ministers and Lt Governors of UTs, he said while briefing the media.
The rat-hole miners said the chief minister's gesture was 'not commensurate' with the role they had played.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
Singh said the Modi government has changed the approach adopted by previous governments that the border areas are buffer zones between the plains and the potential adversary.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the meeting that the situation in Uttarakhand is better than what it was on Tuesday and Food Minister K V Thomas is taking steps to rush more food grains to the flood-hit Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
Hours after Desai said that the draft is ready to be submitted to the state government, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the Uniform Civil Code will soon be implemented in Uttarakhand.
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
It has been a week since 41 labourers got trapped inside an under-construction tunnel at Silkyara in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district after parts of the structure collapsed following a landslide last Sunday.
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
Rifleman Adarsh Negi spoke to his father over the phone on Sunday. The next day, Dalbir Singh Negi got another call, informing him about his son's death in the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua.
'The greatness of India can be experienced by meeting Indians on the frontiers of India.' 'Every citizen on the border is a soldier'
The district magistrate said that a central team will survey the damage to properties due to the land subsidence and suggest a way forward while coordinating with the local administration in relief and rescue efforts.
Campaigning came to an end on Saturday for the single-day election in Uttarakhand and Goa, two states known for political volatility where the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting to retain power, and for the second phase of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh on February 14.
Micro tunnelling expert Chris Cooper said on Monday that all the debris from the auger machine has been removed and manual drilling to reach the trapped labourers will start in a few hours.
A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said the 'drastic order' passed by the high court without hearing the chief minister has taken 'everybody by surprise' as there was no prayer in the plea by the journalists to lodge a first information report against Rawat.
Counting for assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur was held on Thursday. Here's how the big names fared.
The Uttarakhand assembly on Wednesday passed a stricter anti-conversion Bill making unlawful conversion a cognisable and non-bailable offence punishable with imprisonment for a term of at least three to a maximum of 10 years.
On a three-day visit to Uttarakhand, President Droupadi Murmu worshipped at the Badrinath temple.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
"Polling was held peacefully at the 11,697 polling booths across the state with 65.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes till the close of polls," Chief Electoral Officer Saujanya who does not use a surname said.
It is for the second consecutive year that the yatra is not being held due to the pandemic.
At least half a dozen names have begun doing the rounds as Dhami's likely replacement, including Chaubattakhal MLA Satpal Maharaj, Srinagar Garhwal MLA Dhan Singh Rawat, former chief minister Triveda Singh Rawat, who did not contest the polls this time, and Didihat legislator Bishan Singh Chufal.
President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday approved 139 Padma awards including seven Padma Vibhushans, 19 Padma Bhushans and 113 Padma Shris.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's member of Parliament from Pauri Garhwal, Tirath Singh Rawat, will be the next chief minister of Uttarakhand.
'Rama is Lord God of maryada. Today's maryada is the Constitution.'
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Friday said no progress has been made since Thursday in drilling through the debris at the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand to rescue 41 trapped workers but assured that the drilling by auger machine will start soon.
He won two terms in office, which was a stunning feat for a leader who used his silence as the most vocal weapon to change the economy and the lives of a billion people, asserts Tarun Vijay, former BJP MP and former Chief Editor, Panchjanya, the RSS weekly.
Communal tension has been brewing in Purola and some other towns of Uttarkashi district after two men, one of them Muslim, allegedly tried to abduct a Hindu girl on May 26.
Landslides blocked roads, many villages went without electricity and the death toll climbed to 52 as authorities on Wednesday faced the aftermath of the rains that had battered Uttarakhand for over two days.
The defeat of Dhami who led the BJP's campaign against the Congress in the state throws up a big question before the saffron party on the issue of choosing the next chief minister.
The recent tragedy confirms the view of humanitarian aid as a political weapon
Amid revolt by a section of his party Congress against him, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna on Wednesday said he would win a trust vote and his government would complete its five-year term. However, Bahuguna did not give any time frame for seeking the trust vote.
The 58-year-old leader was administered the oath of office by Governor Mangubhai Patel.
Koshyari said he decided to resign as he could not keep pace with the daily schedule as the governor of the country's largest state due to his health.
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