tecdec

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday claimed at an election rally that there was an attempt by Pakistan to interfere in the Gujarat polls. Pakistan on Monday said India’s politicians should not drag the country into its domestic politics during campaigning for the Gujarat Assembly polls. “India should stop dragging Pakistan into its electoral debate and win victories on own strength rather than fabricated conspiracies, which are utterly baseless and irresponsible,” Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said on Twitter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday claimed at an election rally that there was an attempt by Pakistan to interfere in the Gujarat polls. Mr. Modi also alleged that suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar had held a meeting at his house which was attended by former prime minister Manmohan Singh, a former Indian vice president, Pakistan’s high commissioner in India, and a former Pakistani foreign minister. Congre...

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and his wife Anjali Rupani were among the first to vote as polling started for 89 of 182 constituencies in the first phases of assembly elections in the state.  Reports say 70 Electronic Voting Machines had malfunctioned in Surat, some of which were later restored. Kutch, Saurashtra and south Gujarat are voting today after a bitter and personal campaign between the Congress and the BJP. For the last two days, suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's "neech" slur against Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dominated the campaign. PM Modi, in a tweet this morning, urged people to come out and vote in large numbers. Mr Rupani and his wife cast their votes from Rajkot. The chief minister is from Saurashtra's Rajkot-West seat, the most-watched in today's contest. His main challenger is Indranil Rajyaguru, who is the richest man in the state assembly. "People should come out in large numbers to vote. We are v...

The House of Representatives approved legislation Wednesday loosening gun regulations and allowing those with permits to carry concealed weapons to legally travel with those firearms to other states, a top priority of the National Rifle Association. The bill passed mostly along party lines, 231-198, with six Democrats supporting it. Fourteen Republicans opposed the legislation, the first major firearms-related bill Congress has voted on since the massacres in Las Vegas and Texas earlier this year. Republicans argued that Americans' Second Amendment rights to bear arms should not end when they cross state lines. "The Bill of Rights is not a philosophical exercise," Georgia GOP Rep. Doug Collins, who personally had a concealed carry permit for what described as self-defense reasons. "I don't think that right should be undermined simply because I travel to another state." Democrats angrily denounced the legislation, known as "concealed ...

The Senate Ethics Committee formally launched an investigation into Sen. Al Franken on Thursday, hours after another woman said the Minnesota senator groped her. As allegations mounted against Franken, several fellow Democratic members of Congress said Thursday that he should resign. Rep. Joe Crowley of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio said separately that it’s time for Franken to go. “These are credible allegations, and I believe these women,” Ryan tweeted, in reference to allegations against both Franken and U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, also a Democrat. Franken so far has resisted calls to resign, instead supporting the Ethics Committee investigation. “While the Committee does not generally comment on pending matters or matters that may come before it, in this instance, the Committee is publicly confirming that it has opened a preliminary inquiry into Senator Franken’s alleged misconduct,” read...

The Trump administration has signaled a desire to wind down the protections of Temporary Protected Status, which is an immigration status allowed by law for certain countries experiencing dire conditions, such as a natural disaster, epidemic or war. TPS protects individuals from deportation and authorizes them to work in the US. Without TPS, those individuals revert to whatever status they had previously -- which could leave large numbers as undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration will end the protected immigration status of thousands of Central Americans who have been living in the US nearly two decades, urging Congress to act if it wants to spare those individuals from being uprooted. Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Elaine Duke has decided to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Nicaragua with a 12-month delay, the department announced Monday night. DHS also said Duke has not been able to reach a decision on Honduras despite different agen...

The Opposition Congress-led UDF in Kerala, a judicial commission has indicted former chief minister Oommen Chandy along with his personal office staff in the multi-crore solar panel scam, holding they all had "assisted" accused Saritha S Nair in "cheating" customers.  The Justice G Sivarajan commission's four-volume 1,073 page report that probed the scam was tabled by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the state assembly today at a special session and copies were made available to the media. The "solar scam" had rocked the Chandy government before it lost power in May last year after reports surfaced in June 2013 that three of the chief minister's office staff were involved in alleged duping of several persons of crores of rupees by Saritha Nair and her accomplice Biju Radhakrishnan by offering solar panel solutions.