'The reason I call Dadri a landmark turning point in our politics is the relatively muted response of the self-styled secular forces.' 'Top leaders of the Congress haven't even taken a padyatra to the village, just a 40 minute drive from Delhi. Lalu, Nitish, Mamata, all claimants to the secular vote, are afraid of messing with an issue involving the cow.' 'Holiness of the cow has now become as multi-partisan an issue as hostility to Pakistan,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Both Nehru and Patel were thorough gentlemen and whatever their differences never disrespected each other.' 'Neither Modi nor Rahul Gandhi has much in them to claim such legacies.' 'They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
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 Opposition has no option but to make it an 'All versus One' fight to even think about winning.'
On the intervening night of September 22-23, 2012, three Dalit youths were killed when police opened fire to disperse a violent mob to control a clash between Dalits and OBC Bharwad community members at Thangadh town in Surendranagar district.
The need of the hour is not a divisive, slanging match of accusations and counter-accusations, but a call for sanity,' says Vivek Gumaste.
A clean sweep for the BJP and the emergence of the AAP do not look good for the Congress, which now faces a serious leadership crisis, says Bharat Bhushan
Narendra Modi has made it easier for businesses to buy farm land.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's spin doctors are on an overdrive these days to project him as a "tough talking" leader following a spate of critical media reports about his sudden silence on key issues, says rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
Rahul Gandhi's attack on Narendra Modi over the 2002 riots in his first-ever television interview indicates that the Congress will shift focus to 'contrasting ideologies' with the BJP before the general election.
The ruling AIADMK is leaving no stone unturned to win the Vellore Lok Sabha poll and push its tally to two in the state, with its candidate even donning the skull cap to woo minority votes. But the DMK's stars are clearly on the ascendant in the lone constituency that goes to the polls on August 5. A Ganesh Nadar reports.
'We cannot capture the mind space of today's youth by evoking past sacrifices. Politics is about hope; hope for the future. The Congress hankers about the past too much.'
'Kejriwal has shown that not only can Modi-Shah be stopped, they can in fact be routed... Today, as the Delhi votes are counted, it shows not only the AAP's victory or BJP's defeat. But also the Congress's final irrelevance.'
'There is more that is common between Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi than what might separate them. In fact, what divides them can be spelt out in just two words: Clashing ambitions.'
'The prime ministership needs a statesman, not a politician, and 18 months into the job Modi is yet to learn the difference between the two,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
On the occasion of the Narendra Modi government completing one year in office, Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com speaks to BJP president Amit Shah who is yin to Modi's yang. Don't miss it!
Paramilitary forces were on Tuesday deployed in four districts of Punjab as a precautionary measure even as another incident of "sacrilege" of a holy book took place at a village in Bathinda.
'In today's digitalised world, news about the prevalence of such intolerant groups with their pathological animosity towards the minorities cannot remain a secret.' 'Silicon Valley CEOs will undoubtedly factor in such disturbing inputs as they draw up their investment plans.'
'There is nothing like the Sangh agenda or the BJP agenda... we believe only in the Nation's Agenda,' says newly appointed BJP Vice-President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.
Officials said that taxmen visited seven locations in Bengaluru and three in Hyderabad of those event management companies which were given contracts to give a blockbuster look for the wedding of Bramhani last week.
It would be a miracle if demonetisation doesn't extract a political price from the BJP and Modi, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Why did Kamal Haasan name the leaders he did?
Brushing aside speculation about a leadership change in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan virtually confirmed on Thursday that he is not going to be replaced.
'Think about how he would have handled Hyderabad, and JNU. He would have been very cross if he found two of his Cabinet ministers weighing in on the side of the ABVP.' 'And if Rohith Vemula still killed himself, he would have been the first to speak out in anguish and empathy rather than deny he was a Dalit.' 'And JNU, he would have simply said something like, 'let the boys speak, then they will grow up and join the IAS).' 'A good idea, when in crisis, is to apply the 'Vajpayee test' to your actions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sumitra Mahajan will be appointed Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha on Friday. Other key parliamentary posts like that of Leader of Opposition, deputy Speaker, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and head of the all-important standing committee on finance will be keenly contested.
Former Union minister and Haryana Congress leader Kumari Selja decries former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda's style of functioning, his inability to carry everybody with him and pitches for a fresh leadership in Haryana after the poll debacle, in an interview with Anita Katyal.
The leadership styles of the two Gandhis being different, the party appears to be pulling in different ways. While Sonia Gandhi, the longest-serving Congress president, seems more predisposed to holding the government accountable on issues of probity, the younger Gandhi is more keen on taking up battles that ensure immediate victories.
Successor Anandiben Patel isn't having an easy time, with a protest movement by her own community and new challenges in keeping the mandate
Rumours of which tycoon is close to which minister will soon start floating, and those could affect prices in the short term.
On the eve of Winter session of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that the Congress "strongly" believed that the government should reach out to the Opposition on certain issues.
The dispossessed of Delhi cropped up repeatedly in the rhetoric
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has asked ally Shiv Sena to stop attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, cautioning that it will only boomerang on it.
Former Union minister GK Vasan's decision to revolt and float a separate outfit in Tamil Nadu serves as a deadly blow to the Grand Old Party, which is already struggling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Two days after two of his former associates accused him of using the Patidar quota agitation as a "tool to nurture his leadership ambition", Hardik Patel on Wednesday hit back saying his detractors were "playing into the hands of some in the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat who were trying to weaken the protest" by maligning his image.
'Even if Rahul doesn't emerge with flying colours -- at least initially -- during the jousts with the media, he will at least be posing a kind of challenge which will not be to Modi's liking,' feels Amulya Ganguli.
Nitish Kumar has said the only remarkable thing during the period was that prime minister has more selfies than all his cabinet colleagues put together.
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
In Delhi, the poor are pitted against the middle class, with the former led by Arvind Kejriwal and the latter by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Right now, in Modi's Cabinet and in the BJP, there is no challenge whatsoever to Modi's leadership but even those leaders who have some potential, who the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh can think of backing in an unforeseen circumstance, are fast turning into damaged goods, reports Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
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