Israel's president asked opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot to form the next gov't over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Eisenkot chosen over Netanyahu to form Israel's next government
Israel’s president had asked opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot to form the next government over his rival Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh explains how opposition to Netanyahu brought different political parties together.
Read the full story at Al Jazeera.
. NEW DELHI: Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has called the decision to impose the Emergency in 1975 a mistake, adding that she believes that her mother-in-law and then PM Indira Gandhi had eventually come to feel the same.Her remarks came in an interview with British daily Guardian ahead of the launch of her memoir "Belonging: A Journey of Love".The newspaper reported that Gandhi has written in her book that "keeping Sanjay (Gandhi) in check could have prevented much of the damage that followed". Rajiv was against Emergency, Sanjay pushed for it: Sonia According to The Guardian, Sonia Gandhi recalled crying as she witnessed the demolition of Babri Masjid on TV in Dec 1992. She said she knew then that they faced "a long battle for the secular nation that Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and their colleagues had striven to build".She accepted that failures of her own party had in part contributed to the rise of BJP and its Hindutva politics, the daily reported. "I think we have been too complacent in many ways. There was a laissez-faire kind of an attitude," she was quoted as saying.Reflecting on the Emergency era, Gandhi said, "I always feel that Mrs (Indira) Gandhi was a democrat at heart. I know that many would laugh at this, but I believe she was never comfortable during the course of the Emergency. I think it sat heavy on her."Sonia said the family was split on the decision to impose the Emergency. Her husband Rajiv Gandhi was against the move, telling his mother to wait for the next election, but her younger son Sanjay pushed for it.In another interview published in The Hindu Saturday, Sonia said, "It was not only Sanjay, though in the public mind he is often seen as synonymous with the Emergency. There was a lot of pressure from some of her senior colleagues, and I think there were very few people around her like Rajiv who had a different point of view. Join conversation View All Comments → Share your thoughts in the comments Insightful Agree Disagree Skeptical Concerning Promising Worth Reading Big Development Post Comment Be respectful · TOI community guidelines I think eventually my mother-in-law began to understand the situation through her own wisdom and took actions to remedy it. "It was only after the Emergency that I came to know about the true gravity of what had been happening. Yes, democratic rights had been curtailed, and there was a suspension of habeas corpus, but it was done constitutionally," the former Congress chief said."Yet, when I take myself back to that period and try and see it from Mrs Gandhi's point of view, I see her struggling to cope with the rapidly deteriorating prevailing circumstances..." Gandhi said. "Hindsight allows us to put things in perspective." Sonia said the former PM had later publicly expressed regret and apologised for excesses during the Emergency.
A strong earthquake of preliminary magnitude 5.7 struck central Japan early Sunday, prompting authorities to set up an emergency response office. Japanese media reported that dozens of people were injured in the tremor.The earthquake struck at 1:04 am local time, with its epicentre in the western part of Shizuoka Prefecture at a depth of approximately 40 kilometres, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), as reported by Japanese daily The Mainichi.The tremor registered an intensity of upper 5 on Japan's seismic intensity scale in Chita, Aichi Prefecture. Lower 5 intensity was recorded in parts of Aichi, Nagano and Gifu prefectures, indicating that the shaking was felt across a wide area of central Japan.Smaller aftershocks followed the main earthquake, according to reports. The Japanese government also established a liaison office to coordinate its response and assess the situation in the affected areas.The JMA said the earthquake posed no tsunami threat.According to a report by The Times of India, dozens of people were reportedly injured following the earthquake. The tremors affected a wide area around Aichi Prefecture, with residents in neighbouring regions also experiencing the shaking.Authorities are continuing to monitor seismic activity following the main tremor, while the possibility of further aftershocks remains a concern. No tsunami threat has been reported by the JMA.
. NEW DELHI: Contributions received by the Congress in excess of Rs 20,000 totalled Rs 130.7 crore in 2025-26, which is barely one-fourth of its Rs 517.4 crore donation receipts in 2024-25.As per the 2025-26 contribution report of the Congress filed with EC, Prudent Electoral Trust contributed 19% of Congress's total donation kitty in the relevant year. In 2024-25, Prudent had accounted for 41.8% of contributions received by Congress.Prudent is the only electoral trust through which donations, largely corporate, were routed to Congress last year. At Rs 25 crore, the trust's contributions to the party, however, were only 11.5% of the Rs 216 crore funds it had channelled to the party in 2024-25.The steep 75% decline in Congress's total contributions in excess of Rs 20,000, compared with 2024-25, could be due to several factors. Given that 2024-25 was the general election year, a marked rise (84% as compared to 2023-24) in contributions to the main opposition party was on expected lines. What is interesting though is that the Rs 130.7 crore contribution receipts in 2025-26 are nearly 53% less than the amount it had received even in 2023-24. The steep decline was witnessed despite 2025-26 being the year of Bihar assembly elections and the run-up to elections in Assam, Keralam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry held in April 2026.The Congress audit report for 2025-26, which is not available yet, will throw light on the party's other sources of funding. In 2024-25, Congress's collection from the issuance and sale of coupons was over Rs 350 crore. Join conversation View All Comments → Share your thoughts in the comments Insightful Agree Disagree Skeptical Concerning Promising Worth Reading Big Development Post Comment Be respectful · TOI community guidelines Among the key contributors last year, other than Prudent, were Star Cement Ltd (Rs 5 crore), Sajjan Bhajanka (Rs 4 crore), Afnan Constructions (Rs 3 crore), Prem Kumar Bhajanka (Rs 2 crore) and IPSUM Proadvisors and SMS Builders (Rs 1 crore each).Just nine contributions of Rs 1 crore or more accounted for Rs 43 crore, or nearly one-third of the party's total receipts. In comparison, 1,321 contributions of Rs 5 lakh or less together added up to Rs 37.2 crore, accounting for just 28.5% of the total. The median contribution among the 1,735 entries was Rs 3 lakh, highlighting how a relatively small number of large donations accounted for a substantial share of the party's funding. Poll Vote & Share your view In your opinion, what could be the primary reason behind Congress's reduced funding in 2025-26? General Election Year EffectsDecreased corporate trustElectoral performance issues 3k+ users shared opinion today 5k+ users already voted today 3k+ users shared opinion today Share Opinion