His immediate challenge is the February 8 Delhi assembly polls followed by year-end elections in Bihar. However, his big test would be the next year's assembly polls in West Bengal, a state where the BJP has emerged as a strong challenger to Mamata Banerjee-headed TMC.
'If you keep inflation low, everything else like messing up after after demonetisation will be forgiven,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Bajirao Mastani has the potential to do for Maratha 'history' what Mughal-e-Azam did for Mughal 'history', says Mohammad Asim Siddiqui.
The focus is not only on governance but also to ensure that the BJP's political considerations are taken care of.
After her attempts attract Brahmins and Dalits, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati is now all set to woo Muslims, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas.
'In a country like India, it is clear that respecting religions -- in politics or in the kitchen -- is disastrous,' says Amberish K Diwanji.
The Election Commission on Monday let off Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satish Chandra Mishra with a warning for seeking the votes of Dalit Brahmin families on the ground of caste. After taking a lenient view on Mishra, the commission said it did not intend to pursue further the matter of poll code violation against him. The commission hoped that Mishra would be careful not to violate the model code of conduct in future and would be more careful in his public utterances.
New Union minister L Murugan's declaration of Kongu Nadu as his native place, instead of Tamil Nadu, may be part of a grand BJP strategy to create new states out of existing ones, particularly those that have anti-BJP governments, mulls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Mumbai-based Anand Teltumbde is a leading scholar-activist who has written extensively on issues related to caste, class, imperialism and globalisation. In an interview with Yoginder Sikand, he reflects on the Dalit movement in the era of globalisation.
While the DMK fears that the Congress with its poor strike rate will pull it down in the 2021 state elections, like it did five years ago, the ruling AIADMK is worried that the BJP may ultimately do a Bihar on it, relegating it to second place in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rahul Gandhi's remark 'I am a Brahmin, and I am general secretary of the party' would have been dismissed as a stray thoughtless remark if it were not for the fact that it shows a trend in his thinking, feels T V R Shenoy.
One of prominent religious leaders of South India, the 88-year old Swamiji was admitted to a hospital at Manipal a few days ago for breathing difficulty and his end came on Sunday morning, they said.
All laws have been modified to omit the domicile clause for property rights in the valley. This effectively means that anyone with enough money to spend can now technically buy property there, writes Sai Manish.
That the political philosophy of Anna Hazare closely resonates with the overall anti-democratic Hindutva ethos owes, in part, to the Brahminical worldview that they share, says Yogi Sikand
In Bundelkhand, support for Narendra Modi seems to cut across the caste barriers; even so, a vigorous and 4-cornered tussle is on the cards. Sahil Makkar reports
Why Dalit leaders cross over to the BJP
The Gujarat government has directed seven district collectors to ensure that the identity of each and every person coming for the road show and the Namaste Trump event is verified thoroughly.
'The non-vegetarian share of the population fell from 75 to 71 per cent between 2004 and 2014, no doubt in anticipation of the lotus blooming.' 'Three years of saffron authoritarianism may have thinned the non-vegetarian ranks even more,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
General T N Raina was an iconic Indian military leader whose contributions to the nation should be more widely known, notes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Note: This story was first published in 1998. We bring back some nostalgia.
How did a young girl with no formal education become one of India's most inspiring teachers and social reformers?
As the veil lifts across big and small mandals during Ganeshotsav, pandal-hoppers are expected to throng certain venues, partly owing to their lavish themes or simply their wish-fulfilment quotient.
Deepika and Ranveer go to extraordinary lengths to ensure privacy. Security is on par with that provided for a meeting of world leaders.
Siddiqui, who hails from Banda, was earlier removed as the party in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and was appointed as the MP unit in-charge after the assembly poll debacle.
This is the first Cabinet expansion after he assumed office on July 26 and proved his government's majority on the floor of the assembly on July 29.
'Tamil Nadu's youth bulge will soon be 70 per cent of the population, many of them smartphone-toting millennials looking for gains more tangible than what screen gods can give,' says Sunil Sethi.
Highly placed sources claimed that the chief minister's advisors managed to impress upon her that Tiwari's appointment would go well with her much-hyped 'social engineering' (building a Dalit-Brahmin axis), which was believed to have forged the Dalit woman leader to power.
'These people want to create fissures among the Hindus and they have been trying to do this for quite sometime.'
'...by combining religious and political missions -- to destroy the Babri Masjid and establish Ram Rajya.' 'Hindutva was successful in creating synergy with the aspirations of devotees,' Dhirendra K Jha, author of Ayodhya: The Dark Night, tells Kanika Datta.
'The BJP has the torch and with that same torch, the BJP is trying to light up its house in Bihar.' 'The BJP is trying to burn Nitish Kumar's house with that torch.'
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The court had rejected Indrani's plea for interim bail to visit her hometown Guwahati.
Shobha Warrier analyses why Srirangam, with its large chunk of Vaishnavite Brahmin population, makes perfect sense for All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha decision to contest an election from there.
Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament Varun Gandhi wed graphic designer Yamini Roy Chowdhury in a simple ceremony attended by a handful of people in a temple on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi on Sunday.
Stalin owes his victory this time, like in 2019, to the hate-campaign of the local Hindutva forces, which kept haranguing him, and even his dead father, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Majority of Indians do not feel a serious need for financial planning.
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
'If the museum in his memory inspires and instils among Brahminical British Indians an attitude of equality towards Dalits, the edifice would be worth it,' reports Ashis Ray.
The bear hug in which the Prime Minister loves to smother Western VIPs might strike as theatrical, boastful and, above all, unhygienic, in these stricken times, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
Sudhir Bisht recalls the battle of 1984, in which UP's strongman H N Bahuguna was felled by Bollywood superstar turned political novice Amitabh Bachchan.
