'Modi's power rests on the Hindu vote.' 'It is this vote bank that sees the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala as an intrusion into its religious practice and is frothing at the mouth.' 'History shows us the ill-fated consequences of a strong government buckling before street power,' cautions Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The Opposition parties need to spell out how exactly they will protect the citizen from government excess, asserts T N Ninan.
Streedhan refers to gifts, money or property that a woman receives before her marriage, at the time of her marriage, during childbirth or widowhood, primarily from her parents, relatives or in-laws.
'Nehru's inability to take religion seriously as a category led to serious errors of judgement in his dealings with the Muslim League, and later, also with the Hindu right.'
'Why is the government in such a hurry?' 'The answer is the December assembly elections and the 2019 general election.'
Its workers are on their toes to win over the voters once again, with idea of 'Amrit Kaal'.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
The party plans elaborate year-long celebrations to commemorate his 125th birth anniversary next year. Kavita Chowdhury reports
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.
Introducing UCC is a challenging task for any government. The complexities are real and difficult to negotiate as it deals with sensitive religious and cultural sentiments. How can it strike an easy balance between individual rights and community interests?, asks Ramesh Menon.
'Although Narendra Modi had no direct participation in the Ayodhya agitation, he would not have been in the dominant position he is now had it not been for the Ram Janambhoomi agitation.'
By changing the nation's name from India to Bharat, would this landmass overnight lose the emotional and cultural linkage that had been built over generations, centuries and millennia, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I came for my national service. I am the son of people like Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel, Dr Ambedkar and Maulana Azad.'
The Akali Dal is convinced that Waris Punjab De and Amritpal Singh are part of a bigger plan to create a law and order problem in the state, leading to the imposition of central rule and even the exclusion of Punjab from the Lok Sabha polls as was done in 1991.
'Is Ansari flagging a genuine concern? Is a rectification called for?' 'And finally: Do minorities matter?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
Awful religious practices need to be abolished. But through social and political reformers, not by courts, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Right actions might help reduce this trust deficit. But what we have today is over- enthusiastic vigilante groups targeting minorities over beef or 'love jihad', against whom the government does little apart from meek condemnation, says Utkarsh Misgra.
The mood in the tribal heartland in the east and in central India spread over Odisha, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and parts of West Bengal and Assam, is upbeat.
''Laws are made for every citizen to get justice.' 'If there is abuse of law, then the law will have its own course correction mechanism also.'
'I hope he will continue to be what he is. And doing so, he won't be much different from those whose example he is being given right now,' says Utkarsh Mishra.
'Section 153A is not meant to protect fragile sentiments of the majority Hindu community who choose to get offended by slogans celebrating the success of the Pakistani cricket team.'
'If you prove that a mandir was demolished and a mosque was constructed there, we will leave the place.'
A fast-track court in Haryana's Faridabad on Wednesday convicted two men in connection with the murder of Nikita Tomar, five months after she was shot outside her college in a crime caught on camera.
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.
'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.
'It is a reassertion of their lost martial stride, of a history that is papered over by turning it into a memory largely of the upper castes.'
Mohammad Sajjad profiles Professor Riazur Rahman Sherwani, 94, versatile mind, intrepid intellectual.
BJP would observe the next 10 days -- from Sunday to September 17, the birthday of the PM -- as 'seva parva'.
'It is not that I don't want to say "Jai Shri Ram".' I only said I will not say this slogan under any pressure.'
'The government know very well how to pass a bill in the Rajya Sabha with consensus.' 'They got consensus from Opposition parties on the 10 percent reservation for economically weaker sections.' 'In instant triple talaq, the BJP wanted to take sole credit.' 'They wanted to take credit and see that other parties suffer (political) loss.' 'Therefore, the bill got stuck.'
A leader of Shiv Sena, a constituent of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance at the Centre, on Monday accused the Narendra Modi government of "compromising" on Hindutva issues and termed BJP's coalition with Peoples Democratic Party in Kashmir as "treason".
The move prompted Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav to take potshots as to whether Adityanath would himself sign the order withdrawing the case against himself.
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
The government, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it 'has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever'.
To mark his 50th death anniversary, rediff.com has launched a special series to evaluate Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy.
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Singh Patel, as also former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa and poll strategist Prashant Kishor were among those whose phone numbers were listed as potential targets for hacking through an Israeli spyware sold only to the government agencies, an international media consortium reported on Monday.
While the DMK fears that the Congress with its poor strike rate will pull it down in the 2021 state elections, like it did five years ago, the ruling AIADMK is worried that the BJP may ultimately do a Bihar on it, relegating it to second place in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'How does relief in the form of citizenship to a persecuted Hindu in Bangladesh put the citizenship of an Indian Muslim in danger?', asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
MUST READ: The speech Nayantara Sahgal was not allowed to give.
'In the name of pluralism-secularism, the kind of politics that was pursued revealed to many that it was basically a favour to Muslim conservatism and communalism -- a politics of minority-ism, rather than of secularism.' 'This is how significant sections of Hindus have been made to loathe the very idea of Indian secularism by now,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
