'Critics say the political leadership abandoned the army chief or did not back him. I disagree. 'Military leaders are trained to take decisions when given a free hand.' 'This was a clear go-ahead from the prime minister to the army chief.'
Ten years after a dream electoral debut, which saw him become the deputy chief minister at a young age of 25, the heir apparent of party supremo Lalu Prasad finally won, after trailing for several rounds, from Raghopur, a RJD stronghold.
'One good outcome of Operation Sindoor -- perhaps, its best outcome -- could be that India has resumed meaningful contact directly with Pakistan at the military-to-military level,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The only answer to 'How to crack the NDA exam' is to recognise what you need to work on and then get into it, advises Kamal Gupta, a BYJU'S Exam Prep Expert.
'When Uddhav Thackeray went in for surgery, he had presumed that Eknath Shinde would have looked after the Shiv Sena for him during this period.' 'He did not imagine that Shinde would use this period to backstab him.'
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Bengal outcome can have a marginal impact on national politics. Whereas elections in UP next year might still change the course ahead of the parliamentary poll in 2024, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'I got an offer to do a cameo in Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin.' 'I did it just to get out of my house, and so that my parents would not see me so depressed.'
'The power of love is the greatest power in the world.' 'Add a smile and you can conquer the world,' Bengali actor June Maliah, the Trinamool Congress's candidate for the Medinipur constituency, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com.
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
'She should review her strategy of social engineering and get back to the BSP's initial plank of social change.'
'Today, in response to the rape of a foreigner in the city, AAP leaders are saying the Delhi police is not under them -- when I had said the same, nobody wanted to hear it. They themselves are facing the same situation. I would say, it is a learning process for the AAP,' says former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who was vanquished by the AAP's Arvind Kejriwal in the recent assembly elections.
'In being dismissive of Naveen, his colleagues showed incredible naivety.' 'On the few occasions that he put his foot down, the overconfident party leaders, who believed they were using him and not the other way around, failed to read the signs of what was to come.'
'...a dazzling flash, and then, fizzle,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
The principal challenge for Rajan's successor is to work with the Bank Board Bureau and the finance ministry to complete these processes of banking reform.
If I were the BJP, I would not be celebrating quite so quickly. It can sweep its heartland in 2014, as it has shown it can do, but that heartland isn't quite big enough. And it can put up a good fight in towns and cities, too - but unless it neutralises AAP or similar political entrepreneurs, it may find itself tantalisingly short, just as has happened to it in Delhi, says Mihir Sharma.
On the eve of the release of his book, 2014: The election That Changed India, Rajdeep speaks candidly in an interview with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
'There was a time when I went without salary for about six months,' says Amod Malviya, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and currently CTO, Flipkart.
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