Occasional lovers' tiffs have marked the history of RSS-BJP relations. To think that Nagpur will bring about any change in leadership is a misreading of both its intent and its power, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Referring to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's famous statement, Abdullah said "we can change friends but we cannot change neighbours".
'The BJP is racing against its opponents by putting a chain on their legs.'
The VHP is trying to gain political mileage through its October 17 programme in Ayodhya, Gyan Das, mahant of the Hanumangarhi Temple, said.
Contending that terrorism should not be associated with any particular religion, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said that Muslims in India are nationalists who have always opposed terrorist elements.
'He told senior journalists a few days after the Babri Masjid demolition, 'Jo hua theek hua. Maine isliye hone diya ki BJP ki rajniti hamesha ke liye khatam ho jaye.'
'The PM who is first among equals, who has to listen to others, take their point of view into account and who would have to be a good manager'
The mass exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community changed the very cultural ethos of Kashmir and there has been little turnback despite three decades having gone by since it got triggered by growing fundamentalism fuelled from across the border, Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said on Monday.
He said Shiv Sena protected a political leadership for 25-30 years but they (the BJP) didn't want Sena and also the Akali Dal -- the erstwhile members of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad during his retirement speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday summed up his more than four-decade-old political career in few Urdu couplets and a brief speech.
Kumar had recently dumped the 'Mahagathbandhan', of which the Rashtriya Janata Dal was a key constituent, and returned to the NDA fold to form the government with support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Muslim voters in the Old City in Lucknow know the decisive value of their votes, but are wary that their votes are divided, and that, they fear, will only help Narendra Modi. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com speaks to Muslim voters in the land of tehzeeb and gauges their apprehensions about a Modi sarkar.
'Every Indian who is concerned about the unity, integrity and the map of India should be worried about this growing divide.'
The Bharat Ratna for him comes nine years after the honour was bestowed on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The two leaders together spearheaded the journey of the Jana Sangh and then the BJP for over five decades.
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
In a video message to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a visually impaired professor of Delhi University has alleged that she was denied rented accommodation in the national capital on grounds that she is a Muslim.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
His five-year rule saw the Babri Masjid demolition, the rise of the saffron forces and also the country being placed firmly on a new economic path, away from the Nehru years of public sector socialism.
'She showed courage at every turn in her political career.'
Mani Shankar Aiyar says the Congress party and not then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for unlocking the Babri Masjid gates and claimed that the "Bharatiya Janata Party-planted" Arun Nehru was behind it.
The motion takes note of the UNHCR statement last month, which described the CAA as 'fundamentally discriminatory in nature', and also of other United Nations as well as the EU guidelines on human rights as it calls on the Indian government to 'repeal the discriminatory amendments'.
41 years ago, Dalits in Meenakshipuram converted to Islam, sending shockwaves through the nation.' A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com returns to the village to discover that past antagonisms lurk below the surface.
For his participation in Netaji's INA, Major Ghulam Ahmed Qureshi was put into solitary confinement in the Red Fort, charged with rebellion against the Crown. Despite Nehru, Asaf Ali and a host of top lawyers defending them, Qureshi and his fellow officers were sentenced to death.
Pakistan-India bilateral relations remained frozen for the fourth year over the vexed Kashmir issue but analysts hope the strained ties could be repaired if Nawaz Sharif becomes the prime minister for a record fourth time in the general elections in February in the absence of his main challenger Imran Khan who is in jail in multiple cases.
The Musharraf episode in the recent history of the subcontinent has convinced many realists in India that the hope of establishing peace with Pakistan is like accepting a dinner invitation from cannibals and expecting to live to tell the tale, points out Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Islam says the person who has been hurt has the right to pardon the accused. So don't ask me on whether I will pardon Narendra Modi or not. Go and ask this question to Gujarati Muslims who have been hurt.' 'Secular and non-secular is not an issue for Muslims. The day Muslims become strong, the non-secular guys will become secular. And if Muslims are weak, the same secular guys will cut the throats of Muslims.' 'The secular character of India can never be finished. India is secular by its nature. Whoever comes to power, he will have to become secular to rule,' Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad Naqvi tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
Political power has now been outsourced fully to the Modi government. Even if the RSS is still, in principle, his guru, nobody would dare to whisper a word of advice to Modi, forget some whiff of criticism. When the shishya grows into such a popular and domineering leader, the guru has to applaud from the sidelines, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
Kumar made the remark while replying to questions in Patna, from journalists, about the BJP's decision taken at its two-day state executive meeting that concluded in Darbhanga on the previous day.
The sources said friends of India prevailed over those of Pakistan in the European Parliament on Wednesday.
Opposition members in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday sought to rake up an issue accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not greeting Muslims on the occasion of Eid while noting that he had offered prayers in Nepal's famed centuries-old Pashupatinath Temple on Monday.
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.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Arvind Kejriwal warned the media that "very big forces" would try and break the INDIA alliance by showing that there was a lot of acrimony among them.
'Whoever thought that building toilets and providing free rations to the poorest of poor Indians would give Modi a halo other political leaders would envy?' asks Sheela Bhatt.
A veritable political `storm in a tea cup' has arisen over Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's assertions on Wednesday that all in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were "not bad" and there are many who "do not support the BJP".
