Pankaja Munde -- who lit the funeral pyre of her father Gopinath Munde on Wednesday at his ancestral village of Parli in Maharasthra along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party general secretary Amit Shah -- will lead the the Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign for the assembly elections scheduled for later this year.
'One thing is sure: After this Budget, no Ambani-Adani tag will be attached to the government.'
Is politics gaining at the expense of civil society?
'The Parivar's ideology and politics was and remains the very opposite of what Dr Ambedkar stood for.'
Ground surveys have found that several members of the dominant castes are in economic conditions quite similar to that of peer communities with the advantage of quotas.
'It is an important and significant election -- but there is nothing make-or-break about it. A victory is always great, but if the BJP wins, it can't make Mr Modi any stronger in his party and government than he already is,' says Shekhar Gupta.
If money allocations, investment commitments are a sign of better things to come, the state can be optimistic.
While the PM is trying to hardsell his developmental agenda, his rivals are targeting him in the run-up to the assembly election
'We are passing through a very historical moment. The UP election next year and the Lok Sabha election of 2019 will decide the course of India.' 'Maybe the unlettered will save India again because they have inherited a different India and a different idea of India,' says eminent social scientist Achyut Yagnik.
The wars of the future will be fought over water and if they occur on large scale, will be far more devastating than any we have seen yet.
Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar speaks to Prasanna Zore/Rediff.com.
'What will we drink if we start fearing these wells?'
We reproduce Aditya's letter to Rajdeep Sardesai in its entirety:
The old Hyderabadi-ness would not resurface. Nor can be recreated. For like in other cities, others too have a right to live and prosper and regardless of what states it gets, the city will not be what it was. Only people, romantic fools at that, look back. Cities don't; they look to the future, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
'These ISIS terrorists want to smash Western civilisation, smash India. For the time being though, their main target would be the US and Europe.'