From France to Canada, from Japan to South Korea, all of Modi's barbs came in front of an NRI audience. Over the last one year, with 19 foreign visits, Modi has tried to use diplomacy as a PR event and foreign policy as a means to shore up his image back at home, says Shehzad Poonawalla.
The significance of the Assembly poll results will be more psychological than real for the impending parliamentary elections, says Bharat Bhushan.
Namo, Namo as India's prime minister? Not yet, says Pakistan-based journalist Amir Mateen.
'It's a joy working there.' 'It's good work and when you come back it gives you pleasure.' 'On returning you take a shower and look at the day and say, "Ah! Nice scenes we did!"' 'Here sometimes you are doing nothing in the day, but you are there for the shoot.' 'You come home and it can be very frustrating, with that frustration the tiredness does not go, you know.' 'Good work gives you that strength and kick.'
Even in this season of political-peeing-on-lampposts, Rahul Gandhi's statement takes the cake (with due apologies to another astute observer of poverty, the much late Mary Antoinette).
Sunayana Dumala penned a message which has gone viral in which she says, "We need to spread love and stop this hatred."
"Who will be his men?" a distinguished official close to the prime minister asked. Frankly, nobody has an idea. Hardly seven weeks are left for a regime change, but the idea of Narendra Modi on Raisina Hill looks abnormal, if not unreal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt captures the uncertain mood in the capital's bureaucracy ahead of the largest democratic transfer of power in the world.
The truth is not that Chandrababu Naidu's centre-right policies led to his defeat but rather almost the reverse: his defeat, and for that matter that of the NDA at the Centre, was widely -- but falsely -- interpreted as a rejection of their economic policies, rather than put down to bad luck and conventional anti-incumbency., say Vivek Dehejia and Rupa Subramanya.
In a television interview, Union minister Jairam Ramesh claimed that a state of UP's size was ungovernable
'In Hindu society, marriage is not between a man and a woman, but between their castes; politicians do not ask for human votes, but for caste votes....' 'Have you heard of such nonsense anywhere else in the world? And we claim we are civilised!' 'One or two or a few people becoming President, Prime Minister, Chief Minister, Speaker etc from the downtrodden do not mean that the untouchables are uplifted and caste-based slavery is over.'
'Sonia is trying to become a politician again. Will she succeed?'
Atal Bihari Vajpayee would seek to placate the hawks in the RSS by stating that the writing of history should not be one-sided. At the same time, he would project a moderate 'Nehruvian' image of himself as the archetypal liberal politician who would strive to attain a balance between conflicting viewpoints. A fascinating profile of the former prime minister and Bharat Ratna by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Shankar Raghuraman.
U R Ananthamurthy on the importance of keeping alive our regional languages.
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