Rajinikanth seems to have ended the recently-revived speculation about his imminent launch into direct politics, unlike in the past, when he had expressed specific or indirect support one or the other of the two 'Dravidian majors', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Parliament proceedings were washed out for the fifth straight day, as members from parties including the Telugu Desam Party and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, continued their protests on various issues.
With the BJP continuing to be the constant combatant, centrifugal pressures will rise. Fractured relations between the Centre and the states as between BJP and non-BJP ruled states is a sizeable risk owing ahead, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday reached out to Jayalalithaa-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to seek its support on the issue of foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail.
Police later let the legislators off after a brief detention at a marriage hall. Stalin demanded the dismissal of the AIADMK government over the issue of the alleged pay-offs.
"This election has upheld true democracy shattering to pieces the campaign of lies of DMK. This election has put a permanent full stop to the family rule," she said.
The Palaniswami camp on Friday got a jolt when one of its MLAs R Natraj, a former state DGP, said that he would vote against the chief minister's motion of confidence.
K Pandiarajan has filed a petition in the apex court in which he has sought a direction for quashing Speaker P Dhanapal's decision rejecting the demand for a secret ballot to determine the outcome of the floor test.
In a major boost to Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, three All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Members of Parliament, state School Education Minister K Pandiarajan and veteran AIADMK leader and spokesman C Ponnaiyan on Saturday joined his dissident camp.
Yadav said he had come for conducting a fact finding about acquisition when he was stopped from proceeding.
It's been 15 straight days that opposition parties have created a ruckus, forcing adjournment of proceedings.
DMK Working President MK Stalin is worried about divisions in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam after the death of Jayalalithaa and keen that it should not affect the functioning of the administration.
The only business that the House could transact was laying of official papers on the table of the House.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Saturday said her support to her Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi's fast was an "expression of goodwill" and dismissed suggestions about a change in the political dynamics behind her gesture. "Narendra Modi has announced that he is going on a fast for communal harmony and peace and unity. This is also in line with our policy of secularism and maintaining communal harmony and peace," said Jayalalithaa.
Cassandras and Congressis may sneer at the findings, but the Times Now poll indicated that the Modi government was very much on its way to a second term.
The leaders of the Left parties, G Ramakrishnan (Communist Party of India-Marxist) D Pandian (CPI), and Kathiravan of All India Forward Bloc along with Puthiya Tamizhagam leader Dr K Krishnasamy and All India Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam leader Dr N Sethuraman, were holding talks among themselves and planned to meet Vijayakant jointly to evolve a common strategy
Soon after the Karnataka high court denied bail for Jayalalithaa, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Paneerselvam on Tuesday appealed to people not to resort to strike or any other form of protest to express solidarity with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief as she would not like to cause inconvenience to the common man.
Amid opposition to the Indian Premier League matches matches in Chennai in view of raging protests over the Cauvery issue, Tamil film star Rajinikanth said it would be good if the Twenty20 league's organisers stopped the games in the city as such a gala event would be embarrassing when entire Tamil Nadu was agitating.
The Prime Minister's Office during Manmohan Singh's tenure had asked why the Supreme Court collegium had not recommended extension for a Madras High Court judge who was facing corruption charges after the collegium expressed its hesitation, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in Parliament on Tuesday
If the Congress lost in Tamil Nadu in 1967, never to return, or the DMK and the AIADMK have kept their place in power and electoral politics since then, it owes not to their love or hatred for gods or for one religion over another. Instead, they had always been linked to performance and incumbency/anti-incumbency factors. There may be something in such constructs for Rajini's strategic team to consider, especially if the superstar is to enter direct politics by around this time next year. But then, they would need to brush up their homework more than at present, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Expressing solidarity with jailed All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Jayalalithaa, a former actor, members of the Tamil cinema industry on Tuesday embarked on a day-long 'silent fast" in Chennai on Tuesday.
The Tamil chief minister suffered a heart attack on Sunday evening.
Putting up a brave front, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa on Sunday assured party workers that she will come out of the present case as she had successfully faced many challenges, saying her "public life amounted to swimming in a sea of inferno."
Tamil Nadu, which boasted of as many as nine ministers in the UPA-II government in 2009, did not get any representation in Modi 2.0 government.
A visibly upset Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till noon. It was not immediately clear whether the paper torn was picked from the table of the Secretary General.
Tiruvarur is one of the worst-hit districts in the Cauvery delta region of Tamil Nadu due to severe cyclonic storm Gaja in November, 2018.
Top BJP leaders, including its president Amit Shah, reached out to their allies as well as other parties with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar expressing confidence that the government will get support from 'new' parties.
President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Union ministers, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and various other top leaders have condoled Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's demise and paid glowing tributes to her.
The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill on protection of rights of transgenders after a motion to refer it to a Select Committee of the Upper House was defeated.
If the already demoralised Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadre, beaten worse by the shocking parliamentary poll debacle in May 2014 thought that the political set-back suffered by rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, in the light of a Bangalore court ordering a jail-term for her in September was a boon for their leadership, it's not to be.
For Rajnikanth, who the BJP is wooing, politics looks more likely to happen in 2019, although his friend Kamalahaasan could afford to wait a little longer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
M Karunanidhi was a masterful practitioner of modern-day politics, wielding considerable influence beyond his own state, in the corridors of power in New Delhi, for a long time and sewing up alliances with both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The current impasse might be an occasion for Jayalalithaa's legal team to mull over what could have gone wrong with their strategy -- and where they could and should proceed from here,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Here are the major events that shaped the country in the past 48 hours.
Harnessing the power of social media, Palaniswami seems to have struck a personal chord with citizens-cum-netizens, not only interacting with them but ensuring redressal of their grievances.
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
An adverse judgement could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant.
The incident that came to light on Saturday came days after a farmer was beaten up by the police in the state over non-payment of loan.
Narendra Modi's meeting with J Jayalalithaa in Chennai has set the rumour mills abuzz. Will the Tamil Nadu chief minister ally with the BJP ahead of the 2016 polls, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
