'Talking about boycotting polls is simply a move to galvanise party leaders, workers, and supporters for the big political fight.'
The pause gives the US time to breathe, to regroup, to move its expeditionary force into position without risk of interception along the way. It gives Iran nothing -- on the ground, attacks against its infrastructure continue apace. Prem Panicker in his must read daily blog on the Gulf War.
Rahul Gandhi alleges that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is an attempt to cover up "vote theft" and institutionalize it, claiming similar incidents occurred in other states.
The first phase of Bihar assembly elections saw a moderate pace of polling across 121 constituencies, with 53.77% voter turnout reported till 3 pm. Sporadic incidents of violence were also reported. Key leaders are in the fray for both the ruling NDA and the opposition INDIA bloc.
Coming down hard on the Election Commission for its response on 'vote theft' allegations, former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi on Sunday said the poll body should have ordered a probe into Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's charges instead of 'shouting' at him in a language that was 'objectionable and offensive'.
Sharad Pawar claimed that two individuals had met him in New Delhi before the 2024 Maharashtra assembly polls and 'guaranteed' the Opposition's victory in 160 of 288 constituencies.
'This is total fraud. You are showing me the slip of my vote but not counting it so this is fraud.'
The case was lodged under relevant sections at the North Avenue police station, they said, without giving details of the FIR.
The Congress demanded that the government and the Election Commission come clean on the EVM issue and urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.
Meanwhile, the Congress' data analytics department chairperson Praveen Chakravarty on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, seeking assembly-wise voter rolls in excel sheet format for the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce its verdict on Friday on a batch of pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using electronic voting machines (EVMs) with voter verifiable paper audit trail, or VVPAT.
As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
'Young people say they know all this emphasis on Hindu-Muslim differences is politically motivated.' 'If you stop watching TV and turn off social media, you'll find the situation on the ground different.'
Meta is working closely with the Election Commission. This enables the Commission to flag unlawful content.
The Supreme Court said on Wednesday it cannot 'control the elections' or issue directions simply because doubts have been raised about the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), as it reserved its judgment on a clutch of petitions claiming the polling devices can be tinkered with to manipulate the results.
The action was taken upon a plea filed by Congress Vikasnagar runner-up candidate Navprabhat on alleged tampering of electronic voting machines.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
'Can we force somebody to contest and fight an election when they don't want to contest an election?'
Maharashtra minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Thursday claimed that Gautam Adani prospered during the Congress regime in Gujarat and said one cannot become the prime minister by growing a 'beard', referring to Rahul Gandhi's remarks on the industrialist in Parliament.
The biopic was originally set to release on April 12, but its producers had advanced it by a week, claiming 'public demand'.
A year after he took over as the Indian Boxing Federation's President, which was followed by its international suspension, Abhishek Matoria's election for the top post has been challenged by the very body he claimed to represent in the controversial polls.
Whatever happens with this election, there is going to have to be a serious rethink of how the ECI, and elections, are run in India. There can't even be the whiff of impropriety. In a country that believes in democracy, EVM rigging isn't stealing an election, it's stealing the soul of a nation, says Cleo Paskal.
'This is the first time there has been an attempt to use market forces to counter disinformation on social media,' notes Devangshu Datta.
A total of 3,30,27,661 people had applied to be included in the NRC. Of them, 3,11,21,004 have been included in the document and 19,06,657 excluded.
New Union minister L Murugan's declaration of Kongu Nadu as his native place, instead of Tamil Nadu, may be part of a grand BJP strategy to create new states out of existing ones, particularly those that have anti-BJP governments, mulls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Let us see the problem for what it actually is: Illegal Immigration plain and simple, confined to the northeast with a definite communal slant that poses a national security risk and one that needs to be dealt with firmly and promptly by stringent identification (and deportation), says Vivek Gumaste.
'Our honourable CM is so shameless that she will say the state is among the safest for women.'
'I know most of the politicians in this country and I know how fair-weather friends they can be.' 'If they get defeated in elections, they will blame it upon something that cannot respond to their allegations like the EVMs.'
'Rather than 'consolidate' the Hindu majority votes, as the BJP-RSS combine has been known and wont to try, this time round PM Modi has himself taken the party to the next step, by seeking to create a new divide within the majority community, a la V P Singh in his time.'
It would be a huge achievement if the new administration manages a successful transition to some sense of domestic and international normalcy in these frantic times marked by the pandemic and rise of illiberal regimes across the world, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Till date, 107 elections to states and three parliamentary polls have been smoothly conducted using the EVMs.
Common people expect the government to be aggressive and opt for growth related measures in the upcoming Budget.
