The ruling Congress party in Maharashtra is seeking party general secretary Rahul Gandhi's help to take on Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray in order to consolidate its position by luring youths in the party organisation.
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
'If Lalu puts the agenda of his son's career ahead of the coalition's interest, this coalition will fare very badly.' 'Lalu will ultimately want that his son becomes deputy chief minister but if he's prepared to wait for some time, nothing bad will happen for the coalition,' Professor Prabhat Ghosh, Director, Asian Development Research Institute, tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com
'The BJP has sent out a message that its allies are at its mercy.' 'The allies cannot pressurise or bargain with the BJP any more,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The panel decided to omit the reverse charge mechanism (RCM) clause from the GST law under which registered taxpayers buying from unregistered taxpayers have to deposit the GST.
n an exclusive interview with Rediff.com's Anita Katyal, Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmad analysed the political scenario in his home-state Bihar, admitting that political equations have changed after the Bharatiya Janata Party forged alliances with Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha.
'...and then react.' 'There are two options before him if the alliance breaks.' 'He either teams up with the BJP or goes for a fresh election.' 'My impression is that he will avoid a fresh election.'
'The situation is so bad that they are now sleeping on bridges or footpaths.' 'Therefore, they want to go and die before their parents or wife in case they get infected with COVID-19.' 'Workers don't want to die a dog's death in cities.'
About 200 children were taken to hospitals in Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana and Chhattisgarh as they complained of uneasiness after being administered deworming tablets.
The students from the Government Boys' Senior Secondary School in Deoli area were immediately taken to the Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital, after they reported feeling nauseous and complained of acute pain in their stomach and head post consuming the meal.
Cut to 2019, and his name evokes grief and anger among more than 40,000 homebuyers who are fighting for the keys to their flats, which they should have rightfully got more than seven years back.
Sheela Bhatt drives from New Delhi to Agra and Firozabad to capture the stories of an India under lockdown.
'In this season of inspired mean-spirited campaigning, it still seemed remarkable that we are more likely to learn civics lessons from school children than our leaders,' says Rahul Jacob.
Congress and Janata Dal-United on Friday strongly objected to the description of revolutionary leaders Khudiram Bose, Jatindranath Mukherjee and Prafulla Chaki as "extremist and terrorist" in school syllabus in West Bengal and urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to drop the chapter.
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'I am afraid the condemnation of mob attacks is a case of too little too little.' 'Much sterner action is needed,' BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha tells Subhash K Jha.
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.
'The handling of the pandemic, under this totally constitutional and legal three-level dictatorship, has begun to show its downside,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
US-based designer Rosena Sammi is retailing jewellery and designer accessories made by sex workers in West Bengal and Bihar.
Additional District and Sessions Judge (First Class) Bipin Bihari rejected the petition of the Nawada Lok Sabha candidate of the saffron party.
Hard selling the development work carried out in Delhi in the last 15 years and United Progressive Alliance's Food Security Bill, Rahul Gandhi on Sunday reached out to migrant voters who constitute around one-third of the population.
Aam Aadmi Party founder member and former MP Ilyas Azmi on Monday quit the party citing "lack of inner democracy" in the organisation.
He was accorded a hero's welcome by supporters of his parents.
The journey of getting used to a new way of life -- without domestic help, without the necessity of dressing up to step out and just staying cooped up indoors -- has been out of the ordinary, equal parts good, bad and ugly.
With less than two months to go for the Lok Sabha election, the expected process of political realignments has begun, reports Anita Katyal.
Rediff reader Tauseef Quasim from Abu Dhabi (UAE) writes about her sister.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's similar remarks about the need for a review of the reservation policy, just ahead of Bihar polls, had cost the BJP dearly as it saw a massive consolidation of the electorate from the backward classes and weaker sections in favour of Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance.
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Nitish Kumar has spotted a secular trend in Bihar and with the minority's support he could trump Lalu Prasad, says Aditi Phadnis
'Right now, politics is operating in a state of suspended animation. That works to Modi's advantage.'
Detailed reports have been sought from the state's chief secretary and from the chairman of the Railway Board in four weeks, an NHRC spokesperson said.
'I am a labourer's wife, the mother of labourers. But I won't be a labourer's grandmother for sure,' she says in the hope that her grandchildren will have a bright future in the Bihar that will unfold in the next decade.
Will Prime Minister Modi start a conversation on the need for people to limit the size of their families, asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) on the occasion of World Population Day, July 11.
Joining hands with his arch rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav, paid off for the Bihar chief minister
The controversial decision of the United Progressive Alliance-II government ahead of general elections to include Jats in Other Backward Classes category came under judicial scrutiny with the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking explanation from the Centre for allegedly ignoring the advice of a statutory body to keep the community away from reservation benefits.
A promising young actor suffering from depression has had his life laid bare for the grubby public to paw through. An ordinary family has been pitched into the middle of a nightmare of an investigation and arrested for no reason discernible at present. And a young actress has had her reputation, and probably career, destroyed so that TRP ratings can soar, notes Sherna Gandhy.
'The common belief in political circles is that if you provide reservation to somebody, s/he will automatically come up.' 'This is a very faulty understanding.'
A local court in Jamshedpur has issued summons against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray for his remarks over Chatt festival leading to agitation in several parts of the country, including Bihar and Jharkhand. He has been asked to appear before the court on April 22. The court of first class judicial magistrate A K Tiwari issued the summons on Tuesday after examining witnesses Rajhans Tiwari, Sanjay Prasad and Niranjan Prasad (all lawyers).
Hindi cinema has not just explored various instances of brute force, but often glorified its misogyny.
'Secularism is associated either with corruption, malgovernance or minority votes.' 'That allows the BJP to construct its own majority vote.' 'It will remain a feature of electoral contests, but it is not the only reason for the BJP's success.'
Amid the crisis has risen an outpouring of empathy from ordinary people across India led by the civil society, who have stepped up to help migrant labourers, domestic helps, construction workers, and small scale workers who were left jobless because of the nationwide lockdown.
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