Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the passage of bills as a "momentous occasion" in parliamentary democracy and said a new dawn awaits the people there as they are now free from the "shackles" of vested interest groups.
Modi said Vajpayee would remain an inspiration and said the outpouring of emotions following his death despite his being away from public life for over a decade due to illness, shows his greatness.
'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.'
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that the BJP has emerged as the "third force" in Kerala that will replace the two fronts in the next year's assembly elections.
The 58-year-old businessman, who is also the son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna, has been missing since Monday evening from Mangaluru.
'Rather than an outcome of 'pro-incumbency', the exit poll results betray a completely lackadaisical approach of the Opposition parties.' 'While a new kind of politics was on display for the past five years, they were still mired in their old-style methods which will cost them the election,' predicts Utkarsh Mishra.
The RSS criticised the previous UPA government at the centre and National Conference-Congress coalition government in the state for allowing Rohingyas to settle down in Jammu,
The legislation was passed by 125 votes in favour and 61 against.
'The ideal thing that should be done in Kashmir is call for an election -- before the end of the year.'
The Congress president said that if he was allowed to speak for 15 minutes on a host of issues, including the Nirav Modi scam, PM Modi would "run away".
'Like 2014, 2017 was also Modi's election.' 'Every voter you met, apart from those who are BJP cadres, everybody said they would vote for Modi, not the BJP.' 'The one and only factor is the Modi juggernaut. He is the one who turned the tide.' 'The wave which he created in 2014, and to maintain it for three years, is a huge task in itself.'
He also assured people of J&K that they will get opportunity to elect their representatives in a transparent way.
'He should bring in a working president from outside the family.'
Nearly 31 million Indians are unemployed and looking for jobs. While economic growth has been humming along, the pace of job creation has been poor. A revealing excerpt from Dev Kar's India: Still A Shackled Giant.
The NHRC issued notice to the Union ministries of home and human resource development seeking a report over the reported ill-treatment of Kashmiri people in the aftermath of the attack.
'He has attacked our enemies in their own backyard.'
JD-U sources conceded that the BJP's "Bihari martyrdom" line will give the coalition an edge or "at least help us combat anti-incumbency if the Opposition makes an issue of Nitish's governance".
'His poise and body language were 'cool. He brought a whiff of fresh air to our television screens, a welcome break from not-so-fit loud politicians and male anchors,' says Neeta Kolhatkar.
10 central trade unions have called a nationwide shutdown against 'anti-worker policies' of the central government. Apart from being successful in Bengal, Kerala and NE states, the bandh has also got support from Cong leader Rahul Gandhi and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
Narendra Rawat, an 'arrest-happy' Congress leader, is expected to launch a fair amount of political tamasha against his rival, Narendra Modi, in Vadodara.
'She was once asked what the secret to political leadership was and she said it was the ability to like all kinds of people.' 'I don't think Rahul fundamentally likes people -- that's probably why he can't deal with them and it shows.' 'Sonia is a more talented political mobiliser than her son, but I think the decline of the Congress set in in 1969...'
A recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
Some Lok Sabha candidates in Haryana, which has the country's lowest sex ratio, are facing a strange demand from bachelor voters -- "get us brides in return for our votes".
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday
Family of Nido Tania, the 19-year-old youth from Arunachal Pradesh who was allegedly beaten to death by some shopkeepers in South Delhi's Lajpat Nagar area a few days ago, on Tuesday met Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi demanding speedy justice for their son and strict punishment for the perpetrators.
The Bombay High Court on Friday stayed implementation of the controversial decision of the erstwhile Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government in Maharashtra to provide reservation to Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions announced ahead of the state assembly election.
This is the first meeting chaired by Gandhi after relinquishing the post of Congress president last year.
'If the political executive doesn't want an independent judiciary, it will be impossible for the judiciary to maintain its independence.'
From Narendra Modi's victory in 2014 to the Nitish-Lalu triumph in 2015 and delivering Assam to the BJP in 2016, young and very professional strategists have startled politicians and the media.
Flowing from an inadequate understanding of Tamil history and politics is an urban elitist mindset that does not seem to be able to touch and feel the real angst of the larger Tamil-speaking masses, cutting across the social and economic status of the individual, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a fresh salvo at the Gandhi family, Narendra Modi on Friday said the country could not be run by a government working on "oxygen from mother and son" and a "dead, feeble and fractured" regime was not needed.
As the news of Kalam broke, condolences and tributes poured in from all corners of the country, reflecting the huge popularity he enjoyed both in and out of the highest office of the country that earned him the sobriquet of the "people's President."
After finishing six months in office, on Thursday, party president Amit Shah released a long list of the achievements of the National Democratic Alliance government. As expected, there was no mention of the Modi government's inability to push through promised reforms in several sectors, like land and health.
The protesters blocked roads in several areas of Mumbai, forced shops to shut down.
'Modi's campaign has been strikingly devoid of anti-Muslim rhetoric. After the kutta pilla incident, it has been several months since he said something horrible about the Muslims of India. It is the result of democratic constraints. He has to make compromises... He's trying to reinvent himself. He will politically hurt himself if 2002 becomes the definition of Mr Modi again', says political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
In the Modi government, he was the mentor -- he groomed half a dozen of those who became ministers. Some remembered, others did not -- Jaitley seemed to care little. Aditi Phadnis reports.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday termed as "unfortunate, painful and surprising" the African missions statement describing the attacks on African students as "xenophobic and racial", saying the Indian response to this cannot be called inadequate by any means.
The bill was passed with 165 voting in favour and 7 against it.
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