'If the BJP thinks it is going to overnight transform Bengal into Madhya Pradesh, sorry, that's not going to happen because I have faith in our ethos and culture.'
#Not In My Name, said ordinary citizens, as they took to the streets to reclaim the India they believed in.
The second phase of polling began Saturday morning on 20 constituencies in Jharkhand, which votes in five phases to elect 81 members of the legislative assembly.
'From the very start, PM Modi was insistent that visiting foreign leaders should be exposed to an India beyond its capital.' 'Through these experiences, he felt that the full Indian narrative would be much better understood across the world,' explains External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. A riveting excerpt from Bluekraft Digital Foundation's Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery.
With no agenda announced for the meeting, the leaders from Jammu and Kashmir said they have come with an open mind.
Kejriwal said the eight MPs were fighting for the rights of farmers without worrying about heat, mosquitoes or other inconveniences and have spent the night protesting in the Parliament complex.
'Its aim is to force the Bhutanese government to cede territory that China wants elsewhere in Bhutan to give Beijing a military advantage in its struggle with New Delhi.'
'The Congress's arrogance and unrealistic claims have weakened the anti-BJP movement at the national level.'
Top Left leaders Prakash Karat (Communist Party of India-Marxist), A B Bardhan (Communist Party of India), Debabrata Biswas (Forward Bloc) and Abani Roy (Revolutionary Socialist Party), led the demonstration near Parliament House.
'Prime Minister Manmohan Singh refused to allow us to project his real personality to let the people of India know exactly what he really was. He was always shying away from greater public exposure. Since the last two years we have seen enormous criticism, ridiculing the prime minister. He has been made into an object of jokes. It certainly hurts. I think this man deserves lots of good reviews... His contribution to social policy, his contribution to the economy, his contribution to coalition management, his contribution to foreign policy.' Dr Sanjaya Baru, Dr Singh's former media advisor who is in the eye of a storm over his book on the prime minister UPA speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Criticising the strong reactions from India over China blocking its bid to enter NSG, a state-run daily on Monday said India is "still stuck" in the 1962 war mindset as it called for a more objective evaluation of Beijing's stand.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on his maiden visit as minister to Washington, DC, addresses two think thanks, leaves American Establishment impressed, reports Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
'Tell me, one BJP policy that Mamata has opposed and is fighting tooth and nail?' Be it Article 370, instant triple talaq, be it CAA/NRC/NPR, be it notebandi, FDI, she has aligned with the BJP.'
'Every person has two identities in India, that of his caste and nation.' 'It is understandable in a multi-caste, multi-religious society and I don't mind this.' 'What I mind is the State has failed in doing enough to melt these two identities in such a way that everybody has access to citizenship which is more important than your caste.' 'That is why people remain in the narrow identities of his caste or religion.'
There are "contradictions" in the approach of the two parties in fighting BJP and there is no question of an alliance with the ruling TMC in Bengal as it has inflicted atrocities on grassroot level CPI (M) workers, he said.
Several trains were cancelled, highways and key roads blocked and many thousands stranded for hours on Monday as a nationwide 10-hour shutdown against the Centre's three agri laws disrupted lives across parts of India, particularly in the north.
The Summit for Democracy seems to have done more harm than good, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
PM Modi addressed the Indian community in Washington DC after meeting chief executives of major US companies.
Pakistan should also be accorded the same 'privilege', the Global Times said.
This senior cop who deposed in such detail about the Elgar Parishad, however, claimed to know nothing about the opposition to it from organisations such as Milind Ekbote's Samastha Hindu Aghadi as well as Pune's then Mayor Mukta Tilak.
Farmers gathered at several national highways, key roads and some railway tracks in Punjab and Haryana on Friday morning as part of their nationwide protest against the Centre's new agri laws.
The humiliating rebuff given to the power brokers in Delhi in Kerala's local body election carries a big message: Malayalis thoroughly disapprove of the Modi government's shenanigans to misuse central agencies to destabilise a genuinely popular state government, notes M K Bhadrakumar.
An SIT officer probing the murder case said the investigation is in final stage and a chargesheet will be filed in two months.
Till late Sunday night, the 84-year-old Jesuit priest was on ventilator support, the senior counsel told PTI. Swamy has been undergoing treatment at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai, following a court order on May 28.
While Himanta Biswa Sarma scotched rumours that he would be the king this time, political sources in Guwahati maintained that he, and not Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, had a bigger say in choosing candidates, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Had it not been for the intellectual dominance and political legitimacy of the Leftist philosophy since 1970, would EPW have become what it did? After all, there were other more established journals around then, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Expressing solidarity with the people of Lakshadweep, the Kerala Legislative Assembly on Monday unanimously passed a resolution demanding the recall of island administrator Praful Khoda Patel and requesting the immediate intervention of the Centre to protect the lives and livelihood of the islanders.
Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, who was a minister himself in the previous National Democratic Alliance government, was visibly shaken at the disdain shown towards the Chair by Samrat Chaudhary who holds the Panchayati Raj portfolio.
'You've got to be a doer to be re-elected.' 'You don't have to be a great communicator or an orator any more because voters want to see action and development on the ground.' 'And they want a doer rather than just an orator.'
The nationwide strike on Tuesday called by the Left parties against the hike in petrol and diesel prices evoked a mixed response with it getting unruly in some parts of the country.
... As the world swings from 'financialisation' to 'artificial intelligence', asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
Leaders of the United States, India, Australia and Japan did discuss the 'challenge' posed by China during the first meeting of the Quad, and they made clear that none of them have any 'illusions' about Beijing, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said.
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The rover, Zhurong, named after a god of fire and war in Chinese mythology, landed at the pre-selected area in Utopia Planitia on Mars, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will sharpen Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign for the high-octane assembly elections in West Bengal with a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata on Sunday.
'You can see that in Chinese behaviour in the Yellow Sea, you can see it in their behaviour towards Taiwan, you can see it in their behaviour towards Hong Kong, you can see it on our border as well.'
Banerjee tweeted that as a part of her "constant endeavour" towards women's empowerment, she was proud that half of the nominees were women.
'The government till now said that we did not want a meeting, now that we have specifically told them when, where and what of the meeting, there is no response from them'
Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad made this assertion outside Parliament while speaking to reporters and said the revocation of suspension of the Opposition Rajya Sabha MPs was not a demand, but a 'request'.
