Chief Minister MK Stalin has shown that he is cut from a different cloth when it comes to embracing what is current, modern and absolutely necessary. Thus, even while retaining the spirit and content of the pan-Tamil, Dravidian socio-political and socio-economic ideology to the 't', his government has also acknowledged the need to accepting scientifically-proven facts in operational matters, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The second part of BJP president Amit Shah's interview to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
'The threat of ceding space to China in Afghanistan appears to be one factor propelling our government to get a bit more active now.'
'I want to make the government realise that they are not empowering Dalits by giving them free goats or hens; what they need is good education.'
As voting begins in Bihar in the first phase of assembly elections on Wednesday, the fate of political leaders depends on how the electorate perceives they can solve ground-level issues from reverse migration to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Does Uddhav (and indeed the Sena) have the pizzazz and staying power to continue to be an actor in Maharashtra politics as a paler version of the NCP and an orange rather than saffron version of the BJP, asks Aditi Phadnis.
Discontentment of allies may not look serious now, but the BJP needs to develop a better mechanism to deal with the allies ahead of the next Lok Sabha polls in 2019.
High-level intelligence collection will no longer be the preserve of government agencies alone, says Pranjal Sharma.
'In India, there's currently evidence the Centre has not managed a smooth vaccine rollout.' 'It is now falling back on blaming states, which are facing vaccine shortages,' points out Devangshu Datta.
The Jat vote is crucial in winning at least 40 assembly seats in Western UP, which has been in the grip of a widespread farmer movement, reports Nitin Kumar.
'The PLA will not voluntarily withdraw from Indian territory.'
Gota has to decide if he could order elder brother Mahinda's arrest as the agent provocateur of Monday's violence. Then he has to prepare for an interim government, in which no one would now want to become a cabinet minister leave alone prime minister, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
As we celebrate the actor's much deserved award, Divya Nair presents 10 landmark films in Suriya's career, ranked in order of performance.
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.
The government on Monday disclosed before the Supreme Court eight more names including that of Pradip Burman, one of Dabur India promoters, a bullion trader and Goa miners against whom it has started prosecution for allegedly stashing blackmoney in foreign banks.
While the Constitution makes everyone in India eligible to work anywhere in the country, states have used legal loopholes to frame laws.
Earlier this month, a controversy had erupted over the reduction of syllabus by the Central Board of Secondary Education due to the COVID-19 situation, with the Opposition alleging that chapters on India's democracy and plurality are being "dropped" to propagate a particular ideology.
The elated woman later said she was yet to come to terms with the reality that she has finally won her battle and her son, who was forcibly taken away from her by her parents on the third day of his birth last year, is with her now.
After a lifetime of showing us what it means to 'act at the top of one's bent and never hit a false note', Mammootty had the good sense, in the third act of his career, to pare down his style, become less mannered, draw directly from life. And getting a performer like that to play characters who seem 'completely dead inside', is, in my view, a betrayal of his legacy, his still-burning ambition, and his still-sharp feelers, observes Sreehari Nair.
A reception often reserved for rockstars came the way of mining mogul Anil Agarwal when he started revealing nuggets of his ascent from a scrap-metal dealer to one of India's most prominent self-made industrialists on social media. And now he has been flooded with booking writing proposals and has even been offered money for a biopic. In February this year, Agarwal, 68, started tweeting his journey from Bihar to Mumbai first and then to London to head a globally diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, iron ore, steel, copper, aluminium, power, oil and gas.
While protesters wait for the farm laws to be repealed in Parliament, everyone at the Singhu echoes one sentiment: That they will remember this one year spent in protest at Singhu till their dying day. Nitin Kumar reports
Twitter has 'withheld' 50 tweets related to a communally sensitive video clip of an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh on the microblogging platform, according to sources.
'DMK is taking a wrong image of BJP to the people.'
Few people know Ratan Tata as well as R K Krishna Kumar does. Widely perceived to be among the managers closest to Tata, Krishna Kumar assesses Ratan Tata, the man and business leader, in this exclusive interview to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said the areas dominated by Marathi-speaking people on the state's border with Karnataka should be declared as a Union territory till the Supreme Court gives its final verdict on the issue.
'The roadmap ahead seems very difficult especially in the rural areas where there is very poor infrastructure, vaccine reach and hesitancy.' 'These are a deadly cocktail for the next wave.'
'The really striking thing is that the Taliban has suo moto presented to us certain firm benchmarks against which it expects us to hold to account the Taliban rulers's actions in the period ahead' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'I can't help it if people don't love the minorities, the Dalits and Adivasis; they are as much of this country as any other Indian.' 'If I love them, it does not mean I do not love my country.' 'It is ironic and funny that they have laid such severe anti-national charges against me.'
Sasikala's declaration of staying away from politics does not necessarily have to mean that she was retiring for good. She is only taking time to evaluate the post-poll chances of hers before digging in again, if possible, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The consignment was imported by a trading company registered in Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh.
'For the first time one single party is getting 49% which is a record of its own.'
Political analysts say the road to the 2024 polls for the Congress is going to get tougher as it is a party that is 'in the ICU' and cannot be revived with quick-fix solutions.
'Unemployment barely figures in the Budget except as a derived demand from the industry and infrastructure.' 'There is no effort at direct attack on unemployment.'
'The MEA, hopefully, made it clear that the Indian PM can't be seen in Xi Jinping's company when China has, for all intents and purposes, annexed over 1,000 sq kms of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh, and essentially that the Wuhan spirit and the Mamallapuram spirit have turned into vinegar.'
'During my nearly three decades of military service, both in war and peace, I have usefully drawn upon Gandhiji's storehouse of wisdom.' 'When military intelligence jobs require tightrope walking on the edge of moral and ethical dilemmas, I have looked up to Gandhiji,' notes Colonel R Hariharan (retd).
'While we may speculate about personality politics, the reality is that there are more important issues that drive the India-US relationship.'
Once considered the unlikely heir to the political legacy of the Gandhi family, Sonia has earned the distinction of being the longest serving president of India's grand old party.
On matters relating to the Diaspora, the Centre needs to call the shots, suggests Ambassador T P S Sreenivasan.