It begins with the position of All India Congress Committee member for which there was a price tag of Rs 1 lakh, followed by UPCC membership for Rs 50,000, District Congress Committee membership for Rs 5000 and Block Presidentship for Rs 20,000.
Stalin owes his victory this time, like in 2019, to the hate-campaign of the local Hindutva forces, which kept haranguing him, and even his dead father, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
True, Azam Khan is being targeted rather disproportionately and also because of his Muslim identity. That must be protested and resisted. But to say that he is a big messiah, and his profit-making educational enterprise is an issue concerning all Muslims of India, is absolutely unjustified, assert Mohammad Sajjad and Md Mohammad Zeeshan Ahmad.
'The state should be setting the pace for 21st century India; instead it is falling behind every day -- and its leaders apparently could not care less,' says T V R Shenoy.
Nayantara Patel lists four hotels to visit for the fabulous food they serve.
Publicly, India maintained it would not give Sri Lanka any offensive weapons. The Congress party obviously did not want the shadow of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict to fall on the politics of Tamil Nadu and needlessly complicate matters during the election campaign. A fascinating exclusive excerpt from Nitin Gokhale's new book, Sri Lanka: From War to Peace.
Most of India's reserves for war in the mountains have been sucked in by the standoff with China. A large part of India's airpower has also similarly been committed on the eastern border. By moving these reserves to the China border, India has been weakened vis-a-vis Pakistan. All in all, the nightmare scenario for India of a two-front war may well come true, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Khan elaborated, "Eighty percent of Muslims live outside the Arab world. Around 50 percent live in the Indian subcontinent. I think Obama didn't address the progressive Islamic people who think that their beliefs don't obstruct development and progress. He didn't address religious but progressive class of Muslims."
If things have come to such a pass in the heartland, which has some of the poorest parts of the country, blame the sustained failure of policing as well as of politics and development strategy. Now we have to deal with the consequences, and there are no soft options left.
Indian Intelligence agencies have drawn much flak for their glaring lack in communication that failed to preempt the 26/11 terror attacks last year. American intelligence agencies operating in South Asia also don't share information with each other, Massachusetts Democrat and Senator John F Kerry, who recently visited Indian, Pakistan and Afghanistan, revealed during a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.
The first presidential elections in Sri Lanka in the post-LTTE era evoked enthusiastic response on Tuesday from the voters who turned up in large numbers to decide the fate of incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and his ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka amid blasts in Tamil heartland of Jaffna. People started lining up even before the beginning of the polls, which opened across the country at 7:00 am. Voting will close at 4:00 pm.
The interim Budget has attempted to tick all the boxes that could help the Modi government return to power, reports Archis Mohan.
Gearing up the machinery ahead of the general elections, the full Election Commission will visit Uttar Pradesh and Bihar this week to review the poll readiness in these two key states in the Hindi heartland which together accounts for 120 seats.
Very few policy makers in India dare to acknowledge the danger to the nation's territorial integrity. The security and integrity of the nation has become hostage to vote-bank politics. Democracy and more than eight percent economic growth will be of no avail if the country as such withers away.
This must be the first time in India's history that it has found itself bracketed with countries in a category which political scientists will not rate very highly if only because the group recalls Nazi Germany as one of its most infamous past members, notes Amulya Ganguli.
'Pure, uncluttered anti-Modi-ism, however angry, can't be an ideology or an electoral alternative.' 'The best it can do for you is damage Mr Modi enough for him to finish below 200.' 'Can it enable you to cross 100 to begin with?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
The JMM-Cong-RJD alliance won 47 seats in 81-member assembly while the incumbent BJP managed to win only 25 seats. CM Das lost his seat to a party rebel despite giving the first full-term government to the state.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
At least 65 Tamil Tiger rebels and three soldiers were killed as Sri Lankan troops continued their offensive on the heartland of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, claiming that they have captured major portions of the key Mallavi town in Kilinochchi.Security forces marched into the town after heavy overnight fighting, which spilled over to today morning as government troops cleared major portions of the small town.
Reacting sharply to the political and economic resolutions passed in the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee convention at Kanpur, she said the Centre has not taken any decision regarding the Rs 80,000 crore package demanded for removal of economic backwardness of the Purvanchal and Bundelkhand areas of the state. "It shows how Congress was serious regarding the problems of the state," she said.
As things stand, both the UPA and the NDA may gain or lose 15-20 seats this way or that in 2009. In such a scenario, the role of the third pool of the non-Congress and non-BJP parties will become critical. The BSP is likely to lead the pack, even though Mayawati is not expected to go for pre-poll alignments.
'It is almost certain that in the absence of note-bandi, the party would have lost in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh,' points out Amulya Ganguli.
Results show that the BJP has fared poorly in rural regions, underlining the need for the party to challenge issues like farm distress and unemployment.
Soon after the Mumbai 26/11 attack, the nation was placed under high alert following a warning that the next attack could come from the air. Now there is a report which states that at least 10 trained pilots have entered into India in order to carry out air strikes and hijacks in the Indian heartland.
Claiming that rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were 'receiving an unprecedented defeat,' Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday vowed that government troops would flush out the Tigers from their Wanni heartlands in the north.
Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was on a three-day visit to Jharkhand as a state guest from February 17 to 19
This movie might involve the most 'acting' Khan has had to do in a while, says Raja Sen.
G M Banatwala's death plunged the Muslim League's circles in Kerala into gloom as he was part and parcel of the politics in the state. G M Banatwala, president of the League, died in Mumbai on Wednesday after a brief illness.
'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.
Perhaps the Indian establishment do not subscribe to the thesis that un-exhibited power is more potent. Innovative diplomacy and statesmanship with no nonsense approach is the need of the hour.
How an Indian company plans to woo America's heartland with its fuel-efficient SUVs and pickups.
'The prime minister and his colleagues thought the Bush administration's promises were as good as gold. But, as the Americans would now have you believe, gold is no better than bronze.'
If anything has become clear during this campaign, it is this: Mr Modi can bat on almost any wicket and hit the ball over the ropes, points out T N Ninan.
The counting of votes for the high-stakes assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur will begin at 8 am.
Maria Sharapova's French Open hopes were shredded by a familiar foe on Monday, while Roger Federer plunged a dagger into French hearts.
In Mandya, the heartland of Cauvery, protesters took out a march with 28 sheep, depicting them as members of parliament, decrying their silence.
The compulsions of the Hindutva vote bank over 25 years in Maharashtra have made the two parties the oldest ideological partners and it is unrealistic to believe the situation has changed, reports Sunil Gatade.
More than 20 national leaders will attend the meeting, TMC sources said. Most of them have already arrived in Kolkata.
Amid rumblings in the Bharatiya Janata Party over Bihar poll rout and attack on its leadership by party veterans, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday strongly defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah, saying they cannot be held responsible for the defeat.
Opposition parties have slammed the decision to change the long-standing practice, alleging it was being done with an eye on the assembly polls in five states.
