Following her spat, 'Aunty National' Irani took to Facebook to speak out against her detractors. Here's the Facebook post in response to her critics which Rediff.com represents verbatim:
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Driving a Tata Nano covered with banners about his son's killing by the Mumbai Police, Kundan Prasad Singh is fighting his first election to get justice for a dead son.
Biju Janata Dal members had staged a walk-out while NDA ally Shiv Sena did not participate in the voting.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said there was "some amount" of intolerance in the society which has to be identified and dealt with firmly, instead of generalising it.
The stage is now set for the first substantial round of polling in the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday, involving nearly 11 crore voters in 92 seats spread across 11 states, including Delhi and the national capital region and the riot-hit Muzaffarnagar.
Faced with the growing number of acid attacks on women, government is planning to categorise such cases as heinous crimes and fix a time-frame for investigation and trial for speedy justice.
'It is the regional parties and their leaders who are the ones we have to watch.'
Sylvia Dyer's life began nearly 90 years ago in a forgotten, untamed land. She spent her childhood on a plantation on the Bihar-Nepal border in pre-Independent India, lived through the '65 war as the wife of a decorated army officer and saw an era grow and fade in front of her eyes.
'Nitish has no future in state politics.' 'Nitish harassed the Yadav community no end in his earlier tenure as chief minister. So who will the Yadav community vote for in the coming state elections?'
Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj's comments have once again put the Narendra Modi government in a jam. Though the party swiftly slapped a show cause notice on Maharaj, asking him to explain why action should not be initiated against him for his controversial remarks in the recent past, the man denied it, saying it was the 'BJP's internal matter.'
In the light of the efforts being made to forge electoral unity between scheduled castes and Muslims, Mohammad Sajjad examines what the architect of our Constitution, B R Ambedkar, had to say about the Muslim community.
BJP strategists need to remember even at this late hour that 'negativism' sells when you are in the Opposition as the Indian voter has mostly voted anti-incumbency, and not when you are in power. You still needed to highlight your achievements and promises, and let the voter draw his conclusions, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A Ganesh Nadar shares interesting vignettes that usually get lost in the heat-and-dust of election coverage.
In the normal course, a high turnout reflects anti-incumbency but there is no correlation between high turnout and advantage to the National Democratic Alliance, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
As the year 2014 draws to an end, we at Rediff.com take to look at some of the ridiculous remarks made by some blundering politicos.
The Hindutva brigade's silence on the rape may possibly be explained that this incident is an intra-Hindu affair for them. What is even more intriguing is that vocal gender activists have preferred to almost ignore the incident. Why? Is it because homosexual rape does not involve the woman either as victim or as aggressor, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Ishan Bakshi studies the Budgets of six states, their expenditure priorities and outlays to understand the trend.
They cited precedents where no picture of Mahatma Gandhi was used on such KVIC material.
Rediff.com lists a few instances when BJP leaders and ministers shot their mouth off.
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
UPSC toppers -- Ira Singhal, Nidhi Gupta, Vandana Rao and Suharsha Bhagat -- tell Rediff.com how they cracked the tough national exam.
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
The Information Technology Act needs another tweak to allow a different kind of information intermediary to flourish, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
Counting of votes will be held today in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand which witnessed a record turnout in the multi-cornered contests to elect their assemblies.
'Human rights violations are there in rural areas and in cities. In rural areas it is crude and in the open. In urban areas it is well hidden.' 'Awareness has grown several fold. India has 160 national and state human rights institutions. No other country in the world has this.' 'Unfortunately the right to association, right to assembly, freedom of expression, right to protest and discuss are all being curtailed systematically one by one.'
While Rajnath Singh said secularism was the most misused word in politics, Sonia alleged that ideals and principles of the Constitution were under threat and being attacked deliberately
Attacking the note ban move, Yechury said the PM's assertion that it will impact terror funding has not yielded any result.
'This has to be seen in the context not only of the legacy we inherited, but also of global economic weakness.'
'If after inheriting the very bad situation we have reached this level despite consecutive years of drought and no growth in the world economy, it is no accident.' 'It is a result of the sound macro economic policies followed by this government.' 'We have eschewed populism and stuck to a path of fiscal prudence.'
'Manmohan Singh was blamed for administrative paralysis, but if you speak to any senior bureaucrat today, they are very bitter and say that files do not move. I am told that more than a thousand files are awaiting clearance.'
Misa Bharati is fighting to win back Patliputra, the seat her father lost in 2009, in a contest that is a do-or-die battle for Lalu Yadav and the RJD.
Veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book came out recently, speaks to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
Transcript of the political resolution adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its national executive meeting in Panaji, Goa on Sunday.
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We present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's full speech as he addressed the country on the occasion of 66th Independence Day, from Red Fort, Delhi.
'I would like to request the AERB, UCIL and DAE to introspect. The world is changing, so is India. The wave of development and modernity will not stop for those who continue to live in the past. The future belongs to the youth who believe in the values of honesty, transparency and efficiency.'
'Only the smoke is coming out now. Let us prevent the lava from coming out by taking proper measures.' 'I have told every leader that you cannot have a stable government without winning the confidence of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and the most backward castes.' 'Leaders feel that by giving a sop here and there and by symbolic actions, they can win votes. That's all they want. Votes.'
'What of Modi? They are willing to take their chances. Maharashtra's Muslims recall how the Congress scared them with the Bal Thackeray bogey for decades, yet, when it came to using all the might of the State to protect them from Shiv Sena goons, be it in 1970, 1984 or 1992-1993, it did nothing. For them, the Congress's secularism is a cruel joke.' 'This argument that we ('seculars') must vote for the 'winning secular candidate' has one more implication: Those who are against Hindutva must forever be stuck with the same corrupt, cynical and tired old parties, who are not even secular,' says Jyoti Punwani.
The AAP has adopted policies in an ad hoc manner, without thinking them through or deriving them from a broader framework. This must change if the AAP is to become a credible alternative, says Praful Bidwai.
Indian economy about to take-off
Here is the full transcript of Congress vice president and Lok Sabha poll campaign chief Rahul Gandhi's first formal TV interview with Times Now Editor-In-Chief Arnab Goswami.
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