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Congress President Sonia Gandhi said India-China relationship has the potential to become “one of the foremost and most substantive” relationships of the 21st century, observing that it must be a key instrument in shaping the changing world order. “The leaderships of both India and China are engaged in deepening political understanding which fosters respect for each others’ sensitivities,” she said in a written interview to China’s official Xinhua news agency, coinciding with the 90th anniversary celebrations of the ruling communist party. “Such a dialogue should address all vital issues of mutual concern through visits, seminars and a productive exchange of...

Beijing 2008: China invites Sonia, not PM or Prez 14 Jul 2008, 0006 hrs IST,TNN NEW DELHI: Eighty heads of state and government will grace the Beijing Olympics in August but PM Manmohan Singh will not be among them. Not because he is too busy, but because he was not invited. In fact, neither India's head of state nor government have been invited, with the invitation going to its most important politician, Sonia Gandhi. The Congress chief is unlikely to attend, leaving that job to sports minister M S Gill. But even if you are really charitable, it can't be...

As a fallout of the Volcker report, NDTV has learnt that an inquiry will be announced by the government on Monday headed by a former judge. This commission of inquiry will investigate Hamdan Exports, the key agency which the Volcker report claims paid the surcharge or kickbacks on behalf of External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and the Congress party. UN investigator Paul Volcker in his report said that Singh and the Congress paid bribes to Iraqi authorities to buy oil in the UN sponsored oil-for-food programme. Both have denied Volcker's allegations. Fact-finding probe The government has also announced a fact-finding...

Congress president and United Progressive Alliance chief Sonia Gandhi is the world's third most powerful woman after US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Chinese Vice-premier Wu Yi, Forbes magazine said on Friday. US first lady Laura Bush and Senator Hillary Clinton have been placed at the fourth and fifth position by the magazine in the list of 100 most powerful women in the world that includes Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri (8) and Philippines President Gloria Arroyo (9). In a brief profile of the 57-year-old Gandhi, the magazine said no other woman in recent times has been more widely revered...

Apparently, it was not the "inner voice" but certain queries that could have been put to her by the President of India, custodian of the Constitution, which caused her to withdraw her name. Contrary to attempts by Congressmen and Communists to portray her eleventh-hour retreat as a "personal decision" spurred by her children, it could be the clarifications apparently sought by President A P J Abdul Kalam that resulted in the rethink. The President, it is reliably learnt, did not outrightly reject her candidature for the post of the Prime Minister. However, he is believed to have sought certain...

Sonia makes her choice: It's Manmohan NEW DELHI: Sonia Gandhi has made her choice. She has named Manmohan Singh to be the next Prime Minister. It is believed the draft anointing Manmohan Singh as new Congress Parliamentary Party leader has already been sent to MPs. The MPs, according to reports, will sign the draft and there will be no separate CPP meet. The MPs will meet state-wise in the presence of AICC leaders in charge of states, party sources said.

'Trust me, let me make my own decision' TIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2004 12:10:02 AM ] NEW DELHI: Turning your back on the country's top job can't be easy. But Sonia Gandhi did just that on Tuesday by turning down the prime ministerial post, holding out against intense pressure from her party and allies. She told a gathering of stunned party MPs she was not interested in the post of PM. Her unexpected step was countered by her party with a unanimous resolution to reconsider her decision. The person who probably knows her the best, son...

Congress party President Sonia Gandhi has refused to become the next prime minister. Confirming this, a senior Congress official told rediff.com, "There is a gadbad (problem). Sonia Gandhi is refusing to become the prime minister. She wants to back out." What about a change of heart at a later stage? "Woh maan nahin rahi hai (she is not willing to listen)," the Congress leader said. According to highly reliable sources in the Congress, she has told her top leaders in unambiguous term that she will not head the new government. Unless Congress leaders and the party's allies persuade her to...

NEW DELHI - Italian-born Sonia Gandhi dropped out of the race to become India's prime minister on Tuesday to end debate over her foreign birth, opening the way for her Congress party to choose an economic reformer as its leader. "I must humbly decline this post," she told an uproarious meeting of lawmakers from her Congress party. Fighting to make herself heard above indignant shouts from her supporters, she said: "I request you to accept my decision and to recognize that I will not reverse it. "It is my inner voice, my conscience," said Gandhi, 57-year-old widow of murdered former...

Gangacharan Rajput, a Congress party member, threatens to shoot himself if Sonia Gandhi backs out of becoming India's prime minister, outside the party's headquarters in New Delhi, earlier in the day May 18, 2004. Sonia Gandhi, heir to India's Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, tearfully gave up her chance to become prime minister on Tuesday to protect her new Congress government from damaging attacks over her Italian birth. REUTERS/Kamal Kishore

Hindu party to boycott Gandhi ceremony 18 May 2004 07:21 Hindu nationalists on Monday threatened to launch a nationwide agitation against Sonia Gandhi's "foreign origins" and promised to boycott the new prime minister's swearing-in ceremony. The Bharatiya Janata party, which was defeated in general elections, said it wanted to "give vent to the sense of outrage felt by millions of patriotic Indians" and would not be attending the inauguration. The BJP's statement came as India's president, Abdul Kalam, invited Gandhi and her coalition partners to form the next government. After a brief flurry of speculation that Gandhi would step down...

In a stunning political shift, Indian voters have decisively rejected the governing Hindu nationalist party and the coalition partners that have kept Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in office since 1998. Liberalizing economic policies carried out under Mr. Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party governments have given India statistically impressive economic growth. Yet in a country where poor people vote in large numbers, most of them remain unimpressed. Along with the coalition's drubbing came the equally unexpected revival of the long-fading Congress Party under its Italian-born leader, Sonia Gandhi. Mrs. Gandhi, the widow and daughter-in-law of assassinated prime ministers, capitalized on her...

Vajpayee Resigns After Poll Upset May 13, 2004 NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has resigned after a stunning election upset, ending his nearly six years in power and setting the stage for the return of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The move follows a stronger than anticipated showing from the main Congress party headed by Italian born-Sonia Gandhi. Though the party won't be able to form a majority, the stage is now set for Gandhi to be the next leader of the world's biggest democracy. In brief comments to reporters on Thursday Gandhi declined to say...

POLL-GU-VHP Disdain for Hindus; Muslim appeasement led to BJP defeat: VHP AHMEDABAD, MAY 13 (PTI) In a stinging criticism of BJP and its allies, Gujarat unit of VHP today said the saffron party has been rejected by the masses for showing "disdain for Hindu agenda" and policy of "Muslim appeasement". "The results are an eyeopener for BJP-led NDA coalition which has shown utter contempt for the Hindu agenda. They crossed all limits of Muslim appeasement, which has been outrightly rejected by the masses", VHP general secretary Dilip Trivedi said in a statement reacting to Lok Sabha poll outcome. Trivedi said,...

NEW DELHI - Sonia Gandhi spent decades as a woman behind the scenes. Shy and Italian-born, she ran the household for her mother-in-law when Indira Gandhi was prime minister, choosing menus and managing the servants. She did the same for her husband when he became prime minister, after his mother's assassination. Now, more than a decade after he too was slain, Sonia Gandhi is poised to become the latest in a long line of Gandhis to govern this sprawling nation. With the ruling Hindu nationalist alliance conceding defeat, a suddenly resurgent Congress Party and its allies appear set to take...

NEW DELHI, India -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party has conceded defeat in parliamentary elections in a stunning voting upset that should see the return of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to power. Vajpayee -- who called the election six months earlier -- is also expected to resign within hours, India's defense minister said.

  Jubilant Congress supporters take to the streets of Delhi India's main opposition Congress party has begun celebrating after gaining a lead in India's general election that has taken observers by surprise. Its alliance has won 48 of the 89 seats declared so far and is projected to beat the governing BJP-led alliance. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called the poll six months early in a move that appears to have backfired. Three weeks of polling ended on Monday, with 56% of the 675m people eligible to vote taking part. Counting of votes is taking place in 1,214 centres...

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Opposition leader Sonia Gandhi, who lost her husband to a suicide bomber, donned a bulletproof jacket and campaigned for her party in Kashmir on Thursday, making the first public speech by a senior Indian official in the insurgency-wracked province in 15 years. Defying threats from Islamic militants, Gandhi spoke to the crowd of shared pain and how state legislative elections can improve the disputed Himalayan province's future. ``I want to bring you some balm,'' she said from behind a bulletproof screen and surrounded by elite commandos in Srinigar, the state's summer capital. ``This is an election...