The total value of Naveen Patnaik's assets has swelled by Rs 4 crore from Rs 7.98 crore to Rs 12.06 crore between 2009 and 2014. This increase is because of appreciation of property value instead of acquisition of any new property.
A massive pan-India inoculation drive against COVID-19 was set in process on Tuesday with more than 56 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine flown to 13 cities across India from Pune and taken to designated national and state-level stores amid tight security.
Stalin owes his victory this time, like in 2019, to the hate-campaign of the local Hindutva forces, which kept haranguing him, and even his dead father, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Beyond welfare politics, the BJP has assiduously worked to appropriate regional icons.
Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com gives the lowdown on the constituencies going to polls in the first phase on April 11.
The JD-U also used the meeting to call for a joint Opposition candidate for the election to the President's post and urged Gandhi to take the lead in the matter.
Will Malik's worldview, shaped by his years with the socialists, Charan Singh, the Congress and V P Singh, help him govern the troubled state? Or would his rule have the imprint of the party he joined in the latter years of his chequered political career?
'That's the beauty of Naveen.' 'His intermittent support to the NDA and Modi confuses BJP workers in Odisha.' 'It gives an impression that Naveen has a tacit understanding with the NDA and that the BJP will not really challenge him wholeheartedly.'
'It was a battle that took many forms, ranging from non-violent mass satyagrahas, mammoth public meetings, huge protest rallies in cities and towns to underground organisation of sabotage of communication and transport networks, an underground radio, illegal patrikas (newsletters) and the formation of parallel governments in Ballia, Midnapore and Satara.'
29 years ago, Karnataka was hurled into a huge political crisis after MLAs withdrew support to S R Bommai's Janata Dal ministry. As the governor recommended that the chief minister be dismissed and President's Rule imposed in the state, then President R Venkataraman disagreed with Rajiv Gandhi's Cabinet and argued that 'the question whether a ministry commanded the confidence of the assembly should be tested in the House and not by the governor.' A fascinating excerpt from President Venkataraman's My Presidential Years, published with the kind permission of the publishers HarperCollins India.
'Wisdom demands Modi moves to restore the critical institutions of the State and dial back on the cult building around his persona,' say Sonali Ranade and Shealja Sharma.
'I would say it is not going to be days and weeks. It is going to be months and years, over which we would make an assessment on the decisions taken by the Parliament at this point of time. 'We are in for a long haul is what I would say.' It was a very diverse India, which was coming together, politically, in a very cohesive, democratically-resilient way." Professor Navnita Behera examines the wisdom of the exit of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
Celebrated novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who has just won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature, spoke to Arthur J Pais of Rediff.com in 2009, recalling his wonderful association with Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf and chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, who had just won a special award.
We need credible retellings of the times we have lived through, or the events in the immediate past that have shaped our today, says Mihir S Sharma
From hobnobbing with the likes of Jacqueline Kennedy and Mick Jagger, the reclusive author-turned-politician has come a long way, says Anita Katiyal
On this one issue that touches the raw nerve of Tamil Nadu, Modi had better heed M Karunanidhi's sage words conveying "the desire and appeal of all well-wishers of the nation that Prime Minister Modi should focus on accelerating economic growth and social development" and not, let me add, let his ministers embark on disruptive escapades, says B S Raghavan.
The 67-year-old hasn't only received a clear-cut mandate for an unprecedented fourth term but also done it on his own. From distributing tickets to planning party campaigns to chalking out strategies for the present and the future, the chief minister had played a stellar role throughout, and emerged successful in his endeavour. Bikash Mohapatra reports
Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar is underwriting the revival of a vintage Dakota as a gift to the Indian Air Force.
As Cyclone Hudhud is closing in on the Andhra Pradesh coastline and is expected to make a landfall near Visakhapatnam by Sunday afternoon, about 1.11 lakh people in five coastal districts have been shifted to safer places.
With Tamil Nadu's electoral fate decided, all eyes would now veer round to the pending 'disproportionate assets case' against Jayalalithaa in the Supreme Court, and Stalin's own future within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I do not think Rajiv Gandhi at that stage had any influence on his mother. Indira Gandhi relied totally on Sanjay and she looked upon him as a dependable son.' 'What really affected people and eventually Indira Gandhi was the sterilisation drive. She lost so badly in north India because of these drives.' 'She is the one who has given this aura of 'the family' to the Gandhis.' The second and final part of veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book The Emergency: A Personal Account was published recently, to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
Veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book came out recently, speaks to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
Is it inconsistency in policy, or the lack of robust support?
'Nehru is often portrayed as a visionary with his head in the clouds. But he had his feet firmly planted on the ground when it came to building and nurturing institutions and setting them on the right path with the right traditions,' says B S Raghavan.
Now that Tamil Nadu's tallest politician is no more, it remains to be seen how new political re-alignments could shape up, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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