Hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took over as West Bengal’s Chief Minister, the BJP on Monday unanimously elected her close-aide-turned bête noir Suvendu Adhikari as Leader of Opposition.
With as many as 35 regional parties lobbying to bag prime spaces for their offices on the Parliament premises, foremost in the race is YSR Congress and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is eying the office of Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
The TDP office, occupied by the party for several years is spacious, and ...
The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj, an estranged ally of the BJP, on Wednesday (June 5) said it was in talks with the SP and BSP for forging an electoral alliance for the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly bypolls.
The move comes a day after the 'mahagathbandhan' fell apart.
Speaking to reporters here, party general secretary Arvind Rajbhar said, "The SBS...
A day after the SP and the BSP decided to contest alone all 11 seats in the upcoming Assembly bypolls, their third alliance partner in the recent Lok Sabha elections - RLD - on Wednesday (June 5) announced it too will go solo.
Rashtriya Lok Dal UP president Masood Ahmad, however, expressed hope that the 'gathbandhan' remains intact.
"The Rash...
The BJP is likely to field External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar as its nominee for Rajya Sabha from Gujarat and Ram Vilas Paswan as NDA's candidate from Bihar, sources said on Tuesday (June 4).
Three seats in Rajya Sabha belonging to the BJP got vacant after party chief Amit Shah, Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Smriti Irani got electe...
With the BJP-JD(U) ties under apparent strain, senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has extended an olive branch to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, saying non-BJP parties including the JD(U) should join forces against the BJP and that his party is "not allergic" to anyone.
Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, whose LJP is a constituent of th...
When he is not making a controversial movie, he is making controversial statements. Always provocative. Always in-the-face, curt and brutal.
Even before the dust kicked off by his controversial biopic on NTR — the legendary Telugu actor and founder of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) — could settle down, the maverick film maker Ram Gopal Varma has stirr...
The Samajwadi Party (SP)-BSP Mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh is on the brink of a divorce. Addressing her ten Members of Parliament (MPs) in New Delhi today (Monday), a visibly upset BSP Supremo Mayawati told them that from now, the BSP would go solo in Uttar Pradesh and there would be no truck with the SP.
Mayawati seems to be quite upset with...
As the new Narendra Modi dispensation began its second innings in Delhi, a perception took shape in southern India that the region, particularly Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, has been given a raw deal in ministerial berth allocations.
Karnataka has been given three Union ministerial berths in addition to Finance portfolio for Nirmala Sitharaman...
A day after taking an oath as the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi formed a new ministry for water — Jal Shakti.
Experts welcomed this move since water was being dealt by multiple departments and ministers, and integrating it under one roof may speed up processes. But, the challenges now seem bigger: Groundwater depletion, lack of proper i...
Of the 56 ministers who took oath on May 30 (Thursday) and are part of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, 51 are crorepatis and 22 have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
It said eight ministers have declared their educational qualification to be between 10th...
Uttar Pradesh assumes importance in the Cabinet formation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi due to several reasons. Not only the prime minister himself represents the Varanasi constituency, but the state also has the largest representation in the lower house — 80 seats. Further, Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh is due in 2022, the reason why the s...
BJP leader Nitin Gadkari will be the minister of Road Transport and Highways and Micro, Small and Medium (MSME) enterprises under the Modi 2.0 government.
One of such key ministries is the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Over the past five years, this portfolio became synonymous with Nitin Gadkari who has been instrumental in carrying o...
Piyush Goyal, re-assigned the charge of the crucial railway ministry, is likely to focus on safety, generation of non-fare revenue, track renewal, modernisation and increase in the production of state-of-the-art coaches in his second stint at the helm of the national transporter, official sources said on Friday.
Goyal, having achieved the lowest...
The choice of retired foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar as External Affairs Minister clearly shows the importance given to foreign policy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A career diplomat with over 40 years of inside knowledge in international affairs will be sorely needed to take on some of the challenges that India faces in its neighb...
Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar said that his party is not happy with the “symbolic presence” that was on offer in the central ministry sworn-in on Thursday (May 30). He has demanded that the representation should have been “proportional”.
The JD(U) was conspicuous by its absence in the May 30 event. Talk of ministry distribut...
The much anticipated portfolios of the 58 ministers sworn in including Narendra Modi on May 30 have been announced. Rajnath Singh gets defence, Nirmala Seetharaman gets finance, Amit Shah has been given home, and S Jaishankar is cabinet minister for external affairs.
Amit Shah will be the new Home minister, Rajnath Singh the new ...
The friendship between chief ministers K Chandrasekhar Rao and YS Jagan Reddy augurs well for the sibling states, still grappling with the bifurcation blues.
Sushma Swaraj may not be part of the Modi government this time, but she leaves a legacy of an easily-accessible external affairs minister who helped the diaspora in distress by her revolutionary social media outreach.
In a tweet, soon after the oath-taking ceremony, Swaraj thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving her the opportunity to se...
Narendra Modi took over as the country’s Prime Minister for a second term on Thursday (May 30) after he was sworn in along with Union ministers, including BJP president Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and former foreign secretary S Jaishankar - a surprise pick.
At least 58 ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy.
Mo...
A new entrant to the Narendra Modi cabinet, in its second term, is Padma Shri awardee and former foreign secretary S Jaishankar. He is the longest-serving foreign secretary in four decades.
A 1977 batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service, Jaishankar was appointed foreign secretary in January 2015, replacing Sujatha Singh, and served until Jan...
Narendra Modi is sworn in as Prime Minister by President Ramnath Kovind. His cabinet, comprising nearly 65 ministers, is also being administered the oath at Rashtrapati Bhavan. All minister-designates have taken their designated seats and will take oath in that order.
In the run-up to finalising the names for the Cabinet berths, PM Modi and ...
Twelve Congress MLAs in Manipur have resigned from state party posts, triggering speculation about the possibility of their crossing over to the ruling BJP, but a senior legislator among them on Thursday said they had no intention of joining any other party.
The resignation of the MLAs from the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) came on May 29 (We...
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on May 30 (Thursday) accused the BJP of trying to disturb and dismantle state governments led by Opposition parties.
"Even before the swearing-in ceremony of newly-elected BJP government, they are trying to disturb and dismantle the state governments of Opposition parties, including West Bengal, Karnataka an...
India’s neighbourhood and the international political scene are far more taut and tense now than when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government first took office in May 2014. The challenges in foreign policy therefore for the new government are far more complex and crucial.
Take Pakistan first. In 2014, the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif wa...
