'All appointments are from one family. And this is the fundamental difference between the Congress and the BJP'
Mark Tully, the BBC correspondent in India for nearly half a century, must be happy that at 78 his birth certificate has been located from Raj era archives by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
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.
Modi spoke to the BJP's longest serving president, who is credited with crafting the party's rise through the 90s when it came to power for the first time as the head of coalition governments under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and congratulated him.
He was seen as one of former PM Rao's trusted aides and advisers.
A Delhi high court judge on Friday recused himself from hearing the plea of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's close aide Vincent George against a trial court order summoning him as an accused in a disproportionate assets case.
The message for 2024 is that the man on the street is not going to be euphoric if the G-20 crowns Modi as king-emperor for 2023, or if India sends its first man to space just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Even a 'temple consecration' in Ayodhya, or a Uniform Civil Code, or both of them together, may not have enough electoral purchase if fuel and commodity prices are not rolled back, and money-in-the-pocket does not fatten, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rahul would know that fealty can be a fickle thing, and that if the Congress bucks the trend and actually wins the next national election, selfies with him would find their way from phones to walls, replacing those taken with Modi.
10 per cent for those who earn up to Rs 30 lakh a year and 25 per cent for those who earn more, suggests T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Determined not to be arm-twisted into delaying the execution, he decided to hold a late night hearing at his residence. In the pitch blackness of the night, the original verdict was upheld. The next morning, on 9 October 1992, General Vaidya's assassins were hanged until death.
The 71-year-old remained Sonia Gandhi's most trusted lieutenant for most of her tenure as the longest serving Congress president, standing by her side through sun and shade.
The Congress, desperate to make a comeback in Gujarat, which has been ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party for over 20 years, has tried to reach out to various sections of society in its blueprint unveiled.
'Mr Modi may have the aura of an irresistible conquistador now, but he is human. He isn't an 'avatar,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Asserting that inclusive growth will remain as central plank of the United Progressive Alliance, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said it was in tune with this concept that the government had launched a series of welfare programmes and legislative initiatives, especially for the weaker sections.
The scaling up of the India-US strategic partnership to the level of non-NATO ally with defence deals, sharing and transfer of defence technology, interoperability, joint collaboration and joint production of defence equipment has exacerbated Moscow's anxiety, notes Rup Narayan Das.
By comparing I.N.D.IA. with banned terror outfits, Modi has exhibited the kind of nervousness never ever associated with him even at the height of the Gujarat riots, and certainly since his prime ministerial days, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases beginning from April 19 and the counting of votes will take place on June 4 for the world's biggest election exercise in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will bid for a third consecutive term.
Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed on Thursday stuck to his guns justifying his controversial comments that whenever there are riots in this country, the Inter-Services Intelligence in Pakistan and the Bharatiya Janata Party rejoice.
The letter from the Uttar Pradesh veterans comes days after 23 senior Congress leaders wrote to Gandhi, saying uncertainty over the party leadership has 'demoralised Congress workers'.
The issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin cropped up yet again with Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj saying on Thursday she was still opposed to the idea of her becoming the prime minister.
Who took the decision for the prime minister, the nation's single most popular leader, to take the road route when they should have already known about the farmers' protests and also the grave risks involved, when and how, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Modi leadership could lose Election 2024 if a communal flare-up becomes cause for all-round catastrophe, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar wants the Modi government and BJP to reap the profit of the surgical strikes. But electoral history suggests a political party's ability to exploit military successes for poll gains has a mixed record.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and one of the most-respected politicians across parties will be conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award, today.
Unprecedented security arrangements have been made in Arunachal Pradesh.
He is starting to realise that an era is ending. And he is not ready to have a five-decade career besmirched by two alphabets -- AP -- that have cropped up in the AgustaWestland papers, says Aditi Phadnis.
Sudhir Bisht recalls the battle of 1984, in which UP's strongman H N Bahuguna was felled by Bollywood superstar turned political novice Amitabh Bachchan.
The Congress dismissed as "very, very immature" Sushma Swaraj's remarks on Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, saying the Congress chief can become the prime minister "tomorrow if the party decides" and she doesn't need anyone's approval.
"The Sangh had decided way back that it will work in the midst of men, and it has the right to decide this," RSS spokesperson Manmohan Vaidya said.
In his 'last appeal' to the over 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates who constitute the electoral college to pick the next All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief, Tharoor noted that from his conversations over the last few days he gathered that many of them may have concerns or hesitation about change.
'For the UDF, it will depend on how far Rahul Gandhi will succeed with the goodwill he has.' 'That will make a difference.'
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Travellers coming from the United Kingdom to the national capital will have to undergo a seven-day institutional quarantine and a seven-day home quarantine even if they test negative for COVID-19 on arrival, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Friday.
'Who has seen what Sharia is? Who knows what actual Sharia is?'
What would Parliament be without these nine ladies?
As a trainee nurse, Vavathil had taken care of Gandhi at Delhi's Holy Family Hospital after his birth on June 19, 1970.
The young pilot of a two-seater training aircraft, which went missing on Tuesday after it took off from Bisri Airfield in Gondia in Maharashtra, was killed when it crashed into the mountains, police said.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Rahul is going about the restructuring of the Congress leadership in a gradual, deliberate fashion: No sudden jerks, no abrupt moves. So while seniors like Janardan Dwivedi were edged out, Ahmed Patel has been retained.
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
