This Women's Day Week, we pay tribute to the extraordinary courage, resilience, and leadership of three iconic Indian queens -- Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, Rani Chennamma of Kittur, and Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar of Malwa.
The BJP is leaning on Yogi's 'batenge to katenge' theme to weave a unifying narrative that transcends caste and communal lines.
'Unsurprisingly, Trump shared Modi's podcast with Fridman on his Truth account.' 'The intentions of Trump, a transactional president, are never easy to tell.' 'We will know in the next fortnight if and when he unfolds reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods, whether Modi's flattering words made any significant difference to Trump's compass,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A special quiz to mark the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi.
They all seem to forget that the Music Academy is as much an independent institution as T M Krishna is an individual musician. In drawing those red lines for the Academy management, they do not even seem to recognise that they too have crossed a red line themselves, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'See how much they lie, father is a Muslim, mother a Christian, son is Brahmin. How did it come?'
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
BIf you know this BJP, it will now go forward to Jharkhand and Maharashtra as if June 2024 never happened, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Where would a person living in the forest for 14 years go to find vegetarian food? Is it correct or not (question to the public)? Tell me when I am telling the truth'
'With passage of time, Kamal did move away from the humdrum of commercial cinema, using it only as a peg to launch a new concept or new technology, as no other actor/film-maker has done in Indian cinema.' N Sathiya Moorthy assesses the career and politics of movie legend Kamal Haasan on his 70th brthday.
Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday said women are all set to enter temples in Tamil Nadu as priests under the Dravidian model of governance.
'Will Muslims in large numbers react positively, especially in the context of the events of the last thirty years?' 'In the process, could Modi end up alienating his core supporters?' A fascinating excerpt from Jaithirth Rao's The Indian Conservative : A History of Indian Right-Wing Thought.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'Till today, the RSS only speaks of Hindu Rashtra but never explains what it means. It cannot, because it would be unacceptable to even a majority of Hindus, forget the Indian Muslims and Christians,' says Aakar Patel.
In an age of patents and intellectual property rights, it would be improper to deny that yoga comes from the Hindu tradition, says Sankrant Sanu.
Doomariyaganj MLA Sayeda Khatoon had on Sunday visited the Samay Mata temple at the invitation of the local people to participate in a Shatchandi Mahayagya.
'The problem of a Hindu rashtra is that it has no text which can be adapted to the modern world.' 'The most prominent element of the Hindu way of organising society and the State is through caste.' 'This is not acceptable to most Hindus.' 'Because a Hindu rashtra also erodes the power and the rights of the majority of Hindus, we can be assured that this is not something that the BJP, or any other force can do,' argues Aakar Patel.
Tamil Nadu is the celebrated home of the 'social justice' movement in the country, yet caste differences and violence has only been increasing in numbers and becoming more brutal in recent years, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Madras high court has ruled that pedigree based on caste will have no role to play in the appointment of archakas (priests) in temples and allowed trustees to appoint any person well-versed and qualified to perform the puja as per the requirements of the temple Agama.
While Governor Ravi's speeches have put the local BJP supporters on the defensive in matters of religion and social justice, his add-on 'attack on the constitutional scheme' in the 'Senthil Balaji case', has been condemned squarely by many legal experts and editorial writers across the country, thus adding weight to CM Stalin's position -- at least until the courts come up with their binding views, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
'Goa is a tiny state, but in terms of its Business of Politics, several powerful lobbies of India are involved in it, be it the mining lobby, hoteliers' lobby, casino lobby, hawala lobby, drugs lobby etc.'
Sacking Ajay Mishra would further antagonise Brahmins in UP already upset with Yogi's government.
Stalin's personal intervention in the Adheenam row may have contained the avoidable political damage and social tensions at least for now, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Udayanidhi has handed over to the BJP one real issue to draw the line between it and the INDIA alliance, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is increasingly clear that for the BJP to try and establish itself as an electoral force in Tamil Nadu, the party has to come out of the old Brahminical mould, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Shiv Sena and the Ambedkarites are two powerful social forces in Maharashtra with a presence in the toiling classes. However, they were made to fight each other by the powers that be. Now, they are joining hands while overcoming this contentious past.'
Political observers have said that the TMC, now desperate to shed the 'anti-Hindu' tag and embrace 'soft Hindutva', is carefully planning its moves, with help from poll strategist Prashant Kishor and team, as is evident from its decisions to organise Brahmin Sammelan, provide sops to Sanatan Brahmins, and financial aid to Durga puja committees.
'They were certainly not practising Hinduism in the Harappan culture (which includes Mohenjo Daro and other sites).' 'There was no notion of Hinduism then.'
A number of Indian diaspora organisations in the UK have issued letters objecting to the creation of a new cross-party parliamentary group for British Gujaratis, warning that the move could be "divisive".
'Education played the most significant role in entrenchment of Hindutva ideology in coastal Karnataka.' 'Teachers of most of the schools, junior colleges, degree colleges and universities are active agents of Hindutva propaganda.'
The aftermath of Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan has led to an argument that there was no religion as Hinduism in Chola times.
Instead, there was only Saivism, Vaishnavism, etc, and that the Cholas were Saivites, and hence not Hindus, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Wayanad will continue to support Rahul but not to the same extent as in 2019, when his margin of victory had been enormous. Articulate, to the point and speaking in fluent Malayalam, CPI's Annie Raja, had the people who gathered to see her, listening in rapt attention, notes Shyam G Menon.
New Delhi-based Samskrita Bharati has decided to take upon itself the task of cleaning up Indian languages and introducing Sanskrit as the mainstream language. Dinesh Kamath, the organisation's all-Bharat organising secretary, speaks to Vicky Nanjappa about the cause.
'Our study finds that only about 20% of Indians are vegetarians and the rest of the 80% are non-vegetarians or meat-eaters.'
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
