'Fixing accountability in the Congress must be addressed on a war footing.' 'It is impossible for Sonia Gandhi to know each and every party worker, so she has to rely on advisors.' 'If they guide or misguide, the blame should go to them.'
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'The BJP has shown signs lately of returning to its trader mindset.' 'Several strong emotions get meshed in this: Nationalism, protectionism, mercantilism, and arrogance,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the 'Nav Sankalp Chintan Shivir' is also aimed at deliberating on challenges facing the country such as "freefall of the economy", increasing inequality of wealth, price rise of essential commodities, "deep-rooted conspiracy" to hand over farming sector to a select group of private corporates, "attack on India's territorial integrity by China, "attack" on rights of Dalits, SCs/STs, minorities and attempts to divide by using Hindu-Muslim rhetoric.
'As his party's Supreme Leader, Modi has led India down the wrong road by insisting on friendship with China even as its soldiers went about claiming territory,' argues Harishchandra Dighe.
"If the Opposition gets into singing praises, then democracy will be destroyed," Sharma said.
While it is the right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) which chose Kovind, Narayanan, a diplomat-turned politician, became vice president in 1992 and the president in 1997 courtesy active support from the Left, which had proposed his name first
Raking up the issue of 1984 riots, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Monday alleged that those guilty for the "state sponsored" violence still remain unpunished.
The Opposition on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party over the killing of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf Ahmad in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj district, alleging that 'jungle raj' and 'mafia raj' were prevalent under its rule.
Stepping up his attack on the Nehru-Gandhi family, Narendra Modi on Friday said Rahul Gandhi was talking of changing the system when it was his father and grandmother who made it and distorted and misused it for their personal gains.
'I hope he will continue to be what he is. And doing so, he won't be much different from those whose example he is being given right now,' says Utkarsh Mishra.
This, Byju, was the time to apply the business lens, treat your company as a business, run your company as a business. Instead, you splurged, observes Suveen Sinha.
'India has seen that whenever dynastic politics has been powerful, institutions have taken a severe beating'
The BJP's vote share in Punjab has been declining -- 8.21 per cent in 2007 to 7.13 per cent in 2012, and finally to 5.4 per cent in 2017, when it won just three of 23 seats the party contested. So doing an election deal with Amarinder and a political formation he might float in the future is not inconceivable.
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
Days after he attacked Bharatiya Janata Party's PM candidate Narendra Modi over the 2002 riots issue, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that BJP's "divisive" policy was responsible for spoiling the country's secular fabric and incidents of hate crime.
Mufti's political graph shows his fondness for courting unpopular, politically hazardous ventures in pursuit of his ultimate objective to vindicate his leadership. Towards the end of his life, Mufti's public profile had come to assume the dimensions of statesmanship. One reason being his willingness to learn from his experience, says Mohammad Sayeed Malik.
Sonia Gandhi declined to become prime minister in 2004 because of strong opposition from her son Rahul Gandhi who was afraid she would be killed like his father and grandmother if she accepted the post, former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh claimed.
The Congress vice president said Modi attacked him on Thursday but did not reply to the questions he had asked of him in his speech on Wednesday and again attacked the prime minister over his "non-stop false promises".
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Can the leaky public distribution system, or PDS, deliver the subsidised grain to two-thirds of the population?
'Like General Patton, possibly the greatest exponent of the art of war, Vajpayee had the ability to be always on the offensive,' assesses Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
In an interview to Republic Bharat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of the BJP's prospects in the polls, emergence of an Opposition front, dynastic politics and several other issues.
Congress on Monday went into damage control mode over party general secretary Digvijay Singh's purported comment that Rahul Gandhi does not have the temperament of a ruler even as BJP attacked the Congress Vice President saying he was "not Prime Minister material".
With the launch of the first indigenous aircraft today, India will join a club of nations like the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France that possess nuclear-powered submarines
'This term -- "Nehru-Gandhi" family -- is a misnomer. Nehru was not a dynast; he did not even name his successor... The big mistake she made was to push forward Rahul Gandhi who is a dead loss as a leader,' says Nayantara Sahgal, whom Sonia Gandhi calls 'Tara Masi.'
Among the 17 new AICC secretaries named so far, 10 are below 50 years of age, indicating the generational change in the 132-year-old Congress being brought in by 47-year-old Rahul, reports Amit Agnihotri.
Chef par excellence Satish Arora recalls his days working as a chef to prime ministers to Chandrima Pal.
The Reserve Bank's rate setting panel on Thursday met to finalise a report for the government on why it failed to keep retail inflation below the target of 6 per cent for three consecutive quarters since January this year, said sources. The report will be presented to the government as per the Reserve Bank of India Act, they added. The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is headed by Governor Shaktikanta Das.
Both states try to outsmart each other in felicitating the shuttler.
Modi will utilise the Presidential poll to show that he is the only leader who matters in India, argue Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari. So the question being asked in political circles is: 'Who will be the next Kovind?'
The lively lot of politicians at the helm of India's most important political province.
Would Ukraine be such a pushover if it had that nuclear stockpile?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
Persuaded not to sell that day in January 1975, DLF today has assets of over Rs 52,237 crore and a net worth of around Rs 40,000 crore.
'Overnight, with zero qualification whatsoever for the responsibility of prime ministership, Priyanka is being projected as an alternative to Narendra Damodardas Modi!' says Nazarwala who predicted Mayawati's win in the 2007 UP elections, forecast her rout in the 2012 polls, and called right the 2017 UP assembly election result.
According to the book, 'Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes', authored by UK-based investigative journalist Phil Miller India's secret use of British mercenaries lasted for four months after the Indo-Lanka accord was signed between former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Sri Lankan president Junius Jayewardene in 1987.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said he would rather make women travelling in a bus safe than have India being a superpower.
"The prime minister's post is very dignified and he should not have made personal attacks, but I did not mind. He does not give answers, but only makes promises which are hollow," Rahul said, addressing an election rally.
Some analysts believe that it suits Prime Minister Narendra Modi at this stage to debunk the image of Sonia Gandhi as a woman who declined the prime ministership of the country with great personal sacrifice, just as it would suit him to portray Rahul as a coward who was afraid his mother would be killed -- claims made by former Union minister Natwar Singh in his yet-to-be-released book. Rediff.com contributor Renu Mital reports.
Anil Shastri, one of the late prime minister's six children, recounts memories of his father.
