Though the BJP is running too close for comfort, populist schemes and support among Muslims may help Mamata Banerjee overcome the challenge, observes Aditi Phadnis.
"I will miss his tantrums" is what Congress president Sonia Gandhi said while bidding farewell to Pranab Mukherjee from the Congress Working Committee at a meeting which formally approved his name as the United Progressive Alliance's presidential nominee in June 2012.
Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said India has lost one of the finest political leaders and a legal luminary.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena were on Sunday trying to make last ditch efforts to salvage their alliance in Maharashtra for the upcoming Assembly polls after the Uddhav Thackeray's final offer of giving 119 seats to the coalition partner was rejected.
Modi, Shah and Nadda have created a strategy to boost the BJP and the government's image.
The Election Commission sent a notice to Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the BJP's Mumbai chief. This is probably because a leading newspaper highlighted his utterances on its front page.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Saturday appeared to snipe at party colleague Sushma Swaraj for opposing entry of Karnataka leader B Sriramalu, saying the "relatively marginal issues" of who is in or who is out are diverting the attention from the core issues of governance.
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The India-Pakistan relationship is in a deep freeze, though it could be a lot worse had there not been a new LoC ceasefire a year ago.' 'The India-Pakistan relationship will only start to thaw if the Pakistani military decides it's prepared to push for detente.'
The accent on 'making the south feel wanted' was the reason why P Muralidhar Rao, who was dropped as general secretary, was partially reinstated in the central apparatus as prabhari in charge of Madhya Pradesh. 'Pressure from the RSS was brought to bear on Rao's return,' a source said. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
'We have not had one discussion on the border incursions or the subsequent report of the building of Chinese villages on Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh.'
'Nehru once told JRD, "I hate the mention of the very word profit".' '"Jawaharlal, I am talking about the need of the public sector making a profit!" JRD replied.' 'Nehru reiterated, "Never talk to me about the word profit, it is a dirty word".' A fascinating excerpt from Shashank Shah's The Tata Group: From Torchbearers To Trailblazers.
After the historic win of Bhartiya Janta Partyin Uttar Pradesh elections on Saturday, the talk about the face of chief minister candidate is the next question.
India's real risk is not that crony populism would fail, but that it would succeed, consolidating a path that is fundamentally a trap, both in terms of social inequalities and long-term growth, says Michael Walton.
Amit Malviya has been pilloried for allegedly threatening journalists, indulging in fake news and generally bringing a bad name to his party.
'At this moment, the Trinamool has an edge.'
In the event of a triangular contest the winning party will need about 40 per cent of the votes polled. And it is here that the votes of the numerically smaller communities will come into play.
'Maybe the BJP believes, in the post-poll scenario, it will have the might to foist, anybody endorsed by the RSS, upon Bihar,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
It is Air India's only profitable subsidiary. In 2016-17, it clocked a profit of over Rs 33.4 crore, earning Rs 620 crore in revenues from its handling operations.
BMS allies with breakaway faction of Congress-affiliated INTUC. This marks a new chapter in India's trade union movement
Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson in the ministry of external affairs, said India welcomed that the people of Pakistan have reposed their faith in democracy through general elections.
Amid indication that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is unlikely to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit in Sri Lanka, the external affairs ministry on Saturday said no decision has been taken on the visit, which has been opposed by parties in Tamil Nadu as well as a section in Congress.
Does Pranab Mukherjee want to be 'PM' by office, not just by initials? The very prospect, with memories of the Narasimha Rao years scarred into their memories, scares the Nehru-Gandhis, says T V R Shenoy.
Air Commodore Nitin Sathe discovers how the IAF trained Pakistani air force pilots, during the 1971 War, which led to the birth of the Bangladesh air force.
The government said that the unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable.
'He should bring in a working president from outside the family.'
"The policy draft has been approved. The ministry has been renamed as education ministry," a senior HRD ministry official said. The existing NEP was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992. A new education policy was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto ahead of the 2014 general election.
'Today, there is pervasive fear in society; an uncertainty of what might happen.' 'This has forced Muslims to shrink further into mental ghettos, with many considering extreme measures like pretending to change their identity.'
Buying Yahoo's assets would expand DailyMail.com's reach and improve its digital ad rev
'Today, the State is permanently going after politicians, but also civil society, academics and all those it is threatened by or irritated with.'
As a step to protect its interest as a lender, SBI will look at the financial stability and corporate governance practices in companies where it has exposure.
'This is what Hindu Rashtra looks like, which has been enabled by conditions of democracy.'
Chirag Paswan says his party's support to BJP is issue-based.
he United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan, to get to terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base, from which attacks could be continued against the United States.
Important for India was Xi's meeting with representatives of PLA officers and soldiers stationed in Tibet. The video of the encounter was interesting to watch, especially the large number of lieutenant generals and major generals, observes Claude Arpi.
Sources say given the complexity involved in the process of creating a holding company, which will ultimately be the parent company of banking and other businesses, banks are going slow in acquiring stakes in insurance arms or mutual funds of other lenders.
As states grapple with a shortage of coronavirus vaccines, the Centre on Thursday said that over two billion doses will be made available in the country in five months between August and December, enough to vaccinate the entire population.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
"We want good ties with all neighbours including India and Afghanistan," he told the Senators.
The one simple fact is that a government can be remote controlled but not an opposition. It needs to be kept on its toes, all the time enthusing its ranks to believe that it would win back the government in time. Would Rahul Gandhi be up to this challenge and provide proof that he does have the stuff, asks Mahesh Vijapurkar.
