UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
'He has a gift none of his eight predecessors, from Manmohan Singh to Rajiv Gandhi, had: Being able to speak directly and convincingly to a large enough section of Indians who will take his word for gospel,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Once the violence is contained, the politicians must play their role, but unfortunately that is not happening.'
Our generation got independence too easy, we take our freedom too lightly, we treat our country and environment like toilet paper and take the easy way out because we have no sense of pride or self worth except when it is an India-Pakistan match. We need to be broken more so that we may rise, says film director Suparn Verma.
Hitting out at the Congress, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said it should not politicise the issue of the Leader of Opposition status in Lok Sabha.
'Is Ansari flagging a genuine concern? Is a rectification called for?' 'And finally: Do minorities matter?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
The 3,000-strong force, plus its highly trained dog squad, is responsible solely for the protection of one person: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi.
Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi, in an interview to a leading daily, has stated that he is "ready to take charge".
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Haryana assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution seeking the completion of the SYL canal and the transfer of Hindi-speaking areas from Punjab, while denouncing the neighbouring state for staking its claim over Chandigarh.
Swadeshi economist, columnist and chartered accountant S Gurumurthy speaks to Shobha Warrier about one year of Modi Sarkar.
If Jammu and Kashmir comes under Governor's rule, it will be for the eighth time in four decades.
'Both the governor and the President enjoy an enormous array of 'grey' powers.' 'All parties criticise these when in the Opposition. But why does no government dismantle them when these parties come to power?' asks Aditi Phadnis.
A profile of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf traces the trajectory of Lal Kishan Advani from the highs of the 1990s to the present, when he may have to watch the elections from the sidelines.
'Wayanad has become famous because of Rahul Gandhi.'
The rejection of the notice comes a day after Naidu held the consultations with such experts to determine the maintainability of the motion.
He was the army commander who planned Operation Bluestar. As army chief he planned Operation Brasstacks which rattled the Pakistan army. General K Sundarji was brilliant, ambitious and controversial, remembers Rahul Bedi.
Relations between an elected government of Delhi and the LG can never be cordial: It is just the way the relationship is structured.
'If anything, he is a fiscal hawk.' 'He has avoided fiscal profligacy completely for the past four years.' 'The fiscal deficits since 2014 are clear proof of this.' 'The point is not that it is not 3 per cent yet; it is that it is not 6, 7 or 8 per cent, which it could easily have been.' 'For this he needs to be congratulated.' 'He has recognised it no longer pays to spend other people's money to win elections,' points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'In her insecurity, she destroyed the institutions of democracy,' says Khushwant Singh.
'He is a man whose utterances have been so virulent and communalistic.' 'That's why many people did not look at him as the party's choice for chief minister.' 'UP is the state that reports the largest number of communal incidents every year.' 'Modi may not be using the Hindutva card, but he never condemns the incidents too.'
The CPI-M leader also demanded the setting up of a House Committee to examine the latest developments in various central universities.
'It is not that he has not committed any mistakes; he has.' 'But people were willing to forgive you if you were honest.'
If an elected government had been sworn in, Jung's tenure and the government would have been more or less co-terminus and Jung would have been just the ceremonial head of Delhi. Now, he will run Delhi, pending another round of assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
'How do we explain that on the economic, internal security and strategic fronts, India's unstable coalitions have acted more decisively and boldly than all our full-majority governments yet?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
'It has also underestimated the striking force of the Opposition. It has been complacent and paralysed. That may be due to the compulsions of coalition politics and the arrogance of a party which looked at itself as entitled to rule,' says political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot.
L K Advani's observation on Narendra Modi, an attempt to cut the BJP's prime ministerial nominee down to size, billing him a mere event manager like Vijay Raaz in Mira Nair's film Monsoon Wedding, speaks volumes about their differences... In the coming days, the Congress and BJP may lock horns over the AgustaWestland chopper deal. In an Italian court, Guido Haschke, one of the accused middlemen who allegedly bribed the Indian side, has sought a plea bargain to reduce his jail term if convicted. On or around April 11, we will know how much Haschke is ready to reveal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt detects which way the political wind is blowing these days.
The Hindutva social media continues to present the DMK especially as anti-god, anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin. The strategy did not work in the past, it has not worked in the present, and would not work in the future, as a massive vote-getter, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had initially taken a conciliatory stand on the issue with a minister even going as far as to tell rediff.com that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not indulge in petty politics on this issue. The party had left the final decision to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal reports
'As demonetisation showed us, the Shah-Modi duo can take big risks.' 'Risking economic damage for political benefit, however, is one thing, stoking old fires in complicated Assam is another', warns Shekhar Gupta.
'The real significance of the visit lies in the extent of the receptivity in Myanmar of the account of Chinese perfidy given by India's military and civilian top brass and how they assess the danger to themselves of dancing with the dragon,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'That only a certain Mumbai story -- look at Salaam Bombay and Slumdog Millionaire for other examples -- gets made when an international audience is as much a target as the desi viewer, should invoke questions of representation,' notes Vikram Johri.
Three ministers from Andhra-Rayalaseema regions submitted their resignations to Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy late on Thursday night even as at least 15 others are understood to have backed out following a stern warning by the high command.
The campaign's main theme song 'Main hi toh Hindustan hoon' has been penned by Javed Akhtar.
"If I was the foreign minister, I would have had contact with them. I would have gone out of my way and told my intelligence agency to make a contact quietly," former external affairs minister Natwar Singh said.
Four decades of federal evolution made India more secure, but coronavirus is reversing that. Modi's central government has tasted power again and is unlikely to give it up, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'The BJP has the opportunity to undo a lot of the damage that we have suffered as a society which looks away from mass violence.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't hold back on Wednesday when he launched a scathing attack on the Gandhi family and the Congress in Parliament during a debate on the motion of thanks for the president's address.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances