Stalin has given due respect to seniority in the pecking order, but has also taken into consideration the demands of individual ministries and the suitability of individuals, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Terrorists are killing ordinary citizens, huge crowds brave a pandemic to attend militant funerals, and artillery is booming on the LoC.' 'This April seems like a run-of-the-terror-mill Kashmiri spring: Violence is emerging like a prickly new bud,' warns David Devadas.
Can Gandhi handle the rough and tumble of 24X7 Indian politics with aggressive rivals such as Modi and BJP President Amit Shah to counter?
The AAP won in 62 with a total vote share of 53.58 per cent. The BJP recorded victory in eight seats, receiving 38.49 per cent of the total votes. The Congress could not even manage a single seat and ended with 4.27 per cent vote share.
By pegging the exact area of the Babri Masjid site at 0.313 acres, and not the original 2.77 acres, the government hopes to be in line with the court ruling in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case which mentions return of land to original claimants once the exact area needed for acquisition is determined, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Both Rajini and Kamal have to first convince the Tamil Nadu voters that even if they are entering active politics relatively late in life, they are here to stay, and are serious about politics, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress hopes to field upper caste candidates to eat into BJP voter base while SP-BSP focuses on consolidating Dalit-OBC votes in their favour.
Sukanya Verma goes through the cool and crazy ways moon/chand/chanda/chandrama is depicted in Bollywood movies.
'I was fortunate to have served as India's ambassador to Indonesia and witnessed on several occasions, the incredible performances of the Ramayana and episodes from the Mahabharata in Jogjakarta and in Bali,' recalls former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
For far too long, people in J&K have felt the government doesn't exist for them.' 'My first priority is to make them feel that not only does it exist, it is there to work for them.
'Why does Mr Modi only attack Nehru from the Dynasty?' 'At one level, it is pure politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
The mohalla committee movement in Mumbai celebrated its 25th anniversary last weekend. The movement, which was born in the wake of the horrific Mumbai riots of 1992-1993, has played an important role in ensuring that Hindu-Muslim riots do not recur in the Maximum City.
In a statement, the CBDT, which is the apex policy making body for direct tax policies, said it has never asked IRS Association or these officers to prepare such a report and no permission was sought by them before making the report public. 'It is unequivocally stated that CBDT never asked IRS Association or these officers to prepare such a report.
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Kartarpur corridor was an excellent opportunity for the Congress to seize centre-stage in Sikh religious affairs. After all, the Akalis never achieved this in their years in power, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Khalistan Liberation Force chief Harminder Singh 'Mintoo' who along with five others escaped from the high security jail in Nabha on Sunday, was arrested by Punjab Police after he was deported from Thailand in November 2014.
In a state where Hindu social identity continues to remain in the overarching Dravida umbrella, the 'Hindutva' political identity does not have the same, or even near-similar electoral purchase, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If the virulence of COVID-19 has muted the toxicity of the BJP's communalism, it will be an example of good coming out of the pandemic,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
He was a member of Azamgarh (Sanjarmur) module of the IM and was based in Nepal where he was teaching at a school.
'Rather than 'consolidate' the Hindu majority votes, as the BJP-RSS combine has been known and wont to try, this time round PM Modi has himself taken the party to the next step, by seeking to create a new divide within the majority community, a la V P Singh in his time.'
'I am happy Sanjay Raut and Sharad Pawar changed the game of Maharashtra politics.'
Police teams from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu on Saturday busted a major group of terror outfit Al-Ummah in a 11-hour operation. What is unique about the Al-Ummah is that it is in all respects a homegrown terror outfit born in the early 1990s, with no Pakistan link.
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
The party is looking at Amit Shah's visit to Tamil Nadu and the PM's to Sri Lanka to boost its expansions efforts in the state for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, reports Archis Mohan.
'The BJP is not the party it was 10 years ago. It has changed. It is emerging like the Congress.' 'Sometimes, I feel the BJP has taken the Congress' space.' 'Its politics is also resembling the Congress.'
'A precedent in the Rajv killers' plea for freedom may flow from slain brigand Veerappan's 2000 demand for the release of 109 associates languishing in prisons in Karnataka for him to release abducted Kannada matinee icon, the late Rajkumar.' 'Acting on a petition filed by the father of a Karnataka cadre IPS officer killed by Veerappan, the Supreme Court reversed the orders of lower court orders in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.' 'If democratically-elected governments give an impression to the citizens of this country of being law-breakers, would it not breed contempt for the law? Would it not invite citizens to become a law unto themselves?' the Supreme Court had observed on the occasion, recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Permissive communalism, as represented by the Sachar Committee report, cannot become the basis to counter the threat of majoritarianism, says D L Sheth.
The VHP leadership notes that 'ghar wapsi' wasn't something started after the Modi govt took over. Archis Mohan reports
Mythological and historical shows are lapped up not just by the young, but equally by grown men and women.
From Chief Minister EK Palaniswami to Seeman to TTV Dhinakaran to elder brother M K Azhagiri, everyone's favourite target these days seems to the DMK chief Stalin, which is good news in an election year, but that doesn't mean he is going to sweep the polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Pakistan has worsted India in the Afghan proxy war and the defeat becomes a template of regional politics,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
For a party that has adopted the successful social re-engineering model from Gujarat, Rajasthan and across the rest of the 'Hindi belt' over the past decades, Tamil Nadu continues to remain a tricky customer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Communalism and communal riots happened in India only during and due to colonialism. Pre-colonial India didn't have this problem of communal conflicts and religious strife.'
'The significance and timing of the PM's start of the campaign journey from Silchar is a clear message that the Barak valley is a priority in his scheme of things,' notes Subimal Bhattacharjee.
US President Barack Obama, who visited India in January, in his speech on Thursday referred to violence against followers of various religions in India in the past few years.
'For Nitish Kumar the message is to be democratic. With the support of the BJP, he had suppressed criticism in Bihar. He would also need to change his highly authoritarian way of governance.' 'The Grand Alliance, given the decisive mandate in its favour, cannot afford to fail the people. They have a duty to make it a model for the rest of India,' says Apoorvanand.
'For years American academia has used the concerns about Hindutva in India to almost completely trash the concept of Hinduism.' 'In the American debate, Wendy Doniger's point of views perpetuated Hinduphobia.' 'Americans were willing to change... Indian intellectuals let us down badly.'
In recent sessions, shares have rallied on hopes Hindu nationalist opposition leader Narendra Modi, a more business-friendly candidate, is seen coming to power on promises of economic revival and jobs.
Twenty-eight years ago almost to the day, 37 unarmed Muslims were killed in cold blood, an act of wanton violence for which no one has so far been held guilty. Jyoti Punwani and photographer Uttam Ghosh visited the Meerut locality after the trial court recently acquitted the security personnel charged with the killings, and found a town untouched by its grim past.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances