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On the penultimate day of campaigning for the Delhi polls on Wednesday, the AAP , the Congress and the BJP slugged it out over issues ranging from citizenship law, appeasement politics and unemployment. The Congress fielded its leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to attack the AAP and the BJP, even as war of words escalated between the BJP and the AAP which traded barbs over the Shaheen Bagh shooter. On Tuesday, police had said that Kapil Baisala, the man who opened fire at Shaheen Bagh protest site last week, was an AAP worker. Addressing a press conference, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that if Baisala was even remotely connected to the his party then he should be given a "double punishment". "I am not aware of his (Baisala's ties) with the any political party. If he is even remotely connected to the AAP, he should be given double punishment. There should be no compromise on national security," he said. Read Com...

The Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has finally released its manifesto for the Delhi Assembly polls on Tuesday. Just 4 days before the voting begins. AAP's competitors in these elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress had released their manifestos on Friday and Sunday, respectively. So here’s a quick brief of what political parties are offering to win the electoral battle, whose results will be announced on February 11. Starting with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, which has mentioned 11,000 buses and 500-km metro network for better transportation, doorstep delivery of ration, some commercial areas to remain open 24X7 on a pilot basis, amnesty for old VAT cases, no raid raj, and legal protection to street vendors and hawkers within six months They have also promised pucca houses for slum dwellers, free travel for students, besides women in DTC Buses. Read Complete Article

SpiceJet on Monday said it is offering "hundreds" of "free" tickets, where the base fare will be waived but taxes and other surcharges have to be paid, to select people who want to fly to Delhi to vote in the upcoming assembly elections on February 8. The budget carrier clarified that the participants, who will be selected by the airline's internal panel after their online registration, will have to bear all applicable taxes, surcharges, levies and any other additional costs incurred on the air tickets. In this "SpiceDemocracy" initiative, the airline stated that if the departure to Delhi and return from the city is on February 8, it will refund the entire base fare on both tickets. Alternatively, flyers will be offered a one-way ticket, with the base fare waived off, if they plan to fly on February 7 and return on February 8 or fly on February 8 and return on February 9. The online registration for this initiative will remain o...

Gurgaon saw maximum number of rape and murder cases being registered among all Haryana districts in nearly past five years, the state Assembly was informed. In a written reply to a question raised by Congress member Karan Singh Dalal on Monday, the assembly was informed that 663 rape and 470 murder cases have been registered in Gurgaon. For the same period, Faridabad saw 543 rape and 337 murder cases being registered, while these figures for Sonipat were 229 and 448, respectively. Faridabad and Gurgaon also saw highest number of child rape cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act in the past nearly five years at 412 and 354, respectively. These two districts also topped in crimes against women with 4,577 such cases being registered in Gurgaon and 4,315 in Faridabad, followed by 3,595 in Panipat. Read Complete Article

Five policemen, including an SHO, have been suspended for alleged negligence, five days after the mutilated body of a three-year-old girl was found in a garbage dump in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh , triggering a huge public outcry over the brutality of the murder. The policemen were suspended for alleged delay in registering the case after the girl was reported missing, and also for delaying the probe which eventually led to the discovery of her body on June 2, officials said. Tappal police station officials registered the case on May 31, a day after she had gone missing. Two suspects have been arrested and police say the case is a fallout of a monetary dispute. The accused Zahid and Aslam have confessed to killing the girl after her father failed to return Rs 12,000 he had borrowed from them, police sources said. Asked about the suspension of police officials, Senior Superintendent of Police Akash Kulhari told PTI that it was done on Thursday on the basis of the inquiry conduct...

It seems chowkidaar would not be guarding BJP’s interest on the back of which it won its massive mandate. The tagline has been dropped from the Twitter handle of the PM. And other leaders, sources said, might follow suit. “The time has come to take the chowkidaar spirit to the next level. The word chowkidaar goes from my Twitter name but it remains an integral part of me. Urging you all to do the same too!” Modi tweeted on Thursday evening. According to sources in Bharatiya Janata Party , the party is going to coin a new term that would replace chowkidaar. This term would portray how the government would function over the next five years. “The people of India became chowkidaars and rendered great service to the nation. Chowkidaar has become a powerful symbol to safeguard India from the evils of casteism, communalism, corruption and cronyism,” the PM said in another tweet. Read Complete Article

Write caption… When the last phase of Lok Sabha elections 2019 end on Sunday, all eyes will be on exit polls that will be released after voting concludes. The counting of votes, which will begin at 8 am on May 23, is expected to take longer than usual this time around and will reportedly continue well into the night. Till then, the numerous exit polls -- regardless of their accuracy -- will put forward their predictions on whether the Narendra Modi-led BJP government will come back to power or not. With the embargo on their broadcast being lifted on Sunday evening, the following exit polls will be announced today: Republic-Jan Ki Baat, Republic-CVoter, Today's Chanakya, ABP-CSDS, News18–IPSOS, India Today-Axis, Times Now-CNX, and NewsX-Neta. Here's everything you need to know about them. ALSO READ: Exit Polls 2019: Be careful; take their forecasts with a bucketful of salt ...

A month after Ravindra Jadeja's wife joined the BJP , the cricketer's father and sister joined the Congress in Gujarat on Sunday in the presence of party leader and Patidar quota spearhead Hardik Patel. Jadeja's father, Anirudhsinh, and sister, Nainaba, joined the Congress at an election rally in Kalavad city of Jamnagar district. Jadeja hails from Jamnagar and the Congress candidate for Jamnagar Lok Sabha seat, Mulu Kandoriya, was also present. The Chennai Super Kings all-rounder's wife, Rivaba, had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on March 3 in Jamnagar in the presence sitting MP Poonamben Maadam, who was renominated by the saffron party. Hardik Patel was expected to be fielded by the Congress from Jamnagar, but the Patidar leader's chances were scuttled after the Supreme Court had on April 2 rejected the plea to stay his conviction in a case in which he was sentenced to two years in jail. Polls to all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state will be...

Some, including the NITI Aayog chief, have slammed the Congress party of fiscal imprudence in proposing minimum income guarantee, or NYAY, of Rs 6,000 per month to 20 per cent poorest households. The estimated Rs 3.6 trillion payout looks prohibitive. However, a closer inspection of the proposed scheme and current political dynamics make it eminently workable. To begin with, Congress does not intend to implement it as soon as it comes to powe r, that is if it does, on May 23, 2019. Experts in the party, which include Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram, who were helped by its data analytics chief Praveen Chakravarty in putting together the scheme, have proposed a new committee that would be constituted to steer the implementation of the scheme. It is likely that former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian could head such a committee. Subramanian, as Chakravarty has acknowledged in his interviews, is closely involved in helping Congress with the details of the scheme. In t...

Business Standard : Congress workers burst crackers, danced to the dhol and played with gulal as they celebrated the party's good show in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh . Carrying the Congress flag, a large number of workers gathered at the party headquarters in Delhi and praised Rahul Gandhi's leadership in steering the Congress towards victory in the three states ruled by the BJP. They distributed sweets and put up big banners of Gandhi on the walls of the Congress office. The Congress workers chanted 'Rahul Gandhi Zindabad'. Interestingly, a Congress worker also put up a banner that said, "Next prime minister of India" for Gandhi. Senior Congress leaders, including Navjot Singh Sidhu and Priyanka Chaturvedi, joined the party workers at the 24, Akbar Road office and expressed joy as the trends of poll results showed Congress taking the lead in the three states. "It was a united effort in preparing and campaigning for polls. ...

Business Standard : The TRS will form its second successive government in Telangana where it has won a simple majority and is heading for a landslide with its candidates clinching 60 seats and leading in 27 others, in a resounding endorsement of its chief K Chandrasekhar Rao's popularity. Rao himself won by a margin of over 51,000 votes from his Gajwel seat, trouncing V Pratap Reddy of the Congress. Rao's son K T Rama Rao and nephew T Harish Rao, both ministers in his caretaker government, also won. The Congress has clinched 13 seats so far and is leading in six. Its ally TDP is leading in two seats. Rao had dissolved the Assembly in September, eight months ahead of schedule, in a political gamble that paid off handsomely, as the party is expected to improve on its previous strength of 63 in the 119-seat Assembly. However, TRS's strength had risen to 82 after defections from TDP and Congress. "The people reposed faith in the leadership of our chief min...

The Congress party called for a ' Bharat bandh ' on September 10 to protest the rising fuel prices and steadily declining value of the rupee against the US dollar. Twenty political parties have answered the Congress' call, and a number of chambers of commerce and traders' associations are also supporting the bandh. Top Opposition party leaders like Sharad Pawar, M K Stalin and Left leaders have openly extended their support to the call for a shutdown, while the Trinamool Congress has decided to stay away from the protest. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged that the Narendra Modi government had "looted" Rs 11 trillion from the people of the country in the past 52 months and was running a "profiteering company" rather than a government. He also urged people to bring about a change in the country by ousting the BJP from power. Read Complete Article

The chairman of Reliance Group , Anil Ambani , denied allegations made by Congress President Rahul Gandhi that his firm will benefit by “thousands of crores” with the signing of the defence offset contract between France’s Dassault Aviation SA and Reliance Defence. In a letter sent to Rahul Gandhi last week, Ambani said the Congress has been “misinformed, misdirected and misled” by vested interests and corporate rivals on the Rafale offset exports and work share. Calling all the allegations as “baseless, ill-informed and unfortunate”, Ambani also expressed his deep anguish over continued personal attacks against him by Rahul Gandhi. The Congress had alleged that rules related to defence ministry approvals and audits were ignored in the offset contracts between Dassault and Reliance even as the government ignored public sector unit, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), which had won the earlier contract. An offset contract requires a foreign manufacturer that wins a defence contract in...

It is a good performance by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Karnataka Assembly polls and this is being reflected well in the enthusiasm shown by the markets. The upbeat performance at the bourses was warranted, given the surprising outcome. However, this is as far as the markets will go in the short term. They were already factoring in a good performance – though not exactly a majority – ahead of the poll result. The performance has actually been better than expected. Going ahead, the markets will now look at domestic and global cues for direction. There are a number of headwinds at the global level that they will have to face now – rising interest rates in the US, geopolitical situation in Iran, crude oil prices and the upcoming US – North Korea meet being some of them. That said, the sentiment will remain upbeat for a few days given the Karnataka assembly election outcome. The Nifty50 can hit 11,000 in the next couple of days. ALSO READ: Karnataka Election res...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is cruising towards a comfortable majority on its own, the trends so far suggest, opening what BJP President Amit Shah stressed was its gateway to the South. A clear verdict from Bengaluru has implications for the BJP's future prospects in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala. The mandate would eliminate the much-speculated role of the Janata Dal (Secular) as the kingmaker and put paid to the theories of a coalition government and the larger ramifications for central politics in Delhi. The trends so far seem to establish Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s position as the first among equals in the BJP and indeed the Sangh Parivar. A clear majority for the BJP will confirm Shah's skills as a poll strategist par excellence because it was the caste equation he formulated by coalescing the core support of the Lingayats with that of the Scheduled Tribes, other backward classes, Brahmins and sections of the Dalits that bro...

On the cusp of delivering a crushing defeat to the Congress in Karnataka Assembly election 2018, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday was on course to emerge as the largest single party in the state. But the 110-seat halfway mark of the 222 constituencies that went to the polls on Saturday was still eluding the party at the time of filing of this report. Elections to the remaining two seats will be held on May 28. Interestingly, the Congress led the BJP in terms of vote share by over a percentage point. But, the BJP maximised its winnings in its areas of influence. If the Congress’ vote share was 38 per cent, the BJP's was 36.7 per cent. The Janata Dal (Secular) proved that prophecies of its demise were premature. The JD(S) was on course to match its 2013 tally of 40 seats, and its vote share was 17.7 per cent, two percentage points less than in 2013. But, with BJP inching towards the majority mark, it seemed the JD (S) could have lost the opportunity to play the ...

Polling data released by the returning officer indicate several instances of cross-voting in the presidential election. The Congress leadership suspects that Shankarsinh Vaghela and his supporters in Gujarat voted for Ram Nath Kovind , the NDA candidate. The party has advised its legislators and workers to keep away from the show of strength planned by Vaghela’s supporters to mark his birthday on Friday. There was also cross-voting in favour of Kovind in Goa, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Tripura. BJP general secretary Bhupender Yadav, Kovind’s election manager, claimed that 116 lawmakers from Opposition parties, including the Congress, appeared to have voted for the NDA candidate. As many as 30 of them were members of Parliament, he said. The good news for the Congress was from Rajasthan, where Opposition candidate Meira Kumar received 34 votes though the party has only 24 legislators in the 200-member House. Assembly elections are due in Rajasthan at the end of 201...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary board is slated to meet on Monday to pick the vice-presidential candidate of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Today, Opposition presidential candidate Meira Kumar and vice-presidential candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi met members of political parties supporting their respective candidatures. Addressing the members, both Kumar and Gopalkrishna Gandhi stressed that while electoral college numbers are stacked against the Opposition but the battle was ideological and has brought together political parties from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the Constitution and the law of the land were “sadly under siege today”. “In these contests, the numbers may be against us. But the battle must be fought and fought hard. We cannot and must not let India be hostage to those who wish to impose upon it a narrow-minded, divisive and communal vision,” she said. The voting for the presidential election...

India and China will account for almost half of all new mobile subscribers expected to be added globally by the end of 2020, a new study has found. According to the 2017 edition of 'Mobile Economy: Asia Pacific' report published recently at the 'Mobile World Congress Shanghai', forecasts that India will account for 27 per cent (206 million) and China 21 per cent (155 million) of the approximately 753 million new mobile subscribers by the end of the decade. The Asia-Pacific region as a whole is forecast to increase from 2.7 billion unique mobile subscribers at the end of 2016 to 3.1 billion in 2020, accounting for two-thirds of global growth. The report also highlights how the region's mobile industry will be a growing contributor to Asia's economy and social development over this period - and also play a pioneering role in 5G. "Led by India and China, Asia's mobile industry will be the main engine of global subscriber growth for the remaind...