'The honourable prime minister virtually handpicked me for the Amritsar East seat.' 'Amit Shahji announced that if I am elected, the whole of Punjab will be drugs free.'
Congress is the only other horse in the race for national power, never mind how distant. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah know better than to take the Congress lightly, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'The Shiv Sena as a party was going nowhere.' 'Now Uddhav Thackeray has shown his partymen that he can take the BJP head on.'
Experts have said the economic cost of China's misadventure in the last couple of months in eastern Ladakh and South China will be "massive" as it has "exposed" Beijing's "real face" when the entire world is fighting coronavirus.
Mr Modi and Mr Shah will need him if they want to win UP again in 2022 and India in 2024. This signals a Yogi Adityanath-sized change in BJP politics, even under Mr Modi, Shekhar Gupta.
'How does one square up the fact that despite the infusion of money at election time there was no price rise?' 'It is time the new government ordered an external audit of the RBI to find out the truth,' says Col Anil Athale.
'The Indian version is that the two top diplomats merely exchanged pleasantries, while the Pakistani side characterised the encounter as an 'informal dialogue'.' 'The truth, as always in such piquant situations, is somewhere in between.' 'It stands to reason that ice has been broken,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The missile was launched at 23:41 North Korea time from Jagang province in the north of the country, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
'There is a compulsion to look hard, decisive, and risk-taking; start something; and then conclude it in a way you can claim victory.' 'That is not such an easy option against China,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'The Modi government, like the Singh one, has run into what is called a perfect storm, where everything that can go wrong does so at the same time,' points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'Course correction today would be good politics and also good economics,' notes T N Ninan.
During his interaction with the chief ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured that more economic activities would resume; he also said that zone identification may be left to the states.
Stalin, like his father M Karunanidhi did in 2004, may play the king-maker in a way -- not the king, unless the 2024 post-poll circumstances throws up a situation where he alone becomes acceptable to the rest, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said India has lost one of the finest political leaders and a legal luminary.
Ready to plan your week's binging schedule on the OTT? Sukanya Verma offers a menu full of curious offerings.
'Post the pandemic, when India is turning a new leaf in its economic policy with an eye on foreign capital and global supply chains that are likely to leave China, heightened tensions on the India-China border creates an atmosphere of uncertainty,' observes Virendra Kapoor.
'That is not a democratic ideal obviously, but it is a practical reality.' 'It is a consistent feature of politicians in Pakistan that their rhetoric on the army softens the closer they get to the seat of power.'
Winning against Covid means thinking ahead, at least six months, putting in place the likely scenarios of what might happen, and then planning. Planning is the role of the government. Having planned, it should communicate what and why. Then, get out of the way, recommends Naushad Forbes.
We are today carrying out the reconstruction of New Delhi which will cost us Rs 20,000 crore and give the prime minister a new house while crores of people have no means and no money to buy vaccines for their children, observes Aakar Patel.
'For the next two years, we expect the bulk of earnings growth contribution from sectors like financials and energy, where the outlook remains positive, while the sectors which are linked to domestic consumption and are currently witnessing strains on margins have low salience for Nifty earnings.'
Protests at this time when efforts are underway to strengthen the PLA and keep morale high would be worrying for the military leadership, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and distinguished China expert.
"India has given a stern signal to its enemies by conducting surgical and air strikes. This tells us that India is changing and can take the most difficult decisions and isn't reluctant to implement them," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday in his Independence Day address to the nation.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Sharif, 70, and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) vice-chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Sunday filed their nomination papers for the post.
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a 228-193 vote, which was mainly on party lines, the House had appointed seven impeachment managers to argue Democrats' case for removing Trump from the office.
Narrowing of differences on competing territorial claims along the un-demarcated LAC might take weeks, if not months, of hard-nosed negotiations. Without some give and take on both sides, the impasse will be hard to resolve, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'If he were to ask me, I would tell Mr Modi that the real Congress legacy he has to undo is not Nehru's social and political philosophy -- which fits India perfectly -- but his daughter's economic philosophy,' says T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
'Education is disconnected from social reality and does not even attempt to solve the real problems of our country,' observe Peehu Pardeshi and Sandeep Pandey.
High-pitched identity politics, which is the norm in the northeast, has continued to compound the boundary problem.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark T Esper will visit India on October 26 and 27 for the high-level dialogue aimed at further boosting defence, security and global strategic ties between the two countries.
The speed at which political statements of doubtful veracity acquire the aura of gospel truth is astonishing. One such "truth" is: coalition compulsions impede economic reforms. Even Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu believes in it. He recently said, "Thanks to coalitional democracy, there is some slowdown in economic reforms and decision-making."
Triumphalism, premature declaration of victory meant no one checked if India had enough vaccines, oxygen, remdesivir, bringing us back to a crisis where we need foreign aid after four decades, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'The government has said it has kept its powder dry to fight the true battle against the debilitating influence of the pandemic.' 'The release of the shocking economic data this week should act as the fuse for using that powder now.' 'Further delays will make the battle that much harder,' notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Among the panels announced on Thursday is the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) to be headed by the prime minister with Shah as the other member.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg are also expected to attend the meetings.
'He was always opposed to a form of nationalism that was narrow, selfish and arrogant.' 'He will always remain a beacon of inspiration for freedom-loving people across the world and for movements of resistance against oppressive State power.'
In a time of crisis like this, a government needs its people and politics united. A nation of India's size and diversity can't fight a stronger rival with fraying social cohesion, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The Taliban is showing its strong discontent as the high hopes given to it by the Pakistani military have been dashed, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'In South Asia, unlike Southeast, East, or Central Asia, there is a natural hegemon: India. China cannot cast it aside easily'
The USS John Paul Jones acted like a dog marking the lamp post, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
