'The new generation voter is hyper-nationalistic, but it isn't essentially illiberal.' 'They will find the rants of Adityanath as laughable as Irfan Habib's. They will also find the BJP's polarising approach to vote-gathering unacceptable if it fails to deliver jobs and growth,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Three key babus will make room for a new set of officers to carry the baton of Budget programmes.
'In India a strong leader with a majority has never yet been defeated by a challenger.' 'He (or she, as with Indira Gandhi in 1977) must defeat himself,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Not all Opposition parties on board, say they are once bitten, twice shy.
'Her elevation in public life signified the end of parochial extremism and hate on a casteist basis.'
'With 27 days to go, the total bank deposits has come tantalisingly close to the Rs 14 lakh crores of banned notes which was in the financial system on November 8.' 'Black money hoarders may have actually laundered their black money into white,' argues Rajeev Sharma.
'If the leadership gets wrong information, what results you can expect?'
'The autonomy of essential institutions is clearly under question as the Modi government seeks to influence them politically.' 'The credibility of institutions such as the EC, the CBI, the CVC, the UPSC, the RBI, media, and universities, has been compromised,' notes Zoya Hasan, the distinguished political thinker.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on his first trip to New York as leader of the world's most populous democracy, will draw perhaps the largest crowd ever by a foreign leader on US soil when he takes the stage on Sunday in Madison Square Garden before a crowd forecast to total more than 18,000 people.
'I suspect the recovery that the banks are going to get out of this IBC is not going to be more than 30 per cent.' 'If you leave the steel industry aside, the recovery rates are not looking very, very healthy,' Jairam Ramesh tells the Rajya Sabha.
'Gujarat should have been a breeze. But the Patidar agitation and economic uncertainty queered the pitch.' 'Yes, the BJP won and its rank-and-file will take great comfort in the assembly victory. But the leadership is taking stock for a very tricky set of elections coming up in 2018.'
'Modi remains the most popular politician in India; the BJP's organisational and fundraising prowess is considerable; and the Opposition, while newly collaborative, has no leader or clear economic messaging as of yet.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the passage of bills as a "momentous occasion" in parliamentary democracy and said a new dawn awaits the people there as they are now free from the "shackles" of vested interest groups.
Making it clear that there will be no change in the reservation policy for Dalits, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asserted that nobody can snatch their right even as he accused his opponents of spreading "untruths" on the issue.
'In an alliance, you are forced to overlook loyal workers.' 'It sends a negative message and workers turn against the party.' 'I have forbidden this alliance.'
Delhi's ritzy Terminal 3 is on the global top 5 list on social media and the first among Asian airports on social media.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni's leadership as well as finishing skills will be put through a stern test when an inconsistent India take on a rejuvenated New Zealand in the series-deciding fifth and final cricket ODI in Visakhapatnam on Saturday. With the series locked at 2-2, Dhoni and his men will be eager to clinch the issue while history beckons Kane Williamson's men as they have a glorious opportunity to taste their maiden success in a bilateral ODI rubber. The only thing that can play spoilsport is the cyclone threat which can lead to complete washout.
ICICI Bank was the top gainer after stable rating for its senior unsecured bonds by S&P Global Ratings.
Who are the men the prime minister relies on to execute his impressive agenda?
Despite criticism of a lack of transparency and communication from the Modi-led government, BJP leaders point to "good beginnings" on several fronts to defend its performance. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com reports.
'The Reserve Bank's independence has remained a work in progress, an enduring challenge that the nation has been grappling with on an ongoing basis,' says RBI Deputy Governor Dr Viral Acharya.
No one on that glittery occasion could possibly have imagined that the Chinese were conspiring to invade India, nor could anyone have predicted that the seemingly benign Dalai Lama was plotting to flee Tibet and seek asylum in India. A fascinating excerpt from Sukanya Rahman's must-read Dancing In The Family: The Extraordinary Story Of The First Family Of Indian Classical Dance.
All the IPL 10 numbers, from Rajneesh Gupta.
Police and paramilitary security forces, including sharpshooters, have been deployed at the MOFA to deal with any untoward security situation, they said.
Gandhi on Friday chaired his first CWC meeting after being elected as the party chief.
A Delhi court on Wednesday allowed the Delhi Police to conduct lie-detector test on three "suspects" in the Sunanda Pushkar murder case.
'The challenges of the world are too great for any one religious tradition to address alone... The best way to learn about other religions is not from books, but from people... Go talk to someone from a different faith tradition. Get to know them. Build up some trust.' Dr Katharine Rhodes Henderson, who jointly won Hofstra University's Guru Nanak Prize for inter-faith champions in the United States, discusses religion and the challenges of extremism in this lively interview with Rediff.com's Arthur J Pais.
Desis at Madison Square Garden welcomed Narendra Modi with the kind of gusto and reverence unprecedented for any Indian leader visiting the United States.
The Union Health ministry put the number of positive cases at 82, eight more since Thursday night, which includes the woman and a 76-year-old man from Karnataka who became the country's first coronavirus fatality besides 17 foreign nationals, Health Ministry officials said.
'We are moving away from the path of democracy and towards Hindu religious dictatorship,' scientist P M Bhargava, who announced his decision to return the Padma Bhushan, tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
"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.
MUST READ: The speech Nayantara Sahgal was not allowed to give.
The Asian markets are largely trading in the green, taking heart from a positive close on Wall Street.
'We should become an all-encompassing entertainment and information destination," says chairman Subhash Chandra, who monitors the group on a monthly basis, leaving the day-to-day operations to the chief executive officers.
'If 25 black men had been executed illegally in the US in one day, the government would have fallen and the population would have rallied to the victims. In India, those of us who did not applaud the police only yawned,' says Aakar Patel.
Biju Janata Dal members had staged a walk-out while NDA ally Shiv Sena did not participate in the voting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inducted 19 new ministers into his Cabinet on Tuesday has carried out major changes in the portfolios of his top ministers.
While Rajnath Singh said secularism was the most misused word in politics, Sonia alleged that ideals and principles of the Constitution were under threat and being attacked deliberately
'She dwarfs every known politician of recent times with her imperious aura, iron will, tremendous drive, dauntless pursuit of goals she set before herself, ability to capture the people's imagination and unshakeable grip over her party and government,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
