Our current presidential candidates can perhaps take a cue from history and subject themselves to greater self-examination and scrutiny; it will surely augur well for the dignity of the exalted office that they so eagerly aspire for, says Anirban Ganguly.
Anirban Ganguly recounts moments from the past when Pranab Mukherjee had to face uncomfortable questions from opposition MPs.
Pranab Mukherkee's remarkably workable political relationship with the Left is will known in Bengali political lore as is his animosity with Mamata Banerjee, says Anirban Ganguly.
The 'disheartening' aspect of the post-Independence period was that Jawaharlal Nehru was unwilling to take action whenever a favourite politician, minister, or officer was involved in corrupt practices. The tendency continues to this day, the pattern however was set then, says Anirban Ganguly
The Congress deviated from the path envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi the moment the country got freedom, says Anirban Ganguly.
Political equations are changing rapidly and post the monsoon session, national politics seems to be poised for another swivel. Can the West Bengal chief minister handle it, asks Anirban Ganguly.
After the presidential poll, Sangma may well realise that 'miracles' and 'conscience' do not really exist, especially in Indian politics, they have long become extinct, says Anirban Ganguly.
It has always been in the nature of the Congress to ensure that the entire process of electing the President be mired in uncertainty, one-upmanship, official confusion and rumour-mongering. Anirban Ganguly recalls an instance from the early days of the republic.
What Patel perhaps symbolises most today are the near lost virtues of a firm political will and a solid sense of national unity, says Anirban Ganguly.
The latest flare-up in Assam is a wake up call for the Congress governments at the state and the Centre that they cannot afford to ignore ethnic equations that generate cyclical clashes, writes Anirban Ganguly
A belligerent rally in Kolkata by 16 Islamic organisations in support of Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, one of the prime accused in the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, is indicative of West Bengal's liberal space shrinking, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections has begun across states and Union Territories, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told PTI.
'One Sandeshkhali won't turn around women's perception of Mamata Banerjee in this state'
Voting is being held at 11,860 polling stations spread over 11 assembly constituencies each in Murshidabad and Birbhum, six in Malda and seven in north Kolkata.
BJP president J P Nadda drew a parallel between the post-poll result violence in West Bengal with the bloodshed during India's Partition, while his colleagues compared the Trinamool Congress with Nazis, as the saffron party's leaders protested in different cities on Tuesday against attacks targeting its workers in the state.
'It doesn't help to transpose the Hindi heartland model on Bengal. Bengalis don't understand its dynamics. They won't comprehend the impact of Modi's dip in the Ganga because Bengal's political culture is different. Even in the Ramakrishna Mission Ashrams, Christ is worshipped on Christmas. It's difficult to polarise Bengal religiously'
'They are our go-to men, our trouble-shooters.' 'They draw their strength from remaining low-key and accessible only to our workers.'
Arvind Kejriwal's every posture and mudra is carefully choreographed to resemble those of the original Mahatma, but the vision is stunted, the hidden agendas often leak out, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
'His contagious smile and peal of laughter, his affirmative approach to national challenges, his faith and conviction in India's future and his profound attachment to the welfare of the northeast attracted anyone who came in touch with him,' says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
The capital's ever-shifting power class remains unsettled and unnerved seeing the power, favour, nepotistic and quid pro quo pillared superstructure gradually crumble under Narendra Modi's watch -- the only mantra that seems to be taking centre stage is that of performance, implementation and delivery, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
In his approach to national problems and issues Vivekananda was perhaps the first one to call for a national struggle against the challenges of material existence. While recognising the need for re-discovering and rekindling the spiritual aim of existence, the Swami did not neglect to recognise the demands of the other existence as well, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
When Narendra Modi called for a debate on 370, he was simply reiterating a demand made long back, it was not a dilution of any stated position, nor was it a display of opportunism, it was rather a demand for the assertion of India's unity, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
Dattatreya Hosabale and Manmohan Vaidya have been invited as speakers at the event starting tomorrow.
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Bodh Gaya emerged as a centre that encouraged a continuous dialogue of civilisation, it has enabled India to re-forge her age old linkages with countries, who derived inspiration from Buddha's message of compassion. It is this dialogue that was sought to be interrupted by the dastardly attack, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
The party believes that Mamata's poor handling of the pandemic and the devastation brought on by Cyclone Amphan will provide it the political fillip it needs.
'Sardar Patel's actions must continue to inspire those who have worked for change today and those who aspire to alter the strangling status quo in our national life.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's offer of central assistance in arresting the downward slide in West Bengal and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's ongoing trip to the state and his asking for Mamata's cooperation in handling the situation and in dissolving the anti-national and inter-country network of jihad that has now chosen her state as one of its base, is perhaps Mamata's last best chance to salvage the situation, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
'In this election -- her first major one since wresting power from the Left -- Mamata has proved that she has simply maintained the Left's systemic status quo by ensuring that she implements the CPI-M method of election and result 'management', says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
Given her penchant for obfuscating issues Mamata is encouraging the false perception, parroted by her political hangers-on, that all refugees from Bangladesh would face the brunt of deportation once the BJP came to power. In fact, Didi's theatrics and those of all her extras, in the last few days, have been based on propagating this falsehood, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
There is indeed a Bengal Model but it is one which negates generational aspiration, generates animus, thrives on bloodletting and political vendetta, reiterates outdated ideas of vote bank politics, is shorn of any vision or roadmap for reconstruction and is fast depleting the levels of a legitimate tolerance, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
U R Ananthamurthy's assertion of leaving the country if Modi is voted to power is an affront to the deep sense of the Indian voters who have time and again shown a certain sagacity and wisdom of judgement. It certainly shows a 'corruption of the mind' on his part and not on the one he chooses to irrationally oppose, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
With two years to go before West Bengal elects its next government, the BJP's internal objective is to scale down the Trinamool Congress tally from 211 to 45 seats. This amounts to an annihilation of the TMC while enabling the BJP to win a record 250 seats in the 295-member legislature, reports Radhika Ramaseshan
When Prime Minister Modi observes the first anniversary of his government at Nagla Chandrabhan, Deendayal Upadhyaya's birthplace in Mathura, on Monday, he shall be essentially reiterating his commitment to achieving the ideal of Upadhyaya's 'Dharma Rajya', a State free of inequality and of division, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
The Al-Qaeda and its patrons seems to have outsourced, for the time being, the achieving of that larger, civilisationally retrograde goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle-East, to the ISIS. The symptoms are all similar; the difference lies only in the expressions, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Myanmar is aimed at transforming the arch of Bay of Bengal into the Circle of Southeast Asia, says Anirban Ganguly.
Tendulkar praised Team India and said in every session there was a new hero who stepped up to the occasion to deliver for his side.
'The book has immense value because it reveals the inner workings of the think-tank which appears to provide facts and insights to Modi, though he himself takes the final decisions and articulates them in his characteristic rhetorical style,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The prime minister's outreach to Japan is a recognition of the civilisational potential that the two nations hold and can wield in evolving an era of 'Asianism' in global politics, says Anirban Ganguly.
'The BJP should avoid escalating every local issue and minor provocation into a national crisis and claiming a 'holier than thou' monopoly on patriotism.' 'And the Opposition should avoid paying the government back in the same coin by crying wolf about intolerance at the slightest provocation.'
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