Indonesia, Turkey and Afghanistan also see important polls in the seven short weeks between end-March and mid-May, says Shankar Acharya
'Was an NDA meeting held to decide if the Shiv Sena has to be removed from the NDA?'
APJ Abdul Kalam was passionate about everything he did. He was perfect, says Aditi Phadnis
'If Nitish goes alone, he will be washed away.' 'If he hand holds the BJP, it will again crush him because it will be known that he has sided with the BJP because he doesn't have any other option.' 'Lalu knows Nitish coming back will be a political gain for Lalu.'
The Assam cabinet had on December 13 approved a proposal to close down all Madrassas and Sanskrit Tols (schools) however, the legislation brought in the assembly during the day did not contain anything related to the Sanskrit tols and the education minister also did not mention anything about it.
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
The statements made by the opposition parties after the preemptive air strike on terror camps have made only people of Pakistan happy, he claimed.
Modi hit out at the UPA government for allegedly 'blocking' surgical strikes post 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008.
He also claimed that the decision to withdraw support was not taken keeping in mind the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The prime minister said the opposition's hatred against him was reaching new levels daily and they have a competition over who abused him the most.
"We know you have the numbers and you will pass the budget anyway. But some good suggestions could have come from here (assembly)," he said.
He said that the grouping up of opposition parties, which are "jealous" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity, is opportunistic and will not succeed.
The Congress remains isolated as the ruling Bharartiya Janata Party wins over majority of its Opposition on the bill that clears the legal hurdle for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to appoint a principal secretary of his choice -- former TRAI chairman Nripendra Misra. Anita Katyal reports
'Despite the BJP's successes at the state-level, replicating their 282-seat majority in 2019 is going to be an uphill climb.'
'The BJP has replaced huge portraits of the two BJP leaders from Gujarat with very small portraits of many leaders from Bihar. Much is being read into this changed tactic of hoardings and banners,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Javadekar was at the event, where presence of his ministerial colleague V K Singh last year had drawn flak from the media, for around 20 minutes, and extended his 'best wishes' to the Pakistani people on the sidelines.
2015 is finally coming to an end, and it is that time of the year when we collectively reflect on all that has transpired in Indian politics during the last 12 months.
The DMK has been alleging that the AIADMK government was being controlled by the BJP government at the Centre.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was back in action on Saturday after he met farmers over land bill in Delhi, a day before the party's big kisan rally.
"They call themselves the champions of speech and expression. But deny the same for the people of Kerala."
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.
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.
The Congress chief gave 'F' to the Modi government for agriculture, foreign policy and job creation, and 'A+' to the prime minister for slogan creation and self promotion.
'This letter is not a complaint, it's more indignation, because we do not like being used as political tools by people of various parties.'
The results will be declared on July 20 in New Delhi.
The last leg of poll campaign saw many national leaders canvassing for their parties.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
Over 100 Opposition members of Parliament led by Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday marched from Parliament to the Rashtrapati Bhawan
'The BJP must realise that a resurgent Rahul Gandhi will take the battle straight into its camp.' 'He is not going to be held back by the misdeeds of UPA 1 and 2, so there is no point harping on them,' says Sanjeev Nayyar.
In an interview to Rediff.com's Anita Katyal, Shambhu Srivastava speaks about the need of breaking out of the communal-secular paradigm and focusing on the Congress party's poor performance and its track record in fuelling communalism.
The Allahabad high court had in January 2006 struck down the provision of the 1981 amendment Act by which the university was accorded the minority status.
The truth is not that Chandrababu Naidu's centre-right policies led to his defeat but rather almost the reverse: his defeat, and for that matter that of the NDA at the Centre, was widely -- but falsely -- interpreted as a rejection of their economic policies, rather than put down to bad luck and conventional anti-incumbency., say Vivek Dehejia and Rupa Subramanya.
Why has a nation created on strong secular principles slowly chipped away those essential values? Why are so many Indians willing to compromise their freedoms and those of their compatriots for the cause of economic progress and to see a shining India,' asks Aseem Chhabra.
Namo, Namo as India's prime minister? Not yet, says Pakistan-based journalist Amir Mateen.
Ravi Kishan, the BJP's candidate, is an outsider. The BSP-SP candidate is from the powerful Nishad community. Yogi faces a tough task in ensuring that the Gorakhpur seat, which he represented from 1998 to 2017, stays with the BJP.
A PDP-BJP alliance would have been formed on the evening of December 28 had the BJP agreed to let Mufti Mohammad Sayeed become chief minister for the first three years and allow the BJP to nominate its chief minister for the next three years.
'One one hand, the BJP puts Uniform Civil Code as a goal in its manifesto, and on the other, it pushes massive discrimination against Hindus.' 'This is not sabka saath, sabka vikas. Rather it is "Haj ka saath, church ka vikas",' argues Sankrant Sanu.
From early indications, the Modi government's foreign policy seems to be pragmatic and reciprocal, says K G Suresh.
A Congress-led opposition on Tuesday came together seeking to pin down the government on the demonetisation issue in the winter session of Parliament beginning tomorrow but a consenses eluded on Trinamoll Congress's proposed march to Rashtrapati Bhawan for meeting the President.
The Modi wave has blotched the Congress party's copybook. For the first time since the Lok Sabha was constituted in 1952, the party has failed to secure enough seats to be designated as a parliamentary party, notes A Surya Prakash.
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