"This election will dictate the direction the nation takes. As an Indian living abroad, I am ashamed of the negative influences in my motherland, especially the crime rate, which is increasing rapidly."
'The carpet under Indian society is filled with members of the LGBTQ community, stuffed away like if you leave us swept under long enough, we'll go away. But here's the thing. You can pretend we're not there as much as you want, that doesn't change the fact that we're there and we're getting louder, we're getting angrier.'
As the 16th Indian parliamentary elections get underway, Vikas Lather profiles Sukumar Sen, India's first chief election commissioner.
Jose Mourinho's Chelsea turned from domestic whipping boys back to European stalwarts on Wednesday, beating his former club Porto 2-0 to top Champions League Group G.
'Voting also involves communal factors, caste factors and so on, but increasingly, the caste factor is making less and less sense to the Indian voter,' says journalist and author Manu Joseph.
'We have 10 million votes, 15,000 votes per MP constituency. There are certain constituencies who will win by about 5,000 or 6,000 votes. So if we win this case, these 15,000 votes will play crucial roles in at least 50 Lok Sabha constituencies, which can change the dynamics of the entire political system,' Nagender Chindam tells Patrick Ward in an interview.
The perception that 'winnability' is based on gender is very strong, even though, if you break up the electoral success rate by sexes, the women who do win elections are proportionally far more successful than the men who win, given the huge number of men they have to beat.
'If Modi were to be elected, he would be part of a coalition government, and within that he would have to take this minority into account. Muslims cannot relate to the idea of Hindu nationalism. Although it is presented as a pan-Indian idea, it appears to them to be exclusive.'
Swiss qualifier Timea Bacsinszky continued to swipe past the seeds at the Wuhan Open on Wednesday by dumping World No 4 Maria Sharapova from the hard court tournament with a 7-6(3), 7-5 victory.
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