NEWS

New Delhi: Patidar Anamat Aandolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel has held a meeting with NCP leaders Praful Patel and Jayant Patel alias Bosky, triggering speculation over his political plans.

The meeting is seen as Hardik's tactic to put pressure on Congress which had recently accepted four of his major demands but kept the one on OBC quota issue pending. 

The PAAS convener claimed that the meeting was focussed just on "exchanging formal greetings”.

Hardik maintained that the meeting was apolitical. "They came to meet me just to convey Diwali greetings. We did not talk about any political issue or regarding the OBC quota," he said.

New Delhi: The Congress has asserted that the BJP was "adopting" leaders like SardarVallabhbhai Patel as its own participation in the freedom struggle was absent and accused the party of rewriting history. The Opposition party's criticism came on a day the government marked Patel's birth anniversary with fanfare.

Asked about the BJP's charge that Patel was not given Bharat Ratna till a non-Congress government came to power, Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan said, "This business of trying to adopt Congress leaders is a clear indication and admission by the BJP that their participation in the freedom struggle was not only missing but is totally out of context." 

New Delhi: Top US lawmakers cutting across party lines have advocated strengthening of ties with India and asked the Indian-American community to chip in to find new opportunities for growth. 

Senators and Congressmen from both the Republican and the opposition Democratic party said that relationship with India is important and Indian-Americans have a significant role to play in this. 

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, said in his address to the 20th annual Legislative Conference of Indian American Friendship Council that the Indian community has done so much for their country in terms of science, business and creativity. 

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi has averred that the country was getting increasingly divided in the name of "narrow nationalism" as "forces of darkness" seek to engulf it.

Gandhi said the liberal, tolerant Indian ethos that former Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi embodied is being rejected and repudiated.

"In today's times, when our country finds itself increasingly divided in the name of a narrow nationalism, the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration is a recognition of the values she stood for," she said in her speech read out by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.