Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had said that well-meaning programmes meant for the poor did not reach them: the same is true of the NREGA, says Surjit Bhalla.
Viewed as India's most eligible bachelor by some, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi says he'll get married when the right girl comes along and part of the problem is that his parents' "really lovely marriage" has set the bar very high.
Aiyar, who has stoked controversies in the past with his comments, made the remarks at the launch of the book Nehru's First Recruits.
"The situation has become irretrievable", Azad, 73, said in his parting shot to Sonia Gandhi, whose trusted confidante he remained right from the time of Sitaram Kesri's unceremonious exit as the party's chief in 2000.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a joint session of the US Congress on June 22 during his official state visit to the country, top congressional leaders announced on Friday.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Teen Murti Bhavan served as the official residence of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Even when the Congress is facing the toughest challenge in its long history, it shows no sign of turning a new leaf and injecting internal democracy to revive its fortunes, argues Virendra Kapoor.
'The day the Indian media moves away from its binary world view, its argumentative 'me and you' divides, and moves closer to the consensual frameworks of reference it will have created a new paradigm, a very Indian paradigm,' says Dr Sanjaya Baru.
Patel's closeness to the Gandhi family was undeniable. But unlike others, he resisted the temptation to use it to leverage personal business, says Aditi Phadnis.
Pranab's earlier fear of Sonia relying too heavily on a coterie due to her lack of experience turned out to be unfounded. As per Pranab, Sonia had her close advisers but she did not follow anyone's advice blindly. A fascinating excerpt from Sharmistha Mukherjee's Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers.
'An opportunity is at hand to think big and recast the India-China relationship on a new template, which would help the pursuit of our country's dream of major power status,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Bibek Debroy was one of the very few economists not bound by any single area of expertise and was simultaneously curious about economics and politics, myths and maths, chess and chemistry, and what not, remembers Laveesh Bhandari.
Referencing to a decline in manufacturing in democratic countries such as India and the US in recent years as production shifted to China, Gandhi said the shift had produced mass inequality and anger which needed urgent attention and dialogue.
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
He was presented the Audi 100 for winning the player of the series of the award. Then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi asked the Indian customs to waive off the heavy duty on the car when it was brought to India.
In this event, it is the IAF that showed true professionalism, telling the boss they weren't going to fly in that weather. You can see what professionalism and moral courage it takes to say no to your prime minister. Only things like that can keep him safe, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Gandhi, 47, begins his nearly two-week trip to the US with an address at the University of California, Berkeley, tomorrow on contemporary India and the path forward for the world's largest democracy.
Indira Gandhi valued Rahul Gandhi's 'grit and determination' and often considered him mature enough to be taken into confidence on subjects she avoided discussing even with his parents when he was barely 14, according to a new book.
National Democratic Alliance nominee Om Birla was elected as Lok Sabha speaker on Wednesday after a motion moved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was adopted through voice vote, capping intense debate on the issue with the opposition in a rare move proposing its own candidate.
'When Dr Murli Manohar Joshi wanted to start a course on astrology, Jayant was the first one to have the courage to stand up and say astrology is not science.' 'That's a very rare quality -- to stand up to authority.'
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
'There was a wrong policy of government during the Congress regime. They didn't construct roads up to the border which left a buffer zone of 3-4 km which China occupied. Construction of new villages isn't a new thing, it's all inherited from Congress'
PM Modi is due in Colombo on Friday.
The Congress chief also described Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's 3-day trip to France as part of a 'huge cover-up' by the government.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's decision for early release of Rajiv Gandhi's killers invited a sharp reaction from the Congress, which termed it as "irresponsible, perverse and populist".
'She is tough. She can be stern. She can be unpleasant. Rajiv was none of these things.' 'The Congress cannot survive without the Gandhi family. If Sonia were to quit, their Lok Sabha seats would drop from 44 to four.' K Natwar Singh shares his bitterness about the Nehru family with Rashme Sehgal.
The Congress has consciously contested on a lesser number of seats in this Lok Sabha election as part of a strategy to keep the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) together and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has said.
What was the "locus standi" of Sonia Gandhi when she along with the then prime minister Manhoman Singh inaugurated legislative buildings in Manipur and Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party asked on Wednesday while countering the Congress's criticism over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'A P Venkateswaran left an indelible impression on Indian diplomacy and made an incredible number of friends, who kept remembering him, more than other Indian diplomats, who served at those posts.' Ambassador T P Sreenivasan salutes a legend of the Indian Foreign Service who passed into the ages.
Rao has only received contempt from his party colleagues. Being one of the most successful Indian prime ministers from a non-Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is not something that Congress-wallahs can accept easily.
"I condemn is the strongest terms the statement he has made about Sikhs not being able to wear turbans and kadas," the BJP leader from the Sikh community said.
'I have seen, even in my village, people hanging pictures of Communist leaders -- Jyoti Basu, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong -- in their drawing rooms. Could we not hang pictures of Swami Vivekananda? '
'They hate him so much that if PM Modi says the Sun rises in the east the Congress will say the Sun rises in the west.'
It is thanks to the policy of liberalisation conceived by Manmohan Singh and enforced by P V Narasimha that the Indian economy has now become the world's 5th largest economy by nominal GDP, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Women politicians bring to politics and policy a sensitivity that most of their male counterparts, at least until a generation back, lacked.
Jaishankar said his father was also a very upright person, "may be that caused the problem, I don't know".
The Congress is gearing up to demonstrate a political show of strength on Monday when the party leader Rahul Gandhi will appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection in connection with a money laundering case linked to the National Herald newspaper.
"It is very dangerous in the 21st century to exclude people," said the Congress president.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances