'The Ayodhya anniversary, every year brings back the tragic memories. Politicians should let people's wounds heal and not reopen them to suit their agenda'
Although conventional political wisdom would decree that the construction of a 'magnificent' Ram temple at his 'birth-place' would bring the BJP a big yield of votes in the prospective elections, its leaders know by now that the mandir must not exist in isolation in its game plan, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan made it clear that the Left government was with the believers.
The HC said it was 'very unhappy' with CBI after contradictions appeared in what was orally submitted and what it has indicated in its status report.
Around 75 professors and other academics of Indian origin working at some of Britain's prestigious institutions such as Cambridge and Oxford university and London School of Economics on Tuesday issued an open letter, sharply attacking Narendra Modi and saying, "The idea of Modi in power fills us with dread".
The channels were suspended for 48 hours over their coverage of last month's communal violence in Delhi, with the official orders saying they covered events on February 25 in a manner that 'highlighted the attack on places of worship and siding towards a particular community'.
The vision of a 'New India' would talk about constructing a nation where the so-called appeasement of religious minorities would stop, Hinduism would be accorded "due status" and there will be one law for all citizens, including for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, reports Archis Mohan.
'Modi's finest political legacy ought to be a border settlement with Beijing,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Is Modi trampling upon senior BJP colleagues while taking decisions? How come Team Modi underestimated the political action-reaction when they were upsetting and uprooting the BJP's founding fathers L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in the ticket distribution process?
The Sangh's leadership has boxed itself into a tight situation. It now needs to wait and see if Modi can deliver in the Lok Sabha polls, says Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Bharatiya Janata Party will tone down its rhetoric on Article 370 and unveil a development-based vision for the voters of Jammu and Kashmir, where the five-phase long assembly elections are due in November-December.
Farmers shouldn't be denied right to approach court, the MPs added.
'You may be an MP or an MLA; when we go to Bengal, we go as cadre.'
'I am more concerned about my future, my family's future. The fate of the Ram temple is neither going to affect my career, nor would I let it be affected'
HRD ministry forces Allahabad University to change its decision.
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
The Kerala government dubbed Desai's attempt to visit Sabarimala as a 'conspiracy'.
Controversial chief of right wing outfit Sri Ram Sene, Pramod Muthalik, on Monday claimed that it was the Congress party's "conspiracy" that had stalled his entry into Bharatiya Janata Party, which cancelled his party membership within hours after opposition from within and severe flak from other parties.
'Seems more than half of the 'desh' remained untouched by his 'samajik ekta ka andolan',' points out Jyoti Punwani.
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
What kind of chowkidari is Narendra Modi doing, asks Rahul.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
From Aurangzeb to Sangh Parivar, the year 2016 offers plenty of hope in historical and modern literature.
'As I watched Sacred Games, I kept flinching at the thought of all the thorns poised to lodge themselves in the sides of the thin-skinned,' says Mitali Saran.
One cannot but infer that this brouhaha is a crafty ploy to create an issue out of a non-issue. An overview of post-independent India's history reveals that it is not the BJP or the Sangh Parivar but Marxist historians who have been guilty of debasing history to suit their vested interests, says Vivek Gumaste.
'Must every believing Hindu automatically be assumed to subscribe to the Hindutva project?' asks Shashi Tharoor.
Handing the Human Resource Development ministry to a first-time minister and the talk of repealing Article 370 may be signs that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are working in tandem
Allies, Opposition increase volume of criticism; hope in Kashmir, Assam
Beyond welfare politics, the BJP has assiduously worked to appropriate regional icons.
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.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh perceives the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections to be a fight for its own existence and all that it stands for. Archis Mohan reports
'The non-vegetarian share of the population fell from 75 to 71 per cent between 2004 and 2014, no doubt in anticipation of the lotus blooming.' 'Three years of saffron authoritarianism may have thinned the non-vegetarian ranks even more,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'For the BJP to lose this virtual pocket borough of the saffron brotherhood demonstrates how resolutely the people of Gorakhpur have turned against the party,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Aditi Phadnis and Archis Mohan take a state by state takedown of the party's chances in the poll-bound states.
Bharti said she would 'embark on a pilgrimage to devote time for Ganga river and Lord Ram by leaving power'.
'It is perhaps a sense of intellectual inadequacy, of an ingrained inferiority complex born of the years when the BJP languished in the margins of Indian politics and society that, when faced with the soaring ideas about Indian pluralism, the Hindutva camp turns its face so resolutely against Nehru,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to expand his cabinet when Parliament breaks for recess during the Budget Session. Archis Mohan reports
Tired of living under the restive shadow of communalism, Ayodhya residents, be it Vijay Singh or Mohammad Azim, do not want any fresh political trigger for communal disharmony.
Sangh parivar is relying heavily on first-time voters and hopes women will also vote for Bedi. Archis Mohan reports
The appropriate bench will fix the schedule with regard to the hearing of appeals in the case. "We will fix the date of hearing of Ayodhya dispute case before the appropriate bench in January," the CJI said.
