With Mallikarjun Kharge set to become the Congress president, former finance minister P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh are in the race to succeed him as leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, with Singh's nose seemingly ahead.
The four-month monsoon season officially ended on Friday with the country recording "above normal" rainfall at 6% higher than the long period average. However, skewed distribution in the crucial July-August period left large rain deficits in the Gangetic plains, leading to about 1% decline in the overall acreage of kharif (summer sown) crops as compared to last year.
It is Mallikarjun Kharge vs Shashi Tharoor for the much-awaited Congress presidential election. Octogenarian Kharge, the establishment's choice, and Tharoor, the underdog diplomat-turned-politician, filed their nomination papers on the last day on Friday, setting to rest the two-month-long speculation.
The noise inside Vande Bharat train is 100 times less than that in an airplane, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday after travelling in the indigenously designed train.
The Union home ministry has upgraded the security cover of industrialist Mukesh Ambani to the highest category of 'Z-plus' from 'Z', based on the review of his threat perception by central intelligence agencies. About 40 CRPF commandos will work in shifts to guard him, reports said.
The discount on the base fare that Air India (AI) offers to senior citizens and students will be slashed from 50% to 25% for all bookings done from September 29, said an internal circular by the airline on Thursday, reports Manju V. The carrier will, however, continue to extend its 50% sop on base fare to other categories.
Attributing the inexorably long visa waiting period to the impact of Covid, the US embassy in Delhi said staffing should be back to 100% of pre-Covid level in less than a year.
As the race was thrown open, Congress was finalising a replacement candidate for Gehlot, with Mallikarjun Kharge, a senior Dalit leader, as the lead contender.
The announcement spar- ked fresh buzz about whether Gehlot will continue in the CM's post or will be eased out, and if his replacement will be his bete noire Pilot. It is felt that AICC may call another legislature party meeting in Jaipur.
Gehlot arrived in the capital on Wednesday night and will meet Sonia for deliberations in the morning, talks that will have repercussions for the leadership issue as well as the CMship of Rajasthan.
The US says it is considering all steps to reduce the backlog of visa applications by considering steps like interview waivers for those who previously had American visas and increasing staffing at its missions in India to their highest ever levels. The assurance came after foreign minister S Jaishankar raised the issue.
A senior woman IAS officer in Bihar has kicked up a major controversy by publicly mocking a poor schoolgirl who asked if the government could provide sanitary napkins at lower prices, saying there was no end to such demands and asking if they would want 'condoms too.'
Several Islamic groups in Kerala reacted cautiously to the PFI ban on Wednesday and reiterated their opposition to the outfit's extremist ideology, but at the same time asked the Centre to check "hate campaigns" of RSS and affiliates against the minority community.
TOI has learned that SDPI was spared as it is a registered political party, swearing allegiance to the Constitution of India. An officer said that SDPI, as long as it indulges in democratic activities by legal means, may not warrant a ban or crackdown. inside flap
The CP said this measure has no link with the nationwide crackdown on PFI and its workers. Kumar added that the RSS HQ being a 'Class A' vital installation, it is on "high priority". "Security audit of vital installations are being carried out on a regular basis," he said.
The jail administration in Uttarakhand's Haldwani has come up with a unique idea to help people ward off "bad karma" - for a nominal fee of Rs 500 per night in prison.
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday distanced himself from the alleged "parallel meeting" at cabinet colleague Shanti Dhariwal's residence in the run-up to the mass resignations that scuttled Sunday night's CLP meeting, saying that MLAs supposedly loyal to him gathered there without his knowledge and that he never intended to deviate from what the Congress high command wanted him to do.
The Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC) inducted two girls for the first time in the institution's history of over 100 years, reports Pankul Sharma. The 'July batch of 2022' began on Monday with students of Class 8, including the two girl students. Central command PRO Shantanu Pratap Singh termed it "a historic moment for the college". He said one of the girl students is from Haryana and the other is a day scholar. The decision on RIMC came after the Centre opened the doors of the NDA for women.
As part of a series of 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' (India75) and US-India 75th anniversary celebrations, an event to highlight the cultural heritage of indigenous tribes in Arunachal Pradesh, 'Living Heritage of Arunachal', will be held on Tuesday.
Minister and Ashok Gehlot loyalist Shanti Dhariwal alleged a “100% conspiracy” against the CM by Ajay Maken and Sachin Pilot. Accusing Maken of approaching MLAs to campaign for Pilot as the next CM, Dhariwal said he had proof to back his allegation.
As 55 men, women and children landed in Delhi, the number of those from the Sikh community remaining in Afghanistan number just a little over 40 with most of them staying back to protect and care for the "Guru Granth Sahib" amid the ongoing impasse with the Taliban regime which has refused to allow the religious scriptures to be taken out citing them to be the heritage of Afghanistan.
Popular Front of India (PFI) officebearers, many of whom have been in detention, used Abu Dhabi’s Darbar restaurant as the den for all hawala transactions and their illegal transfer to India, ED has said. This is contrary to the claims made by PFI that most of the Rs 120 crore it had received came through petty cash donations in India.
India can scale up production of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft to meet operational requirements and export orders, defence ministry officials said. The single-engine Tejas fighter is already the frontrunner to bag a Malaysian order for 18 light twin-seat fighter trainers despite strong competition from Chinese JF-17, South Korean FA-50 and Russian MiG-35 and Yak-130 jets.
The CBI on Saturday filed two FIRs and conducted pan-India raids at 59 locations in 21 states on the basis of inputs given by the Interpol's units in New Zealand and Singapore regarding online circulation and distribution of child sexual abuse material. The raids were carried out after around 75 individuals were traced and identified using internet protocol details records analysis of their devices.
Rajasthan CLP will meet on Sunday, in what appears to be an exercise to pick the successor of CM Ashok Gehlot, the putative AICC president. The core issue is if Gehlot will have to relinquish the CM’s post, and if Sachin Pilot will replace him. Pilot is also the choice of the leadership. But the party has to negotiate the CM’s preference, and the legislature party in which Gehlot has an absolute support.
The home minister reviewed the issues while taking a review meeting of India's all three border guarding forces-- Border Security Force (BSF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)-- at Bihar' Kishanganj district during his two-day visit to the state.
The government said there had been a sharp increase in hate crimes, sectarian violence and anti-India activities in Canada and that the perpetrators had not been brought to justice so far. India reacted strongly to the so-called "Khalistan referendum" in Canada, saying it was "deeply objectionable" that such a "politically motivated" activity by extremist elements was allowed to take place in a friendly country.
The foreign ministry on Friday said that it has identified four companies involved in the job entrapment racket in Myanmar and is working on rescuing the Indians who are still stranded there. Several IT companies operate from Myawaddy, not far away from the IT SEZ area at Mae Sot, the main hub of the "slave labour" racket.
Former Rajasthan deputy CM Sachin Pilot on Friday reached Jaipur from Kochi amid hectic lobbying in the Congress for the chief minister's post after Ashok Gehlot announced his decision to contest the Congress national president's election, and rushed to meet the Speaker and party MLAs. It is learnt that the party top brass has asked Pilot to stay put in Jaipur and meet MLAs till a final decision is taken.
YSRC leadership on Thursday clarified that the party will have election for the post of president and there will be no concept of president for life. The party had at its plenary in July elected chief minister and YSRC president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy its president for life. But the EC said electing a party president for life is anti-democracy.
The govt is unwilling to accommodate Congress' request to let it retain the helmsmanship of the department-related standing committee (DRSC) on home affairs in Rajya Sabha. The decision to withdraw Congress' leadership of the DRSC on home affairs in the RS and IT and communications in LS is being done "as per the existing strength of the parties" and in light of its numbers in RS coming down since 2019, sources said.
Ashok Gehlot is likely to be the next president of Congress but will have to step down as chief minister of Rajasthan. Gehlot, who had on Wednesday declared his intent to continue as Rajasthan CM even if he was elected as Congress chief, gave up his insistence after Rahul Gandhi declared that the new party chief would have to adhere to the “one man one post” principle.
The Army is now reviewing its colonial and pre-colonial era customs, traditions, battle honours and names that can be discarded in accordance with the government's directive to "Indianise" the armed forces. This comes after the new Naval Ensign, which included the removal of the red-coloured St George's Cross from the flag, was unveiled by PM Narendra Modi on September 2.
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