Here's our presumptuous pick of the nominees to watch as they gun for the big award, the Palme d'Or.
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The defence minister clearly asserted that there will be no budgetary constraints to enhance the capability of the Army and meeting its other requirements.
K Karunakaran, the former chief minister of Kerala, who was hospitalised in a critical condition has now started meeting and talking to people, Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor who met the veteran leader told media persons on Saturday.
Coming in to bat after the fall of opener Dimuth Karunaratne in their first innings of the second Test, Sangakkara jogged in at the P Sara Oval with the home team placed a 1/1 in reply to India's 1st innings total of 393 all out.
The truce, even if it is not permanence peace, will come under stress and test during the pending polls to rural local bodies in nine revenue districts and urban polls across the state, including those for 16 municipal corporations, starting with Chennai, the oldest and largest, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rajinikanth's visible electoral strength is his constant mouthing of the term, 'aanmiga arasiyal', or 'spiritual politics', without he having to explain what it is. By implication, it is all that what Dravidian politics is not about. It may imply anti-corruption, being against Periyar's forgotten anti-god, anti-Brahmin dictum, but also ends up covering 'Tamil pride', which begins with Tamil language where, as a Maratha from Karnataka, he has more to defend himself. However, in the contemporary national context, aanmiga arasiyal is seen as a front for Rajini to market his brand of 'soft Hindutva' but identified even more with the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in political terms, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Gen Rawat will be able to serve as CDS for a period of up to three years after the government amended the rules extending the age of retirement to 65 years.
The appointment of veteran diplomat Peter Burleigh as charge d'affaires at the American embassy in New Delhi was a Department decision and not on the recommendation of Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, as had been rumored because of their earlier longtime working relationship, senior Administration sources have told rediff.com.
The three-time chief minister and senior Congress leader, who gave Delhi its modern look, passed away on Saturday afternoon at a private hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest.
She came under the cloud of allegation of clearing contract worth Rs 206 crore for purchase of a host of items under the Integrated Child Development Scheme.
It looks as if competing political parties in Tamil Nadu have not grasped the full impact and import of a sizable section of voters possibly staying away from voting -- voters, supposedly with a predictable polling pattern -- owing to the Covid second wave and more so, how it could affect the outcome in individual constituencies and even booths, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The former Union minister had suffered a stroke in 2008 and was hospitalised since then.
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Major General Sujan Singh Uban, a legendary veteran of the Second World War, was a natural choice to raise, train and command the Special Frontier Force and mould them into a well oiled fighting machine, recalls his son Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd), who led SFF troops during the Kargil War.
The front-runner of course is party treasurer and long-serving party legislator, S Duraimurugan. A Vanniar by caste from the rival PMK-strong northern belt, Duraimurugan makes up for his weak political grounding through his debating skills in the assembly, and witty repartee, both inside and outside. Apart from caste and regional representation, personal loyalty to the leader would count even more -- but there is no death of loyal and competent candidates in the party for the post, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
If push comes to shove, Trump is probably planning to order the US army to clear his path for a second term. What if the armed forces refuse to obey their commander-in-chief?, asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'To deal with a bully, you have to deal from a position of strength, not a position of weakness.'
The 61-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party leader was sworn in by Governor Lalji Tandon at Raj Bhawan here at 9 pm.
The announcement was made by Corporate Affairs Minister P C Gupta, whose ministry had earlier moved the Company Law Board to disband the erstwhile Satyam board after disclosure of fraud by company founder Ramalinga Raju
Major portfolios like home, finance and education were on Tuesday allocated to People's Democratic Party ministers by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed who will himself hold the charge of home ministry.
He will take up his new appointment in September, it was officially announced in London on Wednesday.
According to Yashwant Sinha, a national-level pre-poll alliance of all opposition parties should be formed or a nationwide pre-poll alliance of regional parties should be made to defeat the BJP in the general elections.
"I feel Sebi as a main regulator should have been give a proper opportunity to question them (Satyam management) because Sebi officers have the best technical knowledge to look at the accounts and everything," former Karnataka IT secretary Vivek Kulkarni said.
'Modi has not lacked courage in the political sphere. It is time he showed it in the economic sphere as well.' 'To do this, he needs to shed the simple-minded nostrums about economic growth and swadeshi that he learnt in the Sangh Parivar,' suggests Virendra Kapoor.
'Biden's promise of returning to 'normalcy' after Trump appears to mean that the same old politicians, who are responsible for the 'endless wars' in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, are being brought out of the woodwork after four years,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan will see the BJP and Congress in direct contest.
The sub-quota scheme may now lead to a ganging up of non-Vanniyars in individual constituencies against the Vanniyars just as in the past, such ganging up against SC-ST candidates was seen in the non-quota constituencies, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Former Union Minister Najma Heptulla was on Wednesday made Governor of Manipur while ex-Rajya Sabha MP V P Singh Badnore goes to Punjab in new gubernatorial appointments announced for four states with all of them being associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Observers are of the view that it would be a challenge for any leader to match their charisma and political influence.
Chhagan Bhujbal, Jayant Patil (both from the NCP), Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut (both from the Congress), Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai (both from the Sena) took oath as ministers along with Thackeray.
Khanna, an attorney who is perhaps one of the most articulate spokesmen of Indian Americans in the Democratic Party, argued political mobilisation is the final step for the community.
The prime minister was often seen vigorously thumping the desk, prompting his Cabinet colleagues and NDA MPs to follow suit.
India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat in the fifth and final One-Day International against New Zealand which was reduced to a 43-overs-a-side affair due to rain in Auckland on Saturday. India went into the match without any change to the squad that crushed New Zealand in the previous match at Hamilton, while the hosts brought in veteran Scott Styris at the cost of Ewen Thompson.
Cyclone 'Titli' did dampen the spirits of hockey fans to some extent but not veterans like Dilip Tirkey and Dhanraj Pillay who were excited about the exhibition match played, in Bhubaneswar, on Wednesday.
The Indian side, led by former foreign ministry secretary Vivek Katju and included well-known educationist J S Rajput and other experts, met ex-Pakistan foreign secretary Inamul Haque.
'I had digested all the humiliation that Fadnavisji had heaped on me, but I had never seen somebody stooping so low to prove one's dominance in any political party.'
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday allocated portfolios to newly sworn-in ministers and reshuffled certain portfolios.
Journalist Anita Saluja was one of the last persons to meet Sushma Swaraj on August 6. She spent nearly an hour chatting with the late leader, which is why her sudden death later in the evening came as an unexpected shock for her. She talks to Savera R Someshwar/Rediff.com about her association with Sushma Swaraj over the last few decades.
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