72 year-old washerman, Pancham Lal, who is accorded 'VIP' status on polling days, was the first to cast his vote in the erstwhile princely state. Sharat Pradhan reports
The country is all set for the second round of elections on April 18 in the ongoing seven-phase Lok Sabha polls that will elect 543 members to the lower house of Parliament. Going to polls in the second phase will be 95 seats in 12 states and one Union Territory. Here is a look at some of the big names contesting in phase two of Lok Sabha elections.
"Don't shoot, don't shoot" were the last words of slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who was known for savage killing of dissidents during his reign of 42 years in the North African country.
Toral Varia and photographer Reuben Verghese report on an emerging trend in the red bastions of Odisha's Keonjhar district: The rebels return home.
Rediff.com's Senior Associate Editor, Faisal Kidwai, who is in UP at the moment, will chat with readers about the results at 2.30 pm.
Five Congress ministers lose. Only Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi win.
He is likely to have the support of grand alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awami Morcha.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Friday stepped down as West Bengal chief minister following the Left Front's drubbing in the Assembly election at the hands of the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine that saw the collapse of the 34-year-old red bastion.
Exuding confidence that Left Front would come back in its bastions, Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat on Monday criticised the United Progressive Alliance-II for following anti-people policy. "In the UPA's first term, the Left exercised all restrains and succeed in checking prices, disinvestment and subjugation by the government to the corporate," said Karat.
Smarting under humiliating defeat in the by-election to Hisar Lok Sabha seat in Haryana, Congress on Tuesday rubbished the idea that the "Anna factor" had played a role in its drubbing and questioned the civil society members' silence on corruption in Mayawati-ruled Uttar Pradesh.
Amid fierce battles between Gaddafi's troops and rebels on the eastern frontline of Ajdabiyah on Monday, nearly 1,000 foreign workers and wounded Libyans were evacuated from the besieged western city of Misurata that was pounded by the government forces.
Having traversed through the DMK bastion of Thiruvarur and the AIADMK stronghold of Srirangam, Saisuresh Sivaswamy concludes his poll journey in Peramabalur -- the hometown of jailed former telecom minister A Raja -- which slowly seems like slipping out of the DMK's hands.
Kerala Chief Minister and Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran V S Achuthanandan filed nomination for contesting the assembly elections from his sitting seat Malampuzha in Palakkad district on Thursday. Achuthanandan filed his papers before joint registrar (co-operatives) A N Pradeepraj, who is the returning officer for the segment.
The Indian Air Force on Thursday said it has deployed Garud Special Forces commandos and four choppers for anti-Naxal operations but withdrawn the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles operating in Maoist bastions in Chhattisgarh.
Here are some of the political leaders' who await their fate.
However, the BJP is sceptical about the SP-BSP alliance as they believe Mayawati and Akhilesh will "finish off after fighting among themselves."
Union minister Smriti Irani will also contest the Rajya Sabha polls from Gujarat from where she is already an MP and her term ends on August 18.
Priyadarshini Scindia, wife of sitting Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, started campaigning in February, going door-to-door, reaching out to a cross-section of voters, listening to their woes and telling them about the work done by her better half.
First the 2009 general elections and now the assembly elections -- the Communist Party of India-Marxist seems to be rolling downhill in the political spectrum. This is reflected from the drubbing the party received in West Bengal, its bastion of over three decades, as also Kerala, another stronghold.
All the five former Indian Police Service officers fielded by the Trinamool Congress won comfortably, while TC nominee and former chief secretary Manish Gupta humbled Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, his one time boss.
The feisty 56-year-old Banerjee, who is the founder and chairperson of the Trinamool Congress which she set up in 1998 after falling out with the Congress Party in West Bengal, can now have the satisfaction of a victorious General seeing all the war plans fall into place.
It would be a huge achievement if the new administration manages a successful transition to some sense of domestic and international normalcy in these frantic times marked by the pandemic and rise of illiberal regimes across the world, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
69-year-old Gaddafi pleaded for mercy when rebels captured him while he was trying to flee from a drain where he was hiding in Sirte, the last major bastion of resistance two months after the regime fell in August.
Book excerpts -- adapted as an interactive quiz -- from Vijay Nair's The Boss Is Not Your Friend, to find out what kind of a boss you work with.
Two districts where most of the cash and jewellery has been recovered are Madurai and Tiruchirapalli, both bastions of the rulng DMK.
Heavy machine-gun fire rocked Muammar Gaddafi's bastion of Tripoli on Sunday as the fighting between his forces and rebels raged in Libya's east and west, with the strongman seeking a UN or African Union probe into the crisis, promising that investigators would not face any hindrance.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna inaugurated the new Indian consulate in southern Sri Lankan coastal city of Hambantota, voicing confidence that India will take advantage of the industrial and commercial potential in the region, which has witnessed increased Chinese engagement.
Noted social activist Swami Agnivesh on Saturday appealed to the Chhattisgarh government to initiate talks to solve the problem of Naxalism. The tribal-dominated state is home to a large number of Naxals and is considered their bastion. The chief minister should come forward to solve this decades-old problem through dialogue, he said at a press conference in Raipur in the presence of Chief Minister Raman Singh.
Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya visits Jhargram and Jungle Mahal, one of the most volatile areas of poll-bound West Bengal, and tries to figure out whether the 'winds of change' would blow away 'the red bastions'.
Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya visits Jhargram and Jungle Mahal, one of the most volatile areas of poll-bound West Bengal, and tries to figure out whether the 'winds of change' would blow away 'the red bastions.'
Rate has remained at 3.5 per cent since March 2003.
Whether the Congress takes a decision for or against a Telangana state, its strongest bastion Andhra Pradesh weakens. Sheela Bhatt looks at the tough choices before the party.
SP has already fielded its sitting MLA from Gauriganj seat.
There are limitations to milking national security, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Libyan forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi struck hard at rebels advancing towards Tripoli and pounded the oil port eastern city of Ras Lanuf, as the US mulled land and air options amid growing pressure to arm the out-gunned opposition.
England march into the second battle of their Ashes campaign at another bastion of Australian cricket on Friday buoyed by the knowledge they have already spiked one of the enemy's big guns.
Lack of organisational network and a strong disconnect with the rural population led to the Congress president's defeat in what until now had been described as a party stronghold.
The highest winning margin was registered by BJP candidate Subhash Chandra Baheria in Bhilwara who defeated Congress candidate Ram Pal Sharma with a margin of 6,12,000 votes.
'Between now and 2021, Bengal's politics could change irrevocably,' predicts Kanchan Gupta, Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the impressive show by his party to the "alert voters" who he said rejected the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) of opposition parties.
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