Modi earned his spurs as a doughty leader of the Opposition in the assembly, a post he held till 2004 when he got elected to the Lok Sabha from Bhagalpur.
It's time India re-visited its Western alliances for the attitude and approach that the West reserves for the nation when it comes to security cooperation of the kind that they might not have visualised outside of China, India's bug-bear, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Trinamool Congress on Friday secured absolute majority in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, winning 163 seats and leading in 23 others as results of 264 seats have been declared so far.
Expressing 'pain' over opposition parties boycotting the Constitution Day event organised by the Lok Sabha secretariat on Friday, speaker Om Birla said staying away from such non-partisan events held by Parliament is not good for the health of democracy.
The Congress expressed its 'whole-hearted' support to the 'Bharat bandh' called by farmer unions against the new agri-marketing laws and announced that it will hold protests that day at all district and state headquarters in solidarity with the demands of the farmers. TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the party rank and file would actively participate in the bandh to ensure it was a success.
Tabled by Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, the legislation will reverse the effect of the Supreme Court verdict in May that gave the Delhi government power over administrative services.
"We condemn this and resolve to continue and intensify our collective fight against the anti-people, anti-farmer, anti-Constitution policies of the Modi 'sarkar' that is destroying the social fabric of our society," they also said in the statement.
Stating that both the CPI and RSP would not vote, CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy asserted, "the author of the economic policies was Pranab Mukherjee. The wide chasm created between the rich and poor is the handiwork of Mukherjee as a Finance Minister".
George Fernandes' underground crusade against the Emergency catapulted him among the leading opposition figures.
Uncertain political times in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura.
Cracks appeared in West Bengal's ruling Left Front as the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), one of its constituents, on Tuesday withdrew its support to the Congress-led Siliguri Corporation.
Let's look at the major winners and losers in Bengal polls
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Tipra Motha has decided to go solo and hopes to sweep the 20 tribal-dominated seats that hold the key to power in the northeastern state that has a 60-member assembly.
Apart from around 100 MPs of the Congress, leaders of several opposition parties including Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party attended the meeting.
Left parties have kick-started their pre-poll exercise with their top leaders deciding to woo 'secular' parties in both the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance to join forces and provide an alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
'It is not his doing, but Rahul Gandhi is forced by circumstances.' 'In taking political decisions, everything has to get his clearance.'
The BJP at 43 is a work in progress, with total ideological continuity and much substantive change in political method and style, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
It is likely that the party's allies in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, two of the five states going to the polls in April-May, might insist on allocating fewer seats than they did in 2016, reports Archis Mohan.
It is thanks to the policy of liberalisation conceived by Manmohan Singh and enforced by P V Narasimha that the Indian economy has now become the world's 5th largest economy by nominal GDP, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The black bands were worn as a mark of protest against the alleged attack on the Constitution of India with the passage of the amended citizenship act by the government, leaders said.
'This silence is an eloquent testimony to the fact that such private armed mobs enjoy the luxury of official patronage'
Will Malik's worldview, shaped by his years with the socialists, Charan Singh, the Congress and V P Singh, help him govern the troubled state? Or would his rule have the imprint of the party he joined in the latter years of his chequered political career?
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
'It will be the end of the Congress after the Lok Sabha election.' 'Many Congressmen and even Communists will move to the BJP.'
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
An ardent admirer of the 'Father of the Nation", Mahatma Gandhi, he had actively participated in the Quit India movement.
In an era when the misguided youth of today are trying to build political careers by subscribing to divisive ideologies, they need to look to independent thinking icons such as Acharya Kripalani, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Gandhi, then a newly appointed Congress chief, had staked claim to form the government at the Centre after the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had lost the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 1999.
Narendra D Modi and his party campaigned in these elections uncharacteristically without any big ideas. Of course, winning each election at all costs could be a big idea as well, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Vora was admitted to the Escorts Hospital in Okhla a few days ago with a urinary infection. He also had a lung infection and was put on ventilator support, his family said.
A statement from the Fortis Memorial Research Institute said Yadav was brought to the emergency ward in an unconscious and unresponsive state.
'My role will be to take her message across the country.'
Tamil Nadu is the celebrated home of the 'social justice' movement in the country, yet caste differences and violence has only been increasing in numbers and becoming more brutal in recent years, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Opposition parties on Tuesday asked the government to call an all-party meeting to resolve the current impasse in Parliament, while sticking to their demands for a discussion on Pegasus snooping issue and a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the matter.
Given the vital role played by cyberspace in new-age electioneering, the UP police have constituted a digital monitoring cell to curb objectionable and defamatory social media posts on the eve of the elections.
