The note ban is Modi's make-or-break gambit for 2019. Opposition leaders see a vulnerability and won't gift pre-eminence to the Congress, says Shekhar Gupta.
Asaram is also facing a rape case in Surat in Gujarat in which the Supreme Court earlier this month gave five weeks time to the prosecution to complete the trial.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't hold back on Wednesday when he launched a scathing attack on the Gandhi family and the Congress in Parliament during a debate on the motion of thanks for the president's address.
Economists who get too close to prime ministers eventually come to grief after their boss is defeated
'The BJP has no presence where the regional parties are strong.' 'And we should think of the Congress and support the Congress in those places where it is the dominant regional party.' 'The leaders of the other parties (have to) get together on this simple principle of one candidate against the BJP candidate.'
Dr Raghuram Rajan's departure holds lessons for all, be it sections of the media, politicians or the people themselves. We need to learn how to value and retain talent. At the same time the talented must realise that talent alone does not ensure the top job, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The chief minister said there is a need to take "bold measures to address the issue as the people of Jammu and Kashmir were our own".
Devanik Saha wonders if saffronisation of India is on the rise
Thousands of people may have gathered at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday to attend a rally by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi but it remains to be seen whether the mammoth turnout will actually translate into votes for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Andhra Pradesh.
Mr Modi, it came across, did not want to be seen as favouring any one business group.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday said with slew of graft cases surfacing during the UPA government, corruption has taken the shape of a "small scale industry", and the upcoming Lok Sabha polls will be a fight between morality and immorality.
'I cannot be audacious to say I am winning, but the mood of the people is in our favour.'
The entire campaign in Lucknow is based on Narendra Modi -- there is little mention of the BJP candidate, a certain Rajnath Singh. Some locals wonder, 'Rajnathji is not coming to campaign in Lucknow. How will he take care of this city after he wins?' Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com reports from Lucknow.
Government floor managers are busy talking to Opposition members to resolve the stand-off over Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti's remarks, in the Rajya Sabha.
Charles 'Biharilal' Thomson, an Australian who speaks fluent Hindi, on how India has bewitched him.
'A new doctrine now needs to be evolved for a new situation, and the army will do it.' 'You won't see more Kashmiris driven in front of army columns.' 'Nor will the army massacre hundreds, Dyer style,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not taking along an industry delegation to the US but top representatives of India Inc are likely to travel to New York and Washington to be part of the power-packed business meetings and receptions being hosted for him.
'Modi as chief minister did a superb job of rehabilitation after the Kutch earthquake of 2001. He can use that hard-earned expertise for the benefit of the people of Kashmir too -- but only if they let him do so,' says T V R Shenoy.
In a Q&A with Doordarshan, Jaitley discusses how he chose the areas on which he would spend more.
The real brilliance of this RSS campaign, therefore, lies in building a dominant power base with, and for, a mostly non-RSS leadership. That is why the rise of the BJP in Assam is their stand-out victory, says Shekhar Gupta.
Economist Arvind Panagariya tells Suman Guha Mozumder that the rupee is doing a much-needed clean-up job, raising exports and cutting imports.
More and more corporates are appreciating Mahatma Gandhi's books as gifts.
Rajasthan has taken the lead on structural reforms which could help India attract business and employ a fast-growing workforce.
'While visits and personal meetings are useful, changes of strategic significance have occurred recently, with Beijing trying to take the lead which Modi must take note of.'
Taking a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar said he feared that there were grim indicators of Indian democracy being concentrated in one person's hand after the marginalisation of party veterans like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
'Xi Jinping got a dose of Modi's medicine inside the tent where he was being hosted on the banks of the Sabarmati river.' 'Modi reportedly told him, looking deep into his eyes: "This was not expected of your country. Can you tell me when the troops are withdrawing?".'
Modi has the ideas for a new, hopeful India, and an idiom in which to sell optimism to voters. But he doesn't yet have the team for it, and soon enough, questions will begin to be asked by an impatient, non-ideological, I-don't-owe-anybody-anything generation of Indian voters, says Shekar Gupta.
Economists expect Modi to announce big-bang reforms.
Mr Rahul Gandhi himself has given seven different prices in different speeches with regard to the Rafale, that is the 2007 offer.
The prime minister came down heavily on the Congress government in Assam and the previous UPA government at the Centre for "failing" to fulfil dreams and aspiration of the people.
Though the list of superstitious beliefs is long, often dissolving distinctions of class, caste, religion and education, Karnataka's anti-superstition bill is seen as a big step ahead.
On the eve of the Modi government's two years in office, the RSS-linked Bharatiya Mazdoor Sabha leadership met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. After the meeting, the BMS claimed the FM told its delegation 'the government has realised that labour reforms are not essential for industrial growth in the country.'
Clearly, rich Indians have little confidence in India. Perhaps we are also chronically dishonest.
'A CEO is successful if he is able to retain the confidence of his shareholders. And the shareholders of India Inc have backed their prime minister-CEO to the hilt,' says Sudhir Bisht.
Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi sharpened his attack on Nitish Kumar, saying the Janata Dal-United leader's "arrogance" and "ambition" to become prime minister drove him to split from BJP, and compared the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in Gujarat and Bihar to claim he practised "true" secularism.
'At the very end of his speech, he dealt with the 'small problems' of Indian workers. But these measures did not seem to satisfy those who had expected the prime minister to find solutions for their problems. That the prime minister generally focused on broad policy issues and not on matters of detail left them bewildered,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
This Budget signals a shift from a hand-out to a hand-up economy.
Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who as Gujarat chief minister was considered close to certain business groups and industrialists, has hardly been seen with any Indian business head.
Shiv Sena's Suresh Prabhu makes predictions ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls
'The UPA's claim of growth at 9.5 percent was absolute nonsense and a fraudulent claim because the country did not grow; it was only statistical growth.' 'I do believe that when there is a determined leader who wants to bring a desired change, the system will begin acting. Today, people think there is policy paralysis, but there is functional paralysis also.' 'When things start moving, people will invest. Many companies are holding cash, many people are not investing. Nobody is making any move. Everybody is waiting for the elections to get over.' Economist and Swadeshi Jagran Manch convenor Swaminathan Gurumurthy in conversation with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
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