Onkar Singh, a valuable member of the Rediff.com team over the years, breathed his last on January 13. Syed Firdaus Ashraf, who knew him intimately, remembers the ultimate newsman.
'After the NRC it is proved that whatever the BJP was saying about illegal Bangladeshi migrant was a lie and Indian Muslims have their documents to prove their citizenship.'
According to political analysts, Mayawati's social engineering to unite the lower castes with the upper ones seems to have backfired.
The focus shifts almost immediately from celebrations to the challenges faced by the man who powered his party to 303 seats in the Lok Sabha.
In a bid to lift the sagging mood and morale of its party workers over the developments of the last one month, including the crushing defeat in Bihar, the Congress party and the government have suddenly woken up to the need to effectively and aggressively counter the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's campaign against the party.
Modi said both the ruling party and the media may have expectations as well complaints from each other but they have to get along happily amid these differences.
'When you oppose a policy, you are labelled anti-government.' 'The problem is, the policymakers have never done any business in their lives.'
Aam Aadmi Party candidate M S Dhir was on Thursday elected the Speaker of the Delhi Assembly with the support of the Congress.
Behind the BJP's astounding electoral success is a small army of dedicated lieutenants marshalled by Amit Shah.
The standard line that is used for anyone -- academics, minorities, farmers, dissident industrialists -- who points out that what the government is doing is wrong is being anti-national and separatists, reveals Aakar Patel.
'Today, there is pervasive fear in society; an uncertainty of what might happen.' 'This has forced Muslims to shrink further into mental ghettos, with many considering extreme measures like pretending to change their identity.'
"Under this circumstances, what should we do? Should we allow Muslim women to be continued to be exploited," he said.
Indian Army officers are convinced China is maintaining the pretence of dialogue and negotiations in order to create the opportunity to occupy more Indian territory. Senior Indian planners apprehend this might be a Chinese ploy to divert attention from Depsang, in Northern Ladakh, which might be China's actual target.
'Unlike in Gujarat, where he could ask for votes based on delivery, in 2019 he will have to appeal to his core Hindutva ideology, by firing over someone else's shoulders,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'There is a group who want to internally damage the Congress and they may be hand in glove with the BJP.'
Vaibhavi Parmar list the front-runners in the race to succeed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi if he opts for a larger national role in the BJP.
Yeddyurappa would take the oath alone as the chief minister and once the majority is proved on the floor of the assembly, cabinet members would be inducted.
'A single seven-year term will free them from party pressures entirely,' says T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
Shadow of elections may overshadow political consensus at GST Council meetings.
He said the 'toxic combination of deep distrust, pervasive fear and a sense of hopelessness in our society' is stifling economic activity and growth.
The head of a religious mutt in Varanasi has slammed Bharatiya Janata Party and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for using the temple town to further their political ambitions.
Former Board of Control for Cricket in India president Anurag Thakur on Friday got relief from the Supreme Court which dropped the contempt and perjury proceedings against him after he tendered an unconditional and unequivocal apology in person.
Communalising law and order situations is fraught with danger; we need to tread cautiously. Interjecting a communal angle into what is purely a law and order issue does nobody good; it muddies the picture, fuels unrequited passion and distracts us from the core issue, says Vivek Gumaste.
'Each of them is a setu (bridge) that links the government with the party, but their territories are different.'
Polling will be held between 7 am and 4 pm, except in some polling stations of the interior districts of Nagaland, where the process is scheduled to conclude at 3 pm. The two states have a 60-member House each, but voting will be held for 59 constituencies in both.
'Their brave resistance keep our hopes alive that this youth upsurge is strengthening India's democracy and pluralism,' states Mohammad Sajjad.
Prashant Kishor, a core member of Narendra Modi's election campaign team, is likely to work for Nitish Kumar.
A day after dropping hints of joining politics, former Indian Police Service officer Kiran Bedi on Wednesday said she was ready to become the Bharatiya Janata Party's chief Ministerial nominee in Delhi if such an offer was made to her.
Backed by ruling Akali Dal, the SGPC, apex religious body of Sikhs, will file a clemency appeal before the President for Balwant Singh Rajoana, who is on death row for the 1995 killing of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, even as ally BJP steered clear of the issue.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, who is camping in New Delhi, may have to wait a while longer before re-claiming the chief ministerial chair from Sadanand Gouda, as the Bharatiya Janata Party is not in the mood to "reward" his indiscipline.
Javadekar, along with Piyush Goyal and Dharmendra Pradhan, is among the few ministers who have party as well as ministerial responsibilities.
A second round of talks in Mumbai on Thursday between the striking FTII students and I&B Ministry officials failed to break the deadlock.
The situation in the Valley is tense as the fresh order directing the zonal SPs to provide the list of mosques here and its management committees has added to speculation about some major decision in the offing regarding Jammu and Kashmir's special status.
The new chief minister will be one of the most closely watched politicians in the country in these media-driven times.
'Modi came out with this huge announcement that he has given a historic price rise to farmers.' 'It was actually a fake price. He did not give the price mentioned in the BJP's election manifesto.' 'So, Modi gave an incomplete price rise and publicised it as if he has completed his job.' ''This government has surely proved that it does not care about farmers in any way.'
'Rather than 'consolidate' the Hindu majority votes, as the BJP-RSS combine has been known and wont to try, this time round PM Modi has himself taken the party to the next step, by seeking to create a new divide within the majority community, a la V P Singh in his time.'
'The government says it will file a review petition against the Supreme Court, but there is no conviction here.' 'It is doing this purely because it is worried.' 'It comes from the same sentiment as asking BJP MPs to spend two nights in a Dalit village,' says Aakar Patel.
'Shaheen Bagh is no longer a mere ghetto of lower middle class Muslims.' 'Now, it is a metaphor for resistance, secularism and struggle,' notes Md. Zeeshan Ahmad.
Despite receiving so much love from Gujarat, Modi didn't bother to visit the bereaved parents of those 22 children who lost their lives in Surat, points out Jyoti Punwani.
'You won't find such an apathetic indecisive party in the world.'
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