Nitish Kumar has lost his credibility. He is now only a weak ally of the BJP. And he may no longer have a shot at a national role.
It is as much about farmer woes and the lack of job opportunities as about the mixing of religion and politics.
Six persons allegedly involved in vandalising a cathedral premises and a Catholic school, where people had gathered for a religious convention, were arrested in the wee hours on Monday.
The Deen Bachao, Desh Bachao conference in Patna on April 15 was attended by lakhs of Muslims. Will the electoral dividends from this rally be reaped by Nitish Kumar, the BJP (through Hindu consolidation), by both Nitish and the BJP or will it be reaped more by the anti-BJP forces, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Despite the freeze on diplomatic ties between India and Pakistan and protests against the fair, traders at the recently concluded four-day Aalishan Pakistan exhibition did brisk business, reports Upasna Pandey.
'So you have a middle class, and an elite that have seceded into outer space and they look down and say, "What's our bauxite doing in their mountains?" and "What's our water doing in their rivers?" There's a sense of entitlement there.' Arundhati Roy captures minds with her thoughts on capitalism, Indian politics, war, and more in New York.
Kumar will always be known as the reformer chief minister who brought governance back to Bihar.
Prohibition is resulting in prisons getting overcrowded.
'If you are in Punjab, Modi is omnipresent as if he is going to be chief minister of Punjab.'
'If he is in Uttarakhand, he presents himself to be the chief minister of Uttarakhand.'
'When he is in UP, he is touted as the chief minister of UP.' 'There is a personality cult which is being built around a person... that he is the panacea of every democratic exercise in India, from panchayat to Parliament.' 'Modi at some point will pay the price for trying to build a very ambitious personality cult.'
The panel will also recommend a fiscal consolidation road map for the central and state governments, study the impact of GST on the divisible pool, and propose performance-based incentives for states.
'You can fight to win leadership of a party, yet join party rivals to win a general election in the US. The fact that dissent is not rebellion is not really appreciated in India, where we are used to the 'High Command' culture,' says T V R Shenoy.
'Can he remain ignorant by saying he was 13 years old?' 'That means Rahul Gandhi must not talk on any subject in this country that precedes his adulthood.' 'He should remain unaware of history and knowledge of anything that has happened.'
'The horrific episode of January 18 in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is quite different from what happened in Muzaffarnagar, UP, in September 2013. The Akhilesh Yadav-led administration in UP and riot-mongers among our political formations need to learn lessons from the response of the state and society in Bihar's Muzaffarpur,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The Congress alleged Chandra and the BJP were adopting 'delaying tactics'.
Barkha talks about her journey in the world of glamour and her new show, Girls On Top.
'He depended too much on assurances given by sadhus and sants. He may not be culpable, but he was wholly responsible for December 6, 1992.' 'While Manmohan Singh came to reforms out of conviction, Rao came to reforms out of compulsion. If the compulsion had not been there, I don't know how he would have responded.'
Chef and author Rakhee Vaswani talks about her passion for cooking, her daily struggles as a mompreneur and how she's spreading smiles through her recipes.
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
One of the two men accused of making hoax calls and demanding money by impersonating Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad was on Friday refused bail by a Delhi court which said there is a likelihood of destroying the evidence if released from jail.
'In Bihar, the Dalits are not a consolidated socio-political constituency,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Mohammad Salim cited a news magazine which quoted Singh as reportedly saying -- after Narendra Modi and BJP's victory last year -- that India had the first "Hindu ruler after 800 years."
Having focussed excessively on the Congress, and continuously drawing a Modi-Rahul parallel as if it were the sole selling point, the BJP has lost sight of the regional parties that are seeking to take the centre-stage, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'She really doesn't care if she is called heartless.' 'For her, the job needs to be done. That's all that matters.'
'These children are wards of the State. They were exploited because the state government and its officials didn't do their jobs.'
'A bit of foresight would have helped.' 'Isn't it common sense that this is sowing and wedding season?' 'The plan is indeed unquestionably revolutionary, but better preparedness could have avoided such teething troubles.'
Congress forced four adjournments of the proceedings in the RS over what it called as 'biggest scam of this century'.
Elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan will see the BJP and Congress in direct contest.
A monsoon holiday can be cheaper because of discounts.
Accusing Narendra Modi of using religion for canvassing by putting out Lord Ram's portrait in the backdrop at his Faizabad rally, Congress on Monday approached Election Commission demanding registration of an FIR against him and other party leaders as well as derecognition of BJP.
Let Bihar be damned under its contradictions of having gone 'dry' and then having been submerged under flood, which is a recurrent phenomena? After all it is a godforsaken land, having lost its promises of overcoming its problems, says Mohammad Sajjad.
A controversy has erupted over the reported remarks of Central Bureau of Investigation chief Ranjit Sinha that the United Progressive Allianc government would have been happy if the Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah was named as accused in Ishrat Jahan case chargesheet, a comment which he has denied.
Vice chairman of the Dwarkadheesh Devsthan Samiti says there was nothing 'humiliating' in being asked about caste at a Hindu shrine.
On Election 2014: 'So far it looks like a one horse race. The difference between the first and the second challenger is so large that if the first one looks back in the last round, he'll probably not see the second one anywhere.' On the AAP prospects: 'They should be happy if they're able to open their account.' On Rahul Gandhi: 'He has a confused message. His campaign is in the abstract. And his campaign has nothing to offer.' Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley in a free and frank conversation with Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
'Narendra Modi could be too old to change his personality. On the other hand, his attachment to the RSS could be mostly sentimental. So one must hope that if he becomes prime minister, he is able to detach himself from the RSS view of the world as completely as Narasimha Rao detached himself from the Congress's First Family.' 'India cannot be governed by the autocratic methods by which he has governed Gujarat. If he becomes prime minister he will have to learn to speak in a more civil language about his political opponents,' historian Ramachandra Guha tells Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com
The opposition, while not directly stalling Parliament, will insist all legislation goes to standing committees, delaying implementation.
Two years after a midday meal took the lives of 23 children in Gandaman, Archana Masih sits down to have lunch at the same government school and discovers that much has changed and much remains the same.
'Despite the BJP's successes at the state-level, replicating their 282-seat majority in 2019 is going to be an uphill climb.'
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
Anand Sharma said the PM 'does not have humility' and has not indicated that he will reflect and correct the course by either withdrawing his words 'insulting' Indira Gandhi based upon a 'fabricated report'.
'Nitish Kumar wouldn't have won Bihar without Lalu. He needed a voter base and Lalu has a much bigger voter base than Nitish.'
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