Presenting NaMo's various avatars. Vote and tell us which one is your favourite!
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Piyush Goyal's comments about Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's investment in India reveals an inability to understand how businesses function, says Kanika Datta.
'China is constantly probing India's weaknesses.' 'The challenge is to implement a strategy that will allow India to buy time, gather its strength, and eventually counter China,' recommends Harsh V Pant and Vinay Kaura.
'The time has come to substitute the present Constitutional set-up with an alternative democratic framework,' argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Do actors really look like the real life people they portray on screen? It's time to have *your* say!
'The BJP's real pain lies in the fact that all their skullduggery and chicanery has failed to cow down the Shiv Sena. They just cannot digest this fact.'
'...for three hours to the seven or eight of us who spoke at the meeting.' 'Talking together and allowing us to express our thoughts on these important issues is a good beginning.'
Debates on changing the name of India to Bharat continue to spark a crisis of identity without answering moot questions that stare us in the face. Ramesh Menon asks a few of those questions that do not have easy answers.
'If Modi-Shah had not changed the leadership, one section would have parted ways with the BJP for sure.'
'Modi is imposing himself as the face of Gujarat to send a message that people should not forget that a Gujarati is prime minister.'
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
'If Mayawati had performed better, then the BJP would have had a much tougher time to win UP.' 'The present gap in number of seats between the BJP and SP would have got reduced.'
The clarification by Delhi University's registrar Tarun Das came amid the raging controversy over Modi's educational qualifications with the Aam Aadmi Party continuing to question genuiness of the BA degree.
Whether it took the corona crisis to bring about the transformation, or otherwise, the change ought to be welcome, notes Virendra Kapoor.
'So we had Akshay Kumar dressed up like Robert Vadra on his offday, and trying to not look fan-struck...'
'... to Imran Khan, that there's not going to be any mediation of any meaningful sort given his (Modi's) special relationship with Trump.'
'Modi's first foreign trip at the very outset of his second term as PM reinforces a growing impression that this regional tour underscores a shift in emphasis in India's foreign policy that was traditionally focused on the northern tier of countries to the Indian Ocean rim,' explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
'Doklam was almost like a trailer to what is happening in Ladakh today.' 'Modi failed to take note and failed to act,' observes Harishchandra Dighe.
'Modi, with his sharply honed political savvy and undoubted grasp of international affairs, is a past master at taking the measure of world leaders.' 'He would be the last person to think of the unpredictable and not too well-regarded Trump as the mediator,' says B S Raghavan.
Modi will have limited choice other than stressing upon a request for more time to decide on tariff rates, especially with elections in 2019.
Four decades of federal evolution made India more secure, but coronavirus is reversing that. Modi's central government has tasted power again and is unlikely to give it up, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Mahinda Rajapaksa is a democratically elected leader who received a massive mandate of 71% of votes, and he owes nothing to Delhi or Washington for staging his political comeback, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The finance minister's assertion that industry should not expect any spectacular announcements in the 2024 interim Budget suggest that the electoral imperatives of more tax concessions or higher expenditure on welfarist programmes could be far less pronounced than they were before the 2019 interim Budget, expects A K Bhattacharya.
'303 seats ki sarkar has problems with a cartoonist.'
'The BJP would like to capitalise on Yogi's tough image on criminals, law and order situation, and hands-on CM.' 'Modi will be an additional advantage, but it is primarily a contest between Yogi and Akhilesh.'
An S-400 unit located near Delhi for protecting the capital would be able to shoot down Pakistani aircraft even before they cross the border to India, and Chinese aircraft while they were still in Tibetan or Nepalese air space.
Change will have to begin with Mr Modi, who by all accounts has shown little active interest in macro-economic issues, preferring instead to focus on the effective implementation of projects and programmes, points out T N Ninan.
If the bribe-for-PPE-supply controversy in Himachal escalates, the BJP could have a lot to lose.
'If the BJP doesn't want to accept the will of the people, then we will show them what a majority means.'
Modi is seen as exceptional not only on account of his acts but also owing to his style. He appears to sacrifice his life for the people -- like a fakir, a figure he came to epitomize even more in 2020 by growing a long white beard. Charisma is above accountability, and Modi has grasped these dynamics.
'In this country, if any government acquires one of these images -- anti-farmer, or anti-poor or corrupt -- the government doesn't survive.' 'The Modi government is fast acquiring that anti-farmer image, that is why it is nervous.'
Is anyone in the BJP listening -- to what Nitin Gadkari had to say, but possibly left unsaid? asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com lists 11 Modi flagship schemes that may have been gamechangers in the Lok Sabha election.
'In the Indian context it is not easy for rival parties to come together, especially pre-elections.' 'Having pulled it off, they should be taken seriously.'
'In his first speech in Parliament, Modi spoke about the slavery of 1,400 years, and though he didn't say in so many words, the meaning was that he had come to re-establish a Hindu Rashtra.'
'When they completely surrender to the BJP or the BJP has completely taken over the party, what's the point in the AIADMK surviving and doing business in the state?'
'Life has been full of rewards, full of sadness.'
