'Vajpayee would not have approved either of the way the BJP now functions or of the thoughts that it entertains in its mind,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'The sorry image of a wailing leader visiting relief camps for riot victims was completely incoherent with what he did next, blaming the minority community for the disturbance.' Utkarsh Mishra pens a tribute from the heart.
Former prime minister and BJP veteran leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malaviya will be conferred with the country's highest civilian award the "Bharat Ratna" after President Pranab Mukherjee gave his consent in his regard on Wednesday.
As the Lok Sabha debates a no-confidence motion brought against the Narendra Modi government by the opposition, the 28th such motion to be admitted in the Lower House, data compiled by a think tank shows all previous ones have either been defeated or remained inconclusive.
In the latest medical bulletin issued by AIIMS, the hospital said that he 'continues to respond well to treatment'.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
'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.'
'As events at Kargil and Pakistan's continued support to terror activities in India prove, Pakistan has always felt that the break-up/destruction of India was within its capability,' notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The BJP should identify those involved in the protest against singing Gandhiji's bhajan and take action against them.' 'Such people should be removed from the party because they harm the BJP's image.'
'It will be a long time before we will see the likes of Vajpayee again.'
Vajpayee had always felt that India must act with conviction and panache. He decided that, irrespective of the attendant risks, he would undertake what many felt was a precarious course. A fascinating excerpt from N K Singh's Portraits Of Power: Half A Century Of Being At Ringside on Atalji's 96th birthday, December 25.
The old Parliament building will now be known as 'Samvidhan Sadan', Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said on Tuesday as the functioning of Parliament shifted to its new building in New Delhi.
Rediff.com reader Sathyhadeep shares his story of meeting former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Eyeing a return to winning ways in their home IPL clash with the Punjab Kings (PBKS), Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) head coach Justin Langer on Saturday said the team was working hard to avoid lapses on the field and come up with a sharper display.
The RSS chief recalled how Vajpayee "had almost solved the Kashmir issue but later governments did not follow up on Vajpayee's efforts".
'Despite the subsequent events at Kargil and the October 12, 1999 military coup in Pakistan, the Lahore initiative firmly established Vajpayee's credentials as a crusader of peace,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
A foreign ministry spokesman familiar with the process said Bangladesh will hand over Vajpayee's "Friends of Bangladesh Liberation War Award" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his upcoming visit to the country from June 6.
In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN, BJP patriarch L K Advani tells CNN-IBN why he thinks former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee should be awarded a Bharat Ratna
As a leader, he was ambitious, not for himself but for India and its people. His was not the short-term election cycle calculation of individual political gain. His was a practical vision of how to better the lives of his fellow citizens, asserts Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, who served as foreign secretary and national security advisor when Dr Singh was prime minister.
The ethereal Hema Malini turns 75 on October 16, and gives us yet another reason to celebrate her.
Former RA&W chief A S Dulat, who served as Atalji's adviser on Kashmir, gives us an insider's glimpse of a prime minister he has hailed as the 'greatest after Nehru'.
Atal (Bihari Vajpayee), Advani and Joshi have contributed a lot for the BJP to reach where it is now, he said.
It's time India re-visited its Western alliances for the attitude and approach that the West reserves for the nation when it comes to security cooperation of the kind that they might not have visualised outside of China, India's bug-bear, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
BCCI banned the display of fireworks during the World Cup games in Delhi and Mumbai due to worsening air quality.
The eagerly awaited International Masters League (IML) is set to electrify the cricketing world, uniting legendary players from six cricketing powerhouses-India, Sri Lanka, Australia, England, South Africa, and West Indies-for an exhilarating T20 franchise tournament.
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 matter of disqualification of 16 MLAs following the upheaval in the undivided Shiv Sena last year could have been effectively dealt with had the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) moved swiftly after the resignation of Nana Patole as the Speaker of Maharashtra Assembly, said senior Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar on Friday.
Modi spoke to the BJP's longest serving president, who is credited with crafting the party's rise through the 90s when it came to power for the first time as the head of coalition governments under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and congratulated him.
The Indian Diaspora has been able to carve a niche in their adopted countries as a result of their talent, perseverance and hardworking nature, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
Although the credit for acquiring the technological skill must be given to India's outstanding nuclear scientists, the decision to go nuclear was a political one that entailed clarity of vision, courage and resolve, points out Rup Narayan Das.
In an interaction with a group of Indian journalists, the three-time prime minister and president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N described Jaishankar's visit as a "good opening" and said both sides should now engage and move forward.
Vajpayee had travelled to Lahore in a bus from India in 1999 and started a peace initiative with Pakistan in 2004.
The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
Five years after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of a much younger Jagan Mohan Reddy, Telugu Desam Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday was on course to lead his party towards a landslide victory in the Andhra Pradesh assembly polls, with allies Bharatiya Janata Party and Janasena Party (JNP) in tow.
Vajpayee, who died on Thursday at the age of 93 after a prolonged illness, had made a significant diplomatic breakthrough and travelled on a bus from Amritsar to Lahore with a delegation that included the likes of Bollywood legend Dev Anand, writer Javed Akhtar and cricket icon Kapil Dev.
Today even those who support Prime Minister Modi feel there is a certain sense of listlessness in this government. What is it intending to achieve? This is not easy to say, notes Aakar Patel.
He won two terms in office, which was a stunning feat for a leader who used his silence as the most vocal weapon to change the economy and the lives of a billion people, asserts Tarun Vijay, former BJP MP and former Chief Editor, Panchjanya, the RSS weekly.
Electoral setbacks and thwarted ambition can have an unpredictable effect on leaders,, observes Aditi Phadnis.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
No confidence motions have been moved in the Lok Sabha 27 times in the past, and all of them have either been defeated or remained inconclusive, data compiled by a think tank shows.
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