India

New Delhi, Jul 26: Parliament approved the amendment to the RTI Act, with Rajya Sabha on Thursday passing it after negating an Opposition sponsored motion to send it to a House committee for greater scrutiny. The motion was negated by 117 members voting against the motion and 75 members voting in favour. This after high drama in the House over what opposition charged was "intimidation" by the

New Delhi, Jul 25: As many as 83 Look Out Circulars have been issued by the government against promoters of companies who have defaulted on their bank loans, preventing them from leaving the country, Union minister Nityanand Rai said on Wednesday. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State for Home maintained that immigration authorities can detain as well as prevent any person, including

Bengaluru, Jul 25: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has blamed “vested interests” for the fall of the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka. Without taking any names, Rahul tweeted: “From its first day, the Cong-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka was a target for vested interests, both within & outside, who saw the alliance as a threat & an obstacle in their path to power. Their greed won today

New Delhi, Jul 24: Expressing concern at the number of "tragic events" unfolding in the country, a group of eminent citizens has said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that 'Jai Shri Ram' has become a "provocative war cry" with many lynchings taking place in its name. The July 23 letter, which also stressed that there is "no democracy without dissent", has been written by 49 celebrities

New Delhi, Jul 24: Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday defended controversial amendments to an anti-terror law, saying they are was essential to keep law enforcement agencies one step ahead of terrorists. Responding to a debate in Lok Sabha on a bill seeking to amend the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, he asserted anti-terror laws would not be misused and used only to root out terrorism. He

New Delhi, Jul 24: The Centre has "zero tolerance" towards incidents of communal violence and such incidents have shown a declining trend across the country, Minister of State for Home Affairs G. Kishan Reddy said on Wednesday. Replying to a query during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, the minister said incidents of communal violence have declined to 708 in 2018 from 823 in 2013, he said. "The

New Delhi, Jul 23: In the first 50 days of its second term in office, the Narendra Modi government has spent around Rs 8,500 crore on the acquisition of weapon systems including missiles and spares for the Indian Army and the Air Force. According to Defence Ministry sources, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has spent around Rs 8,000 crore in procuring missiles such as the Spice-2000, Strum Ataka ATGMs

New Delhi, Jul 23: The Delhi Police was granted time on Tuesday till September 18 to obtain the requisite sanction in the JNU sedition case to prosecute former Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and others. The Delhi Police informed Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Manish Khurana that the sanction is still pending before the Home Department. "Sanction in the present matter could not be

New Delhi, Jul 23: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said the Centre is hell-bent on subverting the RTI Act which now stands on the "brink of extinction", a day after Lok Sabha passed amendments to the Act amid strong opposition protests. In a statement, she said it is clear that the present central government sees the RTI Act as a "nuisance" and wants to destroy the status and independence

New Delhi, Jul 23: Opposition leaders are angrily demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi clarify his position in Parliament about President Donald Trump mediating India’s long-running dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said in Parliament on Tuesday that Modi made no such request to Trump as the US president had claimed. Opposition leaders Anand Sharma and D