The Assam-Mizoram violence is an outcome of BJP trying too hard to 'integrate' distinct northeastern states, explains Shekhar Gupta.
Mr Modi and Mr Shah will need him if they want to win UP again in 2022 and India in 2024. This signals a Yogi Adityanath-sized change in BJP politics, even under Mr Modi, Shekhar Gupta.
For two decades the US paid in blood and blood money for dependence on Pakistan to carry out one president's boast. Now, having been defeated by its proxies, another president will go into Rawalpindi's embrace to satisfy his constituents, predicts Shekhar Gupta.
Congress is the only other horse in the race for national power, never mind how distant. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah know better than to take the Congress lightly, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The acronym has become the butt of jokes on social media.
Triumphalism, premature declaration of victory meant no one checked if India had enough vaccines, oxygen, remdesivir, bringing us back to a crisis where we need foreign aid after four decades, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
This is a national leadership gone so wrong that India's most powerful prime minister in four decades has personally taken charge of medical oxygen shortages, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'The picture only looks worse from where Bajwa sits.' 'He sees a domineering India to the east, an unravelling Afghanistan and a complex Iran to the west, an overbearing China on the north and a US which is no longer an ally,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
By raising a banner of revolt against the CJI, the 4 judges have dealt a body blow to the faith of many Indians in the Supreme Court, argues Sudhir Bisht.
'I cannot remember a time in my life when we had such economic strife, such levels of unemployment, a national epidemic and the enemy inside our house and such little interest in these and a focus on Bollywood and temples and such things,' notes Aakar Patel.
'He is not interested in cricket or football.' 'He is interested in singing, dancing and painting.' 'Right now, he thinks he's Lord Rama.'
India must break out of this strategic triangulation between China and Pakistan. We need to settle our issues with one of the two, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar will be conferred the Col. C.K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement award at the eighth annual BCCI awards, on November 21 in Mumbai.
Asked whether he will join politics, Ambani replied in the negative, saying "I am not made for politics."
The Modiquake has devastatingly hit all Opposition, says Nazarwala.
Not all change is good, but this one is, applauds Shekhar Gupta.
Flurry of economic reform suggests Modi realises his muscular nationalism script is getting jaded. Chances are he'll try for economic recovery but stick to what's worked so far, observes Shekhar Gupta.
This crisis requires political sophistication and governance skills. This BJP has neither, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'You can presume that Modi and his party will now focus on the economy.' 'But then, there is the Jharkhand election next month, Delhi soon thereafter and so on.' 'And this isn't a political leadership that takes even a panchayat election lightly,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
In politics, if your objective is only winning elections, just Chanakya neeti might do. For governance you need both, Chanakya neeti and Ram Rajya. You can neither beat up the farmers into submission, nor dismiss them as 'Khalistanis', asserts Shekhar Gupta.
On all key issues, Congress is MIA, sighs Shekhar Gupta.
At some stage this fall in the quality of life will begin to hurt anybody's popularity, observes Shekhar Gupta.
There is a vocal constituency of educated, well-to-do, articulate Indian elites who would rather go with the idea that too much democracy is a liability. That India needs a spell of benevolent dictatorship. Of course, they have never lived under one, points out Shekhar Gupta.
A 22-year-old man was on Thursday sentenced to death by a local court for raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl.
If Modi's truly a reformer and a believer in minimum government, he would bury the Vodafone ghosts now. He would also then go to Bihar, campaigning on his politically controversial reforms. Both will need him to dip deep into his accumulated political capital and risk it, suggests Shekhar Gupta.
Pranabda hasn't given us any indication of the tough period when he realised Sonia Gandhi had decided to give the presidency not to him, but to then vice-president Hamid Ansari. He wrested the presidency from her, and handed her the biggest defeat of her UPA years, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'In India, a really popular and well-entrenched leader is not defeated by a rival.' 'Such a leader has to defeat himself,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
China is now the most significant strategic concern in Washington, as in most of the world's capitals, especially the democracies. Today, strategic autonomy has acquired a sharper definition: To ward off the Chinese challenge to India's territorial integrity, sovereignty and regional stature, observes Shekhar Gupta.
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The Sikhs love a good fight, and that's what the Modi government has given them.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi is now gone. But the mass appeal of fundamentalism among Pakistan's burgeoning, young, illiterate, unemployed and angry population isn't, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Where does Gideon Haigh see the future of the T20 game?
'Suspect all, fix all.' 'It is this mindset that begins at the very top of an establishment and then trickles down and across,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
When the Delhi high court dismissed the petition of Sushil Kumar, Twitter erupted.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
'The more the news media weakens, especially at this juncture of economic ruin with lay-offs and wage cuts, the more the owners and journalists weigh their value in terms who they are close to, the more they depend on the State to bail them out of trouble, slow-fry their rival, the faster it pushes us towards institutional destruction,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
'If there is one thing our politicians, especially those with their ear to the ground, understand, it is the reality that their voters want three things from their children's schooling: English, English, English', notes Shekhar Gupta.
In a time of crisis like this, a government needs its people and politics united. A nation of India's size and diversity can't fight a stronger rival with fraying social cohesion, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'Uttar Pradesh, our largest state by population and the most powerful, is also the worst governed.'
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