The 61-year-old feisty leader, who had single-handedly wrecked the red bastion in West Bengal in 2011, was unfazed by the Left-Congress alliance ahead of the assembly polls.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mouthpiece 'Organiser' has justified the action taken against a Dalit students body by IIT, Madras, and claimed educational campuses are "afflicted with red ideology."
Shashi Tharoor speaks to Shobha Warrier on the controversy over his article seen as praising Narendra Modi and what the future holds for the Congress and Rahul Gandhi.
'Indian democracy has become an oxymoron.I am hopeful that more people will boycott this politics of perversion and hatred and realise that this isn't sustainable for our great nation to prosper.
The Sabarimala Karma Samiti, a platform of right-wing outfits, including VHP, appealed to media houses not to depute women journalists in the menstrual age group to cover the developments in Sabarimala.
'One big leader said you might get 3 lakh votes and still lose.' 'I said if I do I will make sure you are sleepless because it will be me and three lakh people.'
At the black-tie event, Obama satirised everyone from Democrats to Republicans and from media to his potential White House successors, including Hillary Clinton.
'The BJP should avoid escalating every local issue and minor provocation into a national crisis and claiming a 'holier than thou' monopoly on patriotism.' 'And the Opposition should avoid paying the government back in the same coin by crying wolf about intolerance at the slightest provocation.'
General V K Singh's remarks elicited sharp reactions from political parties as well as a media body.
Denouncing the protest march in the Jawaharlal Nehru University against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on Friday said that the nation will never tolerate "insult" to mother India.
Aseem Chhabra introduces us to the best of Berlinale.
It was Obama's eighth and final address to the UN General Assembly as the US President
Jammu and Kashmir police Wednesday evening filed an FIR against hardline separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Masarat Alam Bhat and other separatist leaders 'for provocative activities and hoisting Pakistan flag' in summer capital Srinagar.
However, Trump sought to dismiss the charges by saying that these "Washington elites" should look for answers on why the world has become a mess.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya questioned the president's decision to suspend parliament till November 16, saying it will have "serious and undesirable" consequences on the country.
She said she will go to Ayodhya on Wednesday and visit the makeshift temple to seek Ram Lalla's blessings.
United States President Barack Obama said goodbye to his nation in an emotional address enriched with wisdom and optimism.
'Although I am from a different party, I would support this government if they draft an unambiguous section to replace 66A. That is the need of the hour, not from the government's point of view, but from the netizens's point of view,' says former IT minister Milind Deora, in this column exclusive to Rediff.com
'If Mahatma Gandhi could fight to eradicate corruption at the age of 78, why can't I try at 60?'
A Congress-led opposition on Tuesday came together seeking to pin down the government on the demonetisation issue in the winter session of Parliament beginning tomorrow but a consenses eluded on Trinamoll Congress's proposed march to Rashtrapati Bhawan for meeting the President.
Modi hit out at the UPA government for allegedly 'blocking' surgical strikes post 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008.
While Congress criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government for being "insensitive", saying yoga, a great discipline of ancient India, does not belong to the saffron party, Janata Dal-United termed it as yet another attempt to "impose the communal agenda" on Indian masses.
Maharashtra police on Tuesday raided the homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them for suspected Maoist links. Near simultaneous searches were carried out at the residences of prominent Telugu poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Farreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad, and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in New Delhi. Subsequently, Rao, Bhardwaj and Farreira were arrested. Although Navalakha was also arrested, the Delhi high court ordered police not to take him out of the national capital at least until Wednesday. According to unconfirmed reports, others whose residences were raided are Susan Abraham, Kranthi Tekula, Father Stan Swamy in Ranchi and Anand Teltumbde in Goa. The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year. Here are their brief profiles:
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan dashed off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention for repealing the measure. He said the Centre's decision amounts to an "intrusion" to the rights of the states in the country's federal structure.
'People are losing their freedom to eat, speak, write and practise their religion.' 'All that is said in the Constitution has been taken away.' 'Does every Muslim or Christian or Hindu have to say I am a patriot every morning and repeat it in the afternoon and at night?'
A major slugfest erupted on Thursday over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Chandan Mitra's demand for stripping Nobel laureate Amartya Sen of the Bharat Ratna award and the economist offering to return it if Atal Bihari Vajpayee asks him to do so.
'Alok Verma can say he was helpless, but he could have made representations to the CVC, the Chief Justice of India or the prime minister in writing.' 'He could have told them that his number 2 was not cooperating and is corrupt, but he did not do that.' 'He acted arbitrarily and in a hurried manner, overnight.'
'Slightly more than 50 per cent of all Keralites are Hindus. If we can unite as many as we can, we can create a huge difference in the political scene in Kerala.'
'We are a national party that wants to remind people about Bharatiya sanskruti, which, at the moment, is being remote-controlled by an Italian lady and her agents,' says former Union minister O Rajagopal, the BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram who will challenge Shashi Tharoor.
'The objective is not to make India into a one religion place, but to ensure that there is harmonious and peaceful co-existence of all faiths with each of them having their cultural personality.'
The army said it was targeting 'criminals around Mugabe' who have sent the nation spinning into economic despair.
'Under Justice Gogoi's tenure, the Supreme Court has gone from an institution that was at least formally committed to the protection of individual rights as its primary task, to an institution that speaks the language of the executive, and has become indistinguishable from the executive,' warns Gautam Bhatia.
'Many people thought that a Hindu nationalist party's government would take bold steps vis-a-vis Kashmir. But sadly their approach has been led by military and security priorities.' 'We would suggest to India that she initiate the dialogue following the Vajpayee model. That is the way forward. Otherwise, there is a looming threat. We are seeing educated youth joining militancy.'
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
'We cannot capture the mind space of today's youth by evoking past sacrifices. Politics is about hope; hope for the future. The Congress hankers about the past too much.'
It was the first reasonably free and fair national election held there since 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi's fledgling National League for Democracy won a landslide victory.
From triple talaq to simultaneous polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday touched upon the various issues n his monthly 'Mann ki Baat' radio address.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Friday attacked External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid for his criticism of the Election Commission and the Supreme Court, accusing him of denigrating the country's two most respected institutions on the foreign soil.
'Modi should not feel shy of proclaiming as the meaning of secularism regard for all religions in proportion to their numbers in tune with the spirit of democracy and adopting it as State policy,' says B S Raghavan.
New Delhi has repeatedly missed opportunities for political engagement in Kashmir in the past. It must seize the next one, says Ajai Shukla.
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