Page 797 - Politics
LS Polls: PM Modi urges to vote in record numbers in third phase today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday urged to vote in record numbers in the third phase of the Lok Sabha Polls held in 116 constituencies spread across 13 states and 2 Union Territories.On Twitter PM Modi wrote: "Urging all those voting in today's Third Phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to do so in record numbers. Your vote is precious and will shape the direction our nation takes in the years to come. I'll be voting in Ahmedabad in a short while from now.".
Voting for Goa's 2 LS, 3 bypolls begins
Voting for Goa's two Lok Sabha seats and three Assembly bypolls got underway at 7 a.m. on Tuesday.
Lok Sabha polls: Voting begins in Tripura
The balloting for Tripura East parliamentary constituency began amidst heavy security on Monday, officials said.
Phase 2 polling underway in Karnataka's remaining 14 LS seats
Second phase of polling is underway in the remaining 14 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, where the contest is between the ruling Congress-JD(S) combine and the BJP. Polling began at 7 am in 28,022 polling stations that are mostly in the northern belt of the state, covering the entire Hyderabad-Karnataka and Mumbai-Karnataka regions, a couple of central districts and coastal Uttara Kannada. Queues were seen at polling booths as the voting began, with many arriving to vote early in the day to avoid the summer heat. As many as 2,43,03,279 voters are eligible to choose their representative from among 237 candidates including 227 men and 10 women who are in the fray. At 57, Belgaum has the maximum candidates, while Raichur (5) has the lowest. Out of the total 2,43,03,279 voters in the 14 seats, there are 1,22,55,590 men, 1,20,45,667 women and 2,022 others. A total of 33,626 Control Units, 48,394 Ballot Units and 35,028 VVPATs are being used for the polls. A total of 2,03,591 ...
Voting begins in 117 seats in third phase of LS polls
Voting began on Tuesday across 117 Lok Sabha constituencies spread over 15 states and Union Territories as the third - and largest - phase of the mega seven-phase electoral exercise kicked off.
Polling begins in phase three of Bengal LS polls (pls release at 7 m)
Men and women of various age groups queued up before polling booths, as voting began at 7 a.m. for five West Bengal constituencies in phase three of the Lok Sabha polls on Tuesday.
Voting begins for 3rd and largest phase of LS polls in 14 states, UTs
Voting began Tuesday for 116 Lok Sabha seats, including all constituencies in Gujarat and Kerala, with BJP president Amit Shah, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and several Union ministers among prominent candidates in the fray. About 18.56 crore voters are eligible for voting in the third phase of the elections, for which 2.10 lakh polling booths/stations have been set up. The Election Commission has made elaborate security arrangements. Besides all seats in Gujarat (26) and Kerala (20), voting will be held in four seats in Assam, five in Bihar, seven in Chhattisgarh, 14 each in Karnataka and Maharashtra, six in Odisha, 10 in Uttar Pradesh, five in West Bengal, two in Goa, and one each in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Tripura. Voting in Tripura East constituency, which was earlier scheduled for April 18, is also being held, as also in a part of the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir, where election is being held in three phases. Voting is also being held in some ...
Guaido's ambassadors to visit Colombia
Representatives of Venezuela's self-declared interim President Juan Guaido will visit Colombia on April 27 to hold talks with the country's Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo."On Saturday Juan Guaido's ambassadors will meet in Colombia, and I will have the honour to open the meeting," TASS quoted Trujillo as saying.Venezuela is facing political crisis since January 23 when National Assembly Speaker Juan Guaido proclaimed himself the country's acting president. However, Venezuela's elected President Nicolas Maduro, who has been accused of rigging the 2018 elections, blamed Guaido of attempting coup with the help of the United States and Colombia.The embattled President continues to hold on to his post and enjoys the Venezuelan military's support.While countries like US, UK, France and Japan recognise Guaido as the interim President, China, Russia, and other countries have slammed international interference in Venezuela's internal affairs, throwing their weight behind ...
Iran denounces US decision to end sanction waivers
Iran on Monday denounced United States' decision to end sanctions waivers for nations importing Iranian Oil, saying the sanctions are "principally illegal"."Since the sanctions in question are principally illegal, the Islamic Republic of Iran did not and does not attach any value or credibility to the waivers given to the sanctions," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement issued on its official website.In November last year, the State Department had issued 180-day waivers to eight countries to give them more time to find alternative sources of oil.Three of the eight countries, including Greece, Italy and Taiwan, which received the US waivers, have already stopped their Iranian oil imports.The other countries that will now have to cut off the oil imports or be subjected to US sanctions are China, India, Turkey, Japan and South Korea.While India refrained from making any statement immediately, China has opposed unilateral US sanctions against Iran, saying its bilateral ...
Nobody disobeys my orders: Trump
United States President Donald Trump on Monday said "nobody disobeys" his orders after special counsel Robert Mueller stated in his report that Trump attempted to influence the investigation but was unsuccessful because his aides did not pay heed to his demands."Nobody disobeys my orders," The Hill quoted Trump as saying.The redacted version of Mueller's investigation on whether Russia tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election was released last week.The report stated that Trump's efforts to influence the investigation were "mostly unsuccessful", largely because "the person surrounding the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his request.""On June 17, 2017, the President called [then-White House counsel Don] McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the special counsel (Mueller) had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger
Fever outbreak keeps Tripura villagers from voting
Hundreds of people in remote Rajdhanpara, in Kalyan Singh ADC village, are in the grip of severe fever for over a week. Lack of medical facilities has worsened their plight.The villagers say that no doctor or government official has visited them so far."People in every family of the area are suffering from fever. Yet no doctor or government officer has visited us. We fetch medicines by ourselves. Government is not paying any attention to our plight," says Askang, a villager.The fever outbreak has also put paid to their plan to cast vote in the ongoing election on April 23."How will we cast our votes when most of us are suffering from fever?" he asks.Election Commission (EC) had postponed polling in the Tripura (East) Lok Sabha seat from April 18 to April 23, saying the law and order situation there was not conducive for holding free and fair polls. Tripura has only two Lok Sabha seats Tripura (West) and Tripura (East).
Spain PM, rivals clash over Catalonia in election debate
Spain's outgoing prime minister faced an onslaught of criticism from his right-wing rivals over Catalonia's secession crisis in a testy four-way debate ahead of elections, while he warned them against cozying up to the far-right. The debate on Spain's public television brought together the four main candidates for Sunday's general election -- Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, conservative Popular Party (PP) leader Pablo Casado, Albert Rivera of centre-right party Ciudadanos and Pablo Iglesias of far-left Podemos. "Those who want to break up Spain have their favourite candidate in Sanchez," Casado said, standing behind a lectern in the studio, the three other candidates in a semi-circle next to him. "I want a prime minister who doesn't kneel down in front of those who want to break Spain," added Rivera, a framed photo of Sanchez talking to Catalonia's separatist leader Quim Torra on his lectern in front of him. The northeastern region's independence drive is an explosive issue ...
North Korea confirms upcoming Kim-Putin summit
North Korea on Monday confirmed that its leader Kim Jong-un will "soon" visit Russia for a summit with President Vladimir Putin.Kim "will soon pay a visit to the Russian Federation at the invitation of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, president of the Russian Federation," reported Yonhap News Agency quoting North Korea state agency."They will have talks during the visit," it stated. However, the agency stayed mum on the date and place of the summit.This comes days after Kremlin announced about the ensuing meet between the two leaders.The reclusive leader is reaching out to Russia after the breakdown of Kim's meeting with United States President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February. The summit had ended abruptly as the two parties failed to reach an agreement over denuclearisation.Kim recently penned down a letter to Putin vowing efforts to strengthen bilateral ties.The meeting is speculated to take place in Russia's Far East city of Vladivostok next week when Putin will travel there on his .
Mexican police detain hundreds of Central American migrants
The Mexican Police and immigration agents have detained hundreds of Central American migrants in the largest single raid on a migrant caravan since the groups started moving through the country last year. The police on Monday targeted isolated groups at the tail end of a caravan of about 3,000 migrants who were making their way through the southern state of Chiapas with hopes of reaching the US border. As migrants gathered under spots of shade in the burning heat outside the city of Pijijiapan, federal police and agents passed by in patrol trucks and vans and forcibly wrestled women, men and children into the vehicles. The migrants were driven to buses, presumably for subsequent transportation to an immigration station for deportation processing. As many as 500 migrants might have been picked up in the raid, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene. Some of the women and children wailed and screamed during the detentions on the roadside. Clothes, shoes, suitcases and ...
Mexican police detain hundreds of Central American migrants
The Mexican Police and immigration agents have detained hundreds of Central American migrants in the largest single raid on a migrant caravan since the groups started moving through the country last year. The police on Monday targeted isolated groups at the tail end of a caravan of about 3,000 migrants who were making their way through the southern state of Chiapas with hopes of reaching the US border. As migrants gathered under spots of shade in the burning heat outside the city of Pijijiapan, federal police and agents passed by in patrol trucks and vans and forcibly wrestled women, men and children into the vehicles. The migrants were driven to buses, presumably for subsequent transportation to an immigration station for deportation processing. As many as 500 migrants might have been picked up in the raid, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene. Some of the women and children wailed and screamed during the detentions on the roadside. Clothes, shoes, suitcases and ...
N Korea confirms Kim 'soon' to visit Russia: KCNA
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will "soon" visit Russia for his first summit with President Vladimir Putin, state media has reported, confirming a Kremlin announcement. Kim "will soon pay a visit to the Russian Federation at the invitation" of Putin, North Korea's official KCNA news service said. "They will have talks during this visit," the brief dispatch added. The KCNA did not specify when or where the pair would meet. The Kremlin said last week that the pair would meet in Russia "in the second half of April" but provided no further details. They are expected to meet in the eastern Russian port of Vladivostok, possibly on Wednesday or Thursday. It will be the first summit between the leaders of North Korea and Russia since Kim Jong Il -- the current leader's father -- met with Dmitry Medvedev eight years ago. Russia has relatively warm ties with Pyongyang and provides some food aid, and Putin has long expressed his readiness to meet with the regime leader. Their meeting will come .
Venezuela government calls two new counter protests
Venezuela's government has announced two marches to counter the ones opposition leader Juan Guaido has planned. The street demonstrations in favour of President Nicolas Maduro will take place on Saturday, and May 1, Labour Day. Saturday's event will also mark Venezuela's official exit from the Organisation of American States, two years after Maduro made the decision to leave the bloc, accusing it of being part of a US campaign to "intervene" in Venezuela. "We want to summon our members to two great demonstrations," said Hector Rodriguez, a leader of Maduro's United Socialist Party in Venezuela (PSUV). "We summon the whole chavista population to mobilize and celebrate the definitive exit from this area of US domination and subordination," he added, referring to supporters of the late president and Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez. The government's announcement comes three days after Guaido revealed his plans for events on those two dates, including what he said would be "the biggest ...
Poll-time cash seizure of Rs 8 crore in Northeast breaks all previous records
The Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation), North East Region (NER) has made cash seizure exceeding Rs 8 crore till 22nd April in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. With this the Income Tax department claims to have broken all previous records of cash seizures made during general elections in the North East.According to the Income Tax department, cash seizures of Rs. 1.21 crore was made during Election Expenditure Monitoring for 2014 elections."Directorate of Income Tax Investigation, NER has exceeded all previous records of cash seizures made during general elections in the North East. For the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, the last polling date in North East is 23rd April. The Directorate has made cash seizure exceeding Rs 8 crores till 22nd April, which is nearly 7 times the previous haul. This amount compares favourably even with many other jurisdictions, which have much higher tax revenue base than North East.Principal Director of Income Tax Investigation for NER, Sanjay Bahadur ..
Rahul's credibility eroded further, says Jaitley
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday hit out at Congress President Rahul Gandhi saying his "very low credibility" has been "eroded even further" with him having to express regret to the Supreme Court over his statement in connection with the Rafale deal judgement.
Jaitley targets Chidambaram over Pakistan remarks
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday targeted Congress leader P. Chidambaram over his remarks that in order to bring a change in Pakistan's behaviour, India must also change its behaviour and said Congress needs to explain its remarks to people.