Chandrakant Sompura has either planned, designed, built or renovated over a hundred temples in India and abroad.
'Whoever thought that building toilets and providing free rations to the poorest of poor Indians would give Modi a halo other political leaders would envy?' asks Sheela Bhatt.
'...it gets a survey report that they are going to lose elections.' 'The fear of losing elections will make them immediately conduct a caste census.'
'If Kerala votes back the LDF, if Tamil Nadu brings the DMK and if Bengal votes for the Trinamool, we will project a formidable opposition to the BJP.'
'I accept that huge responsibility very humbly.'
The BJP continuing to look at the Dravidian polity through the religious prism has not worked in Tamil Nadu whereas it has yielded political and electoral results across much of the rest of the country, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The politics of Goa is moving around a sole entity, which is land.'
BJP leader Ram Madhav's rant about Vice President Hamid Ansari's absence at the International Yoga Day celebrations goes deeper, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf, deep into their brain.
One of prominent religious leaders of South India, the 88-year old Swamiji was admitted to a hospital at Manipal a few days ago for breathing difficulty and his end came on Sunday morning, they said.
'I welcome Droupadi Murmu as the first Adivasi woman President of India, but her track record has not been good as a politician and governor of Jharkhand when it came to helping Adivasis,' points out activist Gladson Dungdung.
'I stand by what I said. It is understandable that Rushdie got angry and called me names. But it also means it hurt him because there was some truth in what I said.'
'People are questioning these highways and expressways in UP because ultimately, they want to get bread and butter first.'
'Aurangzeb supported construction of the Kumarswamy math and the reconstruction of the Kedar temple and supported the Jangambadi math in Banaras.'
Meenakshi Sundareshwar is a Basu Chatterjee slice-of-life packaged in a glossy ad film whose source of heart are its two genuinely likeable leads, feels Sukanya Verma.
Caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra.
'If Mr Modi continues growing as a Hindu Hriday Samrat, better that it is done by restoring ancient temples than demolishing medieval mosques,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The DMK feels its genuine gestures have had no bearing on the governor's politico-administrative conduct, which is 'more political and politicised than administrative and Constitutional', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP announced names of 107 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
'If the Opposition does make a dent, it could encourage the efforts of regional parties to come together for the larger battle in 2024 and mark the beginning of a new anti-BJP politics.'
Nearly 50 years after Tamil Nadu government legalised "self-respect" marriages which are conducted without a priest the Madras High Court has upheld the amendment made in the year 1968 to simplify Hindu marriages.
The TMC expects to emerge victorious by way of a majority of minority votes and a minority of majority votes, notes Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer.
'The continuing crisis in agriculture, the inability of successive governments to provide secure jobs to millions of youths having varying degrees of skills, and fragmentation of politics have created a sense of despondency.'
The caste census has already become a hot-button issue. Unless settled earlier, it will echo loudly in the coming assembly elections and eventually in the 2024 parliamentary poll, notes Virendra Kapoor.
'Tipu Sultan was no doubt a valiant fighter who vigorously opposed the British, but that cannot mitigate the fact that he was also by all accounts a religious bigot -- a figure incompatible with modern secular times,' says Vivek Gumaste.
The second part of BJP president Amit Shah's interview to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
'These people want to create fissures among the Hindus and they have been trying to do this for quite sometime.'
The imprudent, not to mention immature, attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Congress leaders, especially on the election trail, can only be read as a sign of nerves on the eve of an important poll battle.
Bowing to intense pressure from Hindu groups and political parties both at home and abroad, Nepal's Maoist government on Wednesday reversed its decision to replace the Indian priests at the Himalayan country's most revered Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu with the local Brahmins. The announcement was made by Prime Minister Prachanda during a special address to Parliament telecast live by the state-run television.
Muttemwar, who hails from Vidarbha region, told PTI that the video in circulation was distorted.
'Muslims know they cannot defeat the BJP, why then come in its firing range?' 'And they know, ultimately it is the BJP MLA who is going to get elected and only he or she can do their work.' 'The BJP may do a different kind of politics for Muslims, but when they sit in the chair they work for Muslims too.'
Claiming that the BJP's government's works in the three holy cities are only follow-ups of her government's initiatives, Mayawati went on to promise, in what is being seen as a subtle shift towards soft Hindutva ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, to complete all those work on time.
'Isn't it tragic, comic as well as ironic that the people who owe their allegiance to the Constitution of India are declared deshdrohis without an iota of evidence?' 'But this mistake has to be corrected and those who actually and directly fomented the Bhima Koregaon riots and the masterminds behind these people will have to be exposed now.'
'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
"The government recruitment is frozen. Where are the jobs?" the minister said.
Tarun Vijay visits 20 Durga Puja pandals in five towns in Bangladesh and comes back impressed.
A California commission -- mandated with recommendation and revision of school text books -- has rejected demands of replacing India with South Asia for pre-1947 references
'In a country like India, it is clear that respecting religions -- in politics or in the kitchen -- is disastrous,' says Amberish K Diwanji.
There is a deep-seated sense of rejection that the new generation Tamil youth have felt for a decade and more now, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The cow can always be the CAUSE.' 'Cause for murder. Cause for setting India's people against each other.' 'Not recognising the fact that this can tip the country into an unending spiral of civil strife and set the much-vaunted 'India story' back by years is the ultimate stupidity of all,' says Shuma Raha.
Joshi had reportedly said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP MP Uma Bharti and Hindu activist Sadhvi Ritambhara are from "lower castes" and know nothing of Hinduism.
