'Sheikh Abdullah ruled the state with secular values. Post 1953, when he was sacked, corruption took over governance.'
Here is the chronology of events in the Ayodhya Ram temple issue.
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Uttar Pradesh cabinet will hold its meeting on Thursday in Ayodhya as the city gears up for the opening of the Ram temple in January.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Former Spanish tennis star Arantxa Sanchez Vicario has been given a suspended jail term for fraud, a court in Barcelona said on Wednesday.
An NIA court on Thursday convicted Jammu and Kashmir separatist leader Yasin Malik after he pleaded guilty to all the charges, including those under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, before the court in a case related to alleged terrorism and secessionist activities that disturbed the Kashmir Valley in 2017.
Please promise, especially those millions who trust you with their hard-earned money, never to let your voting preferences determine your actions on the markets. The most appalling and scary phenomenon was fund houses and brokerages going out on election yatras and writing copious reports promising more than 300 for the BJP. That was your wish as voters. Your investors are paying for it now, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'There was a statement by a minister that 30,000 Kashmiri Pandits have come back to the Kashmir Valley after the abrogation of Article 370, it is all b.......t and a white lie.' 'Nobody has come back.'
A special court in Jammu on Tuesday issued a bailable warrant against Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, after she did not appear for cross-examination in a case related to her abduction by the JKLF in 1989.
'There is no scope for any doubt. This was a scheme designed to enrich the ruling party.'
Nikkei 225 index hit the 40,000 mark for the first time ever on Monday, continuing its bull-run that saw the index reclaim its 1989 peak of 34,000 levels in February. as global investors latched on to Japan's biggest companies on improving shareholder returns, the weaker yen and booming corporate profits. Analysts remain bullish on Japan, mostly aided by gains in technology shares. Adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a note by Morgan Stanley, is likely to benefit Japanese companies, which is almost at par with the US-based companies.
He said that even the security of the Supreme Court would have been put to a serious risk if any untoward incident were to happen.
Malik, who is in jail following his conviction and life sentence in a terror funding case, was brought to the high-security apex court premises in a prison van escorted by armed security personnel without the court's permission.
Modi's inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Karnataka Minister D Sudhakar and three others have been booked by the police in Bengaluru based on a complaint by a woman alleging atrocities against her and her family and an assault on her daughter over a property dispute, police officials said on Tuesday.
The Department of Delhi Prisons has suspended four officials, including a deputy superintendent, in connection with the physical appearance of jailed Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik in Supreme Court, a statement said on Saturday.
The convict, Ganga Dayal, was also asked to furnish a fine Rs 55,000. The killings, which happened 42 years ago, had sent shockwaves across the country.
Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has included Mishaal Hussain Malik, wife of jailed terrorist and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik, in his cabinet.
The Act deals with automatic disqualification of MPs and state legislators upon being convicted and sentenced for two years or more in a criminal case.
Even though her name is familiar to many newspaper readers familiar with the terrorist violence in the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s, Dr Rubaiya Sayeed has rarely been seen in public, unlike her father the late Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed or her sister Mehbooba Mufti, another former J&K chief minister.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
A curative petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking reconsideration of its 2017 order dismissing a plea which had sought investigation into the alleged mass murder of Kashmiri Pandits in the valley in 1989-1990.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The searches were carried out on June 14-15 at 10 premises in Prayagraj, Lucknow and Delhi, the agency said in a statement.
The most important lesson is that you have to build your political proposition, and sell it yourself. You can't leave it to the courts, media, NGOs and civil society and expect them to play the role of the Opposition. That's precisely what Mr Modi's challengers have been doing and we know the results, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Malik began his indefinite hunger strike on Friday morning after the Centre did not respond to his plea that he be allowed to physically appear in a Jammu court hearing the Rubaiya Sayeed abduction case, in which he is an accused.
The verdict by a special court in the Babri Masjid demolition case comes 28 years after kar sevaks razed the 16th century mosque and almost a year after the Supreme Court settled the land case in favour of a Ram temple at the disputed Ayodhya site.
Displaying 'ARMY' on private transport is an attempt to milk the respect and reverence that the common citizen has for a person in the armed forces, observes Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd). By writing 'ARMY' and displaying regimental insignias, we expect a few misdemeanours to be overlooked.
Rubaiya Sayeed, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's daughter, appeared before a special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Friday in a case related to her 1989 abduction and identified JKLF chief Yasin Malik and three others as her abductors, officials said.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a relief to senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjay Kundu, the Supreme Court on Friday set aside the Himachal Pradesh high court direction to remove him from the post of state Director General of Police over allegations that he tried to pressure a businessman who claimed to have received a threat to his life from his partners.
Mani Shankar Aiyar says the Congress party and not then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for unlocking the Babri Masjid gates and claimed that the "Bharatiya Janata Party-planted" Arun Nehru was behind it.
As India seems to be picking 'Bharat' at least in official communication, here are some interesting name changes.
Malik began his indefinite strike on Friday as he had threatened to earlier this month.
Rafik Khan was sent to prison late on Monday after returning from Johannesburg.
Teary-eyed Congress leader D K Shivakumar on Saturday briefly belied the combative force he is for the Congress party, not just in the just concluded 2023 assembly polls, but on several crucial occasions in the past when his party needed him.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Modigate is snowballing into a huge thing with the electorate. The BJP is in for huge punishment by the electorate.'
