The all-important Supreme Court verdict, which will decide the future of AIADMK supremo VK Sasikala, locked in a battle for chief ministership with O Pannerselvam, is set to be pronounced on Tuesday.
Four police personnel -- a woman joint commissioner, two women constables and a sub-inspector -- were injured in stone-pelting, the police said, even as reports emerged that some protesters were also hurt.
Rescuers have been engaged in digging another borewell since Sunday to reach an appropriate depth to get to the boy and now a heavy drilling machine of German make has been deployed to expedite the efforts.
Deepa's brother Deepak was present in the house when she arrived.
R Rajagopalan predicts that Tamil Nadu won't have single party rule for the first time in its history.
It will be the year of preparation for the electoral test in Uttar Pradesh, due in 2022. But before that, the West Bengal Assembly election will set the mood for the rest of 2021.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a bill providing internal reservation of 10.5 per cent for Vanniyars, a most backward community in government jobs and in admission to educational institutions.
'As Karunanidhi and Ramadoss flagged the law and order issue, Subramanian Swamy said Home Minister Rajnath Singh should send Chief Minister O Panneerselvam a directive under Article 246 of the Constitution. Swamy also dangled the fear of Article 356 over the state government.'
Finance Minister P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan has proclaimed his determination to set Tamil Nadu's fiscal house in order in five years, and Friday will show how he plans to go about it when he rises to present the Stalin government's maiden budget, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Your strike rate is very important when it comes to seat-sharing.'
His comments come a day after state Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar claimed that 111 MLAs had attended the meet convened by the chief minister.
The revived factionalism in the AIADMK, if not curbed now, has the potential to split the party vertically, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Appointed, sponsored and nurtured' by Jayalalithaa, P Rama Mohana Rao is now seen as a man who holds the key to the secrets of ministers and bureaucrats.
Protests demanding Jallikattu swelled on the streets of Tamil Nadu after agitators rejected statements by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and the state braced for a shutdown on Friday.
While in the AIADMK office you could feel the vibes of victory, at OPS' house you could feel the struggle.
The historic coastal town is witnessing a flurry of activity, including infrastructure development in view of the high-level meet between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping next week.
The searches at the Tamil television channel were conducted over alleged tax evasion.
Good intentions and elaborate roadmaps apart, there is an urgent need for the Tamil Nadu chief minister to come up with branded schemes like MGR's meal scheme, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu had begun seeing Governor Ravi's decisions and actions as a part of the state BJP's non-stop criticism of its government and directed from Delhi, a view strengthened by the governor's decision to return the NEET exemption bill, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'No one was allowed to meet Jaya. Whoever came, would be briefed by Sasikala's relatives that she was 'all right',' Dindigul Srinivasan said.
While flight operations have already resumed, inter-intra state train services also were partially operating since Tuesday night, they said.
The threat to Sasikala won't come from the Tamil Nadu chief minister or New Delhi, but from her 20-plus kin, reports R Rajagopalan.
Will the AIADMK acknowledge the role of CAA and the anti-CAA protests, both inside the state and outside, as among the causes for the current electoral reversal, as many in the party now want? It is unlikely to be so, but then the pressure will increase on the leadership to reassess the BJP alliance at one level and the 'blind support' for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial policies on the other, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The political stability that Tamil Nadu saw under Chief Minister Jayalalithaa may be a thing of the past, as the new administration struggles to find its feel, says R Rajagopalan.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Post Jayalalithaa's death, the Tamil Nadu government is in confused state.
A new political crisis is brewing in the VK Sasikala camp in Tamil Nadu -- differences between Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and party general secretary Sasikala.
Police later let the legislators off after a brief detention at a marriage hall. Stalin demanded the dismissal of the AIADMK government over the issue of the alleged pay-offs.
Without a strong regional leadership the Aam Aadmi Party in Tamil Nadu may end up as just another political party in the statem says R. Ramasubramanian
The MLAs have been disqualified with effect from Monday, under the 1986 Tamil Nadu Assembly Members Party Defection Law.
Dr Vasudevan Maitreyan, was virtually the face of the AIADMK in New Delhi since February 2002, finds himself ignored by the current leadership.
With the presidential elections over, the time has come for Prime Minister Modi to show Tamil Nadu that the state's interests are safe under him, says R Rajagopalan.
The ruling party's decision to serve 'disqualification' notice to three party MLAs when polling for four more assembly by-elections are due for May 19 may have been taken to keep the flock together post-results, rather than seek to lose more than already, but it has sent out alarming signals in a state ruled till recently by an Iron Lady, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
But the question before the leadership will be whether to retain the BJP alliance or dump it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dig up the perceived past of the DMK rival, now under a new leader in M K Stalin, may not gel with the voters, both old and new. If they are still going to vote for the AIADMK-BJP combine, it will be for entirely different reasons, and despite Modi's poll speeches, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Every vote now counts in the Tamil Nadu assembly, as the ruling party is walking on a wafer-thin majority. The Opposition DMK-led combine has 98 MLAs on their side, and with four others who had won on the AIADMK's 'Two Leaves' symbol in 2016 but do not belong to the party, per se, playing hide-and-seek with the party leadership, Dhinakaran with two or three other MLAs can give sleepless nights for the ruling party than their post-verdict celebrations may seemingly indicate, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Should the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu not make the required five out of 22 by-election seats, or even otherwise, the temptation to poach, especially from the Congress or starting with the Congress may be high on Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami's agenda, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
A combative Rao, who claimed the I-T search warrant did not have his name, repeatedly invoked the legacy of former chief minister, the late J Jayalalithaa, and asked if raids would have occurred at his office had she been alive.
'When you enter our secretariat, you are insulting us.' 'It is the seat of government of the state of Tamil Nadu,'
