jaDuGai

Congress Stumped As Mouthpiece Criticises Sonia Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru All India | Reported by Saurabh Gupta , Edited by Deepshikha Ghosh | Updated: December 28, 2015 11:09 IST EMAIL PRINT COMMENTS Congress is investigating how its mouthpiece carried an article criticising Sonia Gandhi Mumbai:  The Congress is deeply embarrassed with its mouthpiece in Maharashtra featuring articles that have criticized Sonia Gandhi and also questioned Jawaharlal Nehru, the party's biggest icon. An article in the December issue of "Congress Darshan", while describing Sonia Gandhi's life, says that her father was a member of the fascist forces in Italy. Another article says Mrs Gandhi became Congress president 62 days after joining the party as a primary member in 1997, and also made a failed attempt to form government. In yet another article, there is a detailed critique of Jawaharlal Nehru's policies and the repeated sugg...

The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday cleared the Juvenile Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2015, lowering the age of a legally defined juvenile from 18 to 16 in the case of heinous crimes. Despite the fact that many parties, including the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and, till last week, the Congress favoured sending it to a select committee for consideration, neither Shantaram Naik of the Congress nor Derek O’Brien of the Trinamool Congress moved a motion as had been decided by their parties earlier. The CPI(M) walked out once voting started. The presence of Nirbhaya’s parents in the visitors’ gallery and their protest in the last week or so seemed to have had an effect. In fact, many of the speeches during the discussion had an impassioned tone.  Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi said: “We may not be able to do anything about the juvenile convict in the Nirbhaya case but we can deter many other boys from doing s...

A bigger show of strength was seen on the lawns of 7, Tughlak Road, the residence of JD(U) president Sharad Yadav on Monday. Days after the release of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar’s autobiography on the occasion of his 75th birthday saw a galaxy of leaders gathering at Vigyan Bhawan, an even bigger show of strength was seen on the lawns of 7, Tughlak Road, the residence of JD(U) president Sharad Yadav on Monday. Leaders ranging from Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad to Chief Ministers Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal to Union Ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu, Rajnath Singh and Mukthar Abbas Naqvi to BJP veterans L.K. Advani and Yashwant Sinha to CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien and Samajwadi Party boss Mulayam Singh Yadav, were all there to felicitate Mr Yadav as a book based on his life was released by Vic...

Officers asked to identify, and provide information to journalists who write in national interest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday told top policemen of the country that every police station should appoint a yoga teacher and police should brand themselves by promoting their work on Twitter and television.  He asked policemen to flood the social media with the digital version of their work. While giving the concluding speech at the three-day DGPs’ conference in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, Mr. Modi said each police force should have a panel of experts who could participate in debates on television channels and put across their side of the story.  He asked officers to identify journalists who write in national interest and provide them with information. “These 24-hour news channels need to be fed information. Sit down and brief the media. Not like the CBI, which gives walking bytes,” Mr. Modi is learnt to have told the top policemen.  ...

President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday exhorted Google CEO Sundar Pichai, along with a range of business leaders, which included Kunal Bahl, CEO, Snapdeal; and Sunil Munjal, joint managing director, Hero Motor Corp; to use technology and promote education.  At an event at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday, which came at the fag end of Mr.Pichai’s visit to Delhi, Mr.Mukherjee said that in spite of possessing “brilliant minds” and top technical talent, Indian universities weren’t among the top 100 in global rankings.  Post a media event on Wednesday, where he mentioned plans to provide Wi-Fi with helium balloons and bring several railway stations under a reliable internet network, Mr. Pichai’s meeting with Mr.Mukherjee was centred around ways in which education could be made more accessible with technology. “We can create a new India,” said Mr.Mukherjee, “by harnessing these resources (young minds) and not by mere speeches and some allocations (in the ...

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar addresses the media after paying homage at the Amar Jawan Jyoti on the anniversary of ‘Vijay Diwas’ in New Delhi on Wednesday. At right are Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh and MoS for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh. TOPICS India is under pressure from the U.S. to join the western coalition already battling the group. India is willing to participate in military operations against the Islamic State (IS) if it is a United Nations-sanctioned operation carried out under the U.N. flag, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Wednesday in the first formal response of the Narendra Modi government on the issue. “We have made it clear that if there is a U.N. resolution and if there is a U.N. flag and a U.N. mission, then as per India’s policy to operate under the U.N. flag, we will participate,” Mr. Parrikar said. He was responding to questions about India’s role in the war on the IS after paying homage at the Amar Jawan Jyo...

  New Delhi:  Declaring that "war is not an option", India today said it had decided to hold dialogue with Pakistan as it is the only way to remove "the shadow of terrorism".     External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said in Lok Sabha that India and Pakistan decided to hold talks on terror when the Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif met in Ufa (Russia) in July and then in Paris recently.     "We said we can talk so that terrorism comes to an end. So talks (between NSAs) took place in Bangkok where we discussed about terrorism. But one meeting will not bring a solution to all the problem. So we will continue the dialogue," she said during Question Hour.     When BJP member Ganesh Singh asked whether India was exploring options like the US did to hunt down terrorists like Osama Bin Laden, Ms Swaraj said India is talking to Pakistan on the terrorist camps existing in Pakistan-occup...

National Pride and Prejudice “It becomes a matter of national pride when it comes to the flag, the anthem and cricket and any transgression is not tolerated….” Picture shows a scene in Guwahati on Republic Day.  While the courts have weighed in on the side of individual liberty, in the public sphere India is witnessing an increased emphasis on pride attached to the national flag and anthem. You must stand up for your pride in India, you must stand up for the soldiers on the front protecting you. My eyes well with tears when I see and hear the national anthem playing in a cricket match. And it’s a matter of just 90 seconds. It’s not that you are being pushed into doing something unbelievably bad. ” Anupam Kher, film actor This was Mr. Kher’s response to a question posed by  The Hindu  following the unfortunate incident where a group of cinemagoers heckled a family in a cinema hall in Mumbai recently when they did not stand to attention as the nati...

  Feelings of pay back to political-executive would be disastrous to the independence of judiciary, says Justice Khehar. While Justices Lokur, Kurian and Goel, agreed with Justice Khehar’s nearly 500-page ‘Order on Merits’ that the NJAC and the Constitutional Amendment defeated the primacy of judiciary over the government in the appointment of judges, Justice Chelameswar differed, saying that “judiciary cannot be the only constitutional organ capable of protecting the liberties of the people.”  Justice Chelameswar disagreed with his fellow judges and upheld the validity of the Constitutional Amendment. In his exhaustive judgment approved by the majority on the Bench, Justice Khehar attacked the NJAC laws on merits, and said they would breed a culture of “reciprocity” of favours between the government and the judiciary, and thus, destroy the latter.  Justice Khehar asked how future judges appointed under the NJAC can be expecte...