While stating that a strong government should be led by those who have expertise, motivation and integrity and can provide the needed public good, Rajan warned that "strong governments, may not, however, move in the right direction".
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
Veteran scientist P M Bhargava will return the awards he received from the government of India to protest against "the government's attack on rationalism, reasoning and science."
The issue of division of Uttar Pradesh had been lying dormant till now with major political parties including the BSP preferring silence so far.
Even a doomsayer like Nouriel Roubini says India is in a sweet spot. If only we'd live up to the promise, says Shekhar Gupta.
'The consolation is that in recent years, the focus at the time of the anniversary has been increasingly shifting from Indira Gandhi's assassination to the plight of the thousands of innocent Sikhs who had been killed in retaliation,' Manoj Mitta, co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
'Both Modi and Shah know the importance attached by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita to self-introspection (swadhyay) as one of the virtues of wise leaders.' 'From the way both leaders are painting the BJP's performance in the Karnataka election, one can only conclude that they have flunked Lord Krishna's test,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Though Indians were no strangers to scams, spectrum loss was beyond their wildest imagination.
The NDA candidate tells the Election Commission that the Maoists plan to kidnap him.
'Never before in Bengal had a single party been re-elected with two-thirds of the assembly,' notes Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien.
Renault says that one of the reasons why its sales look muted when compared to its peers is its limited reach.
Raksha Gopal scored 99.6 per cent to top the Central Board of Secondary Education's Class 12 results this year.
'...a dazzling flash, and then, fizzle,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'Good politics is not just staying in power. You cannot sacrifice everything at the altar of trying to ensure the coalition remains in power.'
'His deposition shows that the dividing line between Pakistan's State and non-State actors had completely blurred in Mumbai's 26/11 terror strikes.'
Ataturk and Nehru, two liberal secular modernisers, are in peril of being disowned by their successors, says Sunanda K-Datta Ray.
The Deen Bachao, Desh Bachao conference in Patna on April 15 was attended by lakhs of Muslims. Will the electoral dividends from this rally be reaped by Nitish Kumar, the BJP (through Hindu consolidation), by both Nitish and the BJP or will it be reaped more by the anti-BJP forces, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'Till today, we don't know what PM Modi discussed with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, but we have been told that the relations have been reset.' 'We have no evidence from China to show that anything has changed, even though India had made several gestures in preparation for Wuhan,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Nitish Kumar wouldn't have won Bihar without Lalu. He needed a voter base and Lalu has a much bigger voter base than Nitish.'
The Congress forget Modi has demigod status in Gujarat and there is no way he can be defeated in the state, argues Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
In remarks that are likely to stoke a controversy, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Friday mocked Narendra Modi's prime ministerial ambitions and said a place will be identified for the Gujarat chief minister to distribute tea in New Delhi.
'The entire system acted as cheerleaders to Vijay Mallya. The RBI failed, the banks failed, the auditors of the banks and Mallya failed.'
Choudhary answered to her objection by another message on his micro blogging site.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the inflation index would determine the nominal growth figure, and it is better to set modest targets and outperform them.
Rashid was at the Press Club in Delhi on Monday afternoon, when three men set upon him and threw black ink on him.
Former Union Minister Arun Shourie on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of deliberately maintaining silence on incidents like Dadri lynching while his ministerial.
Co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone tells us what he learned from his enterprising entrepreneurial journey.
'He depended too much on assurances given by sadhus and sants. He may not be culpable, but he was wholly responsible for December 6, 1992.' 'While Manmohan Singh came to reforms out of conviction, Rao came to reforms out of compulsion. If the compulsion had not been there, I don't know how he would have responded.'
Few Harvard graduates are changing the way we teach students.
"Who will be his men?" a distinguished official close to the prime minister asked. Frankly, nobody has an idea. Hardly seven weeks are left for a regime change, but the idea of Narendra Modi on Raisina Hill looks abnormal, if not unreal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt captures the uncertain mood in the capital's bureaucracy ahead of the largest democratic transfer of power in the world.
'He is an extraordinarily focused, determined, full-time politician, who from the moment he wakes up to the moment that he goes to sleep is looking at the job in hand.'
Relations between an elected government of Delhi and the LG can never be cordial: It is just the way the relationship is structured.
'When Sachin Tendulkar bats, no one in India cares if he is from Mumbai or if he is a Hindu or a Brahmin or whatever.' 'We just want him to win it for India.' 'The same is with Modi and the people who voted across caste and regional lines for him.' We want him to win it for India,' says Madhu A K.
Not having launched a political party, Rajni now has his fans spread across various political parties in the state. They vote for different political parties and candidates, depending on issues and factors such as ideology, caste and community, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Defaulters like Mallya can't be offloaded, but activists like me are. And that too for raising questions.' 'Today, what is the meaning of development?' 'Take over land, water and forest from the Adivasis and hand it over to corporates.' 'I am surprised how a minister who is supposed to protect the forests and the environment is happy reaching out to investors for more and more clearances.'
India and Japan have a shared interest in countervailing China's hegemonic ambitions in Asia. Although neither has an interest in forming an overt anti-China alliance, Tokyo and New Delhi feel increasingly obligated to work together to find ways to guard against a muscular Beijing's power sliding into arrogance, says Brahma Chellaney.
Life of air passengers was different in the 1970s.
King Salman and Narendra Modi will find common ground to intensify cooperation against jihadi terrorism, says Tarun Vijay, MP.
Mohammad Salim cited a news magazine which quoted Singh as reportedly saying -- after Narendra Modi and BJP's victory last year -- that India had the first "Hindu ruler after 800 years."
From Dabur to HUL, here are 10 stocks with significant rural exposure in the auto, agri-chemical and fast moving consumer goods sectors, which should see an uptick in sales growth.
