NEWS

New Delhi: Days after Congress president Rahul Gandhi met Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu boosting opposition unity, DMK chief M K Stalin has urged all regional parties and secular forces to come together under one umbrella to defeat the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Welcoming the meeting between Gandhi and Naidu, Stalin had on Friday put out a tweet endorsing the Congress chief’s call to opposition parties to work together.

“The Congress president’s call to opposition parties’ is the most important message,” the DMK leader noted and expressed total support for Naidu’s view that unseating the BJP from the Centre was necessary to defend democracy.

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is trying to make some progress in its ambitious labour reforms agenda which has meandered through several starts and stops with just six months of its term remaining.

Senior government functionaries said the approach now will be to arrive at a consensus with other parties to push the legislative agenda and, simultaneously, sweeten the deal for worker unions, including Bharatiya Janata Party affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.

On October 31, Nripendra Mishra, principal secretary to Modi held a high-level meeting with secretaries of some ministries and Niti Ayog officials to prepare a road map for the pending bills on labour reforms. The government’s original plan was to translate 44 complex labour laws into four codes—on Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security and Welfare, and Occupation Safety, Health and Working Conditions.

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party leader associated with the Ram Temple movement and now Union minister Uma Bharti said that Hindus were the “most tolerant” people in the world, but any talk of constructing a mosque on the periphery of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya could make them “intolerant”.

The minister also invited Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to lay the foundation stone of the temple in Ayodhya with her, saying he would “atone for the sins” of his party by doing so.

“Hindus are the most tolerant community in the world. I will appeal to all politicians: please don’t make Hindus intolerant by talking about building a mosque on the outer periphery of the birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya,” Bharti said.

New Delhi: Delhi High Court has asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that why it was not arresting former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh in connection with a multi-crore money laundering case when the agency was opposing bail granted to a businessman in the matter.

Questioning the “selective approach” of the agency in arresting those involved in the case, Justice R K Gauba asked the ED whether it will withdraw its plea challenging bail granted to Vakamulla Chandrasekhar, the director/ promoter of Tarini Group of Companies, or should the court pass an order.

In the first half of the day, the court asked ED’s lawyers to take instructions from the agency on the issue of arresting the senior Congress leader.