Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat are over. Another set of state elections is due in 2018. Here's an assessment of the next round of the electoral challenge and how it could change India's political equations.
'The only narrative before India is what Modi and the BJP is presenting.' 'Nationalism has been taken as a serious plank by the BJP and RSS.' 'They want to keep the nationalism thing alive to make people forget the economic reality.'
'Vietnam has become an adjective as well as a verb -- the Americans, for instance, were driven by the passion to do a 'Vietnam' on the Soviet Union when that country invaded Afghanistan in 1979.'
The NDA candidate tells the Election Commission that the Maoists plan to kidnap him.
He said there is a fundamental distinction between religious practices, rituals and civil rights.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
Not with standing the Western nations' zeal to wage a war against the group, unless its source of funding is known and curbed, its rampage will likely continue.
'Must every believing Hindu automatically be assumed to subscribe to the Hindutva project?' asks Shashi Tharoor.
Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj's comments have once again put the Narendra Modi government in a jam. Though the party swiftly slapped a show cause notice on Maharaj, asking him to explain why action should not be initiated against him for his controversial remarks in the recent past, the man denied it, saying it was the 'BJP's internal matter.'
The verdict could impact a range of life choices of Indians, including food habits and sexual orientation.
'The Naga Hills region, Nagaland and Manipur, have had the most uncaring and corrupt state governments with little to show on the ground despite the nation's highest per capita development expenditure,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
Rajya Sabha also rejected an opposition sponsored motions to send the bill to a select committee of the House and for making triple talaq a civil offence with 100 votes against it as compared to 84 in favour.
The church bells don't toll in Churachandpur any more. The hill district in Manipur has been in mourning for more than a year.
The Hindutva brigade's silence on the rape may possibly be explained that this incident is an intra-Hindu affair for them. What is even more intriguing is that vocal gender activists have preferred to almost ignore the incident. Why? Is it because homosexual rape does not involve the woman either as victim or as aggressor, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
'The top-most functionaries and destiny-makers of the nation have thrown away the pretensions of statesmanship.' 'They seem to have made a categorical announcement that the next general election will be fought on the solo plank of Hindutva, rather than on good governance, economic development, and employment to youth', says Mohammad Sajjad.
When the bench asked Sibal 'shouldn't we hear the matter', he replied, 'Yes. You shouldn't.'
The Congress has been reduced to a C player in national politics thanks to its inability to read the pulse of the people, says Rashme Sehgal.
'If Modi arrived like a juggernaut, he left like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were being dismantled bit by bit. It was as if India had seceded quietly from him.' Shiv Viswanathan's social science fiction about what India would be like in 2020.
The foundations of the army's own peculiar secularism are potentially being destabilised
'Think about how he would have handled Hyderabad, and JNU. He would have been very cross if he found two of his Cabinet ministers weighing in on the side of the ABVP.' 'And if Rohith Vemula still killed himself, he would have been the first to speak out in anguish and empathy rather than deny he was a Dalit.' 'And JNU, he would have simply said something like, 'let the boys speak, then they will grow up and join the IAS).' 'A good idea, when in crisis, is to apply the 'Vajpayee test' to your actions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
If Team Rajini expected Kaala to carry the superstar's political message off-screen, it may have proved counter-productive. If the not-so-infrequent presence of Muslim residents of Dharavi, including that of Kaala's ex-love Zarina, in many scenes is expected to convey a political message, it is a no-brainer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Reflex responses to Dalit student Rohith Vemula's suicide are band aids that stem the current hemorrhage but do precious little to the festering wound beneath,' says Vivek Gumaste.
'India has to understand that the permanent state of war that exists between India and Pakistan has to be expected,,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). 'The only way to ensure peace or absence of war is to maintain a militarily-dominant position over Pakistan.'
This is one bill that will ensure that no politician, official or person can play politics with the lives of any other person and if they do, they will be arrested. It is time for such a bill to protect the minorities, says Neeta Kolhatkar.
The Zakat Foundation of India runs welfare initiatives for the destitute and helps with the education of poor students. Upasna Pandey/ Rediff.com discover the origins of this organisation
'This is the first time a majority ruling government is nominating a Dalit for President.' 'So, the moral credibility definitely will go with the BJP, particularly Narendra Modi.'
As German makes provisions to accept 800,000 refugees this year, the nation is split vertically on the crisis with refugee shelters attacked with Molotov cocktails and swastika signs painted outside many refugee homes.
Malayalam film audiences, who had spent close to two decades waiting for something truly interesting to watch at the movies, seem to be finally getting their due.
Most of the opposition parties blamed Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliates for the cow vigilantism.
'The real test will be in defence-related deals, for instance the Javelin anti-tank missile: Is the US willing to co-develop something with India, on terms that will support the 'Make in India' initiative? Is there defence technology transfer? Or will it dump old junk on India?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
'The strange thing about the Karnataka election is that the BJP looks more like the Congress of the past and vice versa.' 'Siddaramaiah has been able to out think the BJP almost every single day on every single issue.'
Narendra Modi's mother washed utensils to make a living. Madhusudan Mistry's grandmother, who brought him up, was a vegetable vendor. Mistry's trajectory from poverty to membership of the all powerful Congress Working Committee is moving. the man who has Rahul Gandhi's ear and is all set to take on Narendra Modi in Vadodara, speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt in a fascinating interview.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi's stand that AMU is not a minority university reveals the anti-minority stand of the political party now in power, says Mohammad Sajjad, outlining the long history behind one of India's premier universities.
'We are a national party that wants to remind people about Bharatiya sanskruti, which, at the moment, is being remote-controlled by an Italian lady and her agents,' says former Union minister O Rajagopal, the BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram who will challenge Shashi Tharoor.
In dramatic scenes, Umar Khalid, the Jawaharlal Nehru University student who had been untraceable after being accused of sedition, returned to the campus late on Sunday evening. Khalid turned up at JNU's administration block, where hundreds of students began to gather, and gave a rousing speech just shy of 14 minutes, insisting that he would stand his ground and asked that all students unite against the attacks on our country. This is what he had to say.
'At no time since Independence this issue of whether we are a secular country or whether we are a Hindu Rashtra has come up in this manner.' 'This is the most important issue which is going to decide whether we remain together as one country or not.'
"They call me the Class 10 vice-chancellor," he says as his thin lips flirt with a smile. You almost feel that the tall man of spare build is being facetious. And then you see that his deep set eyes are not twinkling. There is a sense of the combative in them.
Anti-nuclear activist S P Udayakumar, who has been called a threat to the economic security of India by the Intelligence Bureau, speaks to A Ganesh Nadar.
In his first interview after the announcement on Telangana, Jaipal Reddy spoke about the historical background of the movement, Narendra Modi and other issues.
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