'The principles on which a modern Republic should be governed are changing and taking dangerous turns,' warns Uddalok Bhattacharya.
Even as the BJP dithers over what it needs to do, the Congress has stolen a lead by projecting its chief ministerial candidate -- Priyanka Vadra nee Gandhi, says Nazarwala, the man who called the 2012 UP assembly elections right.
'My heart weeps for Vajpayee, the prince among poets, the king among politicians and the emperor among statesmen,' says Sudhir Bisht.
'Most Hindus believe in living in peace with their Muslim neighbours and vice versa.' 'It is this India we have to preserve.'
'We are not a dictatorship. If the people do not desire some law, it is impossible for any government to implement it,' says BJP leader Chandra Kumar Bose.
Veteran Congress leader and seven-time Member of Parliament Jaffer Sharrief has ended his over six-decade-long association with the party.
Prashant Patel said 'Delhi Sarkar Ki Shaktiyaan aur Simayen' by S K Sharma, a former secretary in the Delhi legislative assembly -- released in June 2015, was the inspiration behind his petition.
'If the leadership goes back to Rahul Gandhi, then there will be a perception problem about the drama about his exit a year-and-a-half ago.'
When 17 million Indians seek their fortune abroad it only means people are losing faith in the government's ability to honour its promises, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Young IFS officers today would take it for granted that they represent a major country with strengths and capabilities.' 'They will be aware that India is seen as one of the 10 significant countries in the world and therefore their voice will be heard whether on climate change or regime change,' says Ambassador B S Prakash.
'George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position,' remembers Arun Jaitley.
All those peaceniks and bleeding-heart liberals spewing nonsense about 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' dialogue with Pakistan should pause to ponder the futility of talking to someone who is unwilling and unready to resile an inch from its unacceptable and unreasonable stand, says Virendra Kapoor.
'It was India's good fortune to have a Vajpayee lead the government at this crucial moment in history.' 'By taking the N-decision he saved future generations of Indians from being 'Kosovoed' or 'Iraqed',' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said retired Indian Navy Vice Admiral Vinod Pasricha has clarified that the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was on an official visit on INS Viraat and not on a vacation.
Modi said he will serve the country till his last breath.
Ram V Sutar, 89, has already created more than 200 distinct statues, many of them massive. Now, he is a leading contender for the commission to produce the world's largest statue: A 597-foot tall rendering of Sardar Patel, an independence leader who played a crucial role in uniting India's fractious states.
As the government came under attack from the Opposition during the debate on the recent communal riots in the national capital that have claimed over 50 lives, the BJP members alleged that the violence was a pre-planned conspiracy and the home minister and authorities took pro-active steps to control the situation.
No government bungalow in Delhi will henceforth be converted into any memorial, the Union Cabinet decided on Saturday, weeks after a row over Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh's demand for making his official residence a memorial of his father and former Prime Minister Charan Singh.
For Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who continues the Gandhi family legacy of active politics that began several generations ago, the formal entry into politics was two decades in the making.
The Planning Commission has not been central to the policy making process since the mid-1960s, says Nitin Desai.
'Can he remain ignorant by saying he was 13 years old?' 'That means Rahul Gandhi must not talk on any subject in this country that precedes his adulthood.' 'He should remain unaware of history and knowledge of anything that has happened.'
Modi took on the opposition parties, especially the Congress, saying it is the corrupt who are sleepless now.
How has Raj Thackeray, who is as much a businessman as politician, been able to pull it off, when most Opposition politicians live in fear of IT and ED and CBI, asks Krishna Prasad after attending a Raj rally in Nashik.
'If the Singh government was characterised by policy paralysis, this one is afflicted by hyperactivism, sans a roadmap,' says Yogendra Yadav.
Mayawati also sought the dismissal of a plea, which alleged that pubic funds were misused in the construction of memorials and statues.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being accused of wrong things. His main problem is his view of himself, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan
Kamal Nath argued that Modi had 'overexposed himself': By constantly pushing his own image on social media and on TV, attaching his name to multiple promises, Modi had become the face rivals could easily blame for India's chronic dysfunction.
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.
'The family is the final court of appeal, the first among unequals. If there is no family, all leaders are equal. If all leaders are equal, anyone can lead the Congress. So every time the family has stayed in the background, the Congress has split.'
Departing from the protocol, President Pranab Mukherjee will visit the former PM's residence to confer upon him the prestigious award.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit former LTTE-stronghold Jaffna in Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated north and address the Parliament in Colombo during his 3-day visit to the country next week.
About Sonia, he said, "She has worked really hard. Let me tell you the amount of work she has put in since 1997, it is amazing."
The focus shifts almost immediately from celebrations to the challenges faced by the man who powered his party to 303 seats in the Lok Sabha.
Taking a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar said he feared that there were grim indicators of Indian democracy being concentrated in one person's hand after the marginalisation of party veterans like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
The National Democratic Alliance, led by strong man Narendra Modi secured a whopping 352 of 542 seats, making it evident that his message of muscular nationalism, security and Hindu pride had worked wonders.
Culture Minister Prahlad Patel asserted that national memorials cannot be 'political memorials' and they should be kept away from politics.
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
People close to the erstwhile royal family underline that Jyotiraditya Scindia is neither as accessible nor as unpretentious as his father.
'Sachin Pilot once calculated that with a million Indians flooding the labour market every month, only an additional 12 million jobs annually could keep unemployment at the same level.' 'That's chickenfeed for the functionaries who cram my e-mail inbox every day with such a constant flow of job offers that trying to empty it is like trying to drink dry the horn connected to the ocean in Norse mythology,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Narendra Modi could be too old to change his personality. On the other hand, his attachment to the RSS could be mostly sentimental. So one must hope that if he becomes prime minister, he is able to detach himself from the RSS view of the world as completely as Narasimha Rao detached himself from the Congress's First Family.' 'India cannot be governed by the autocratic methods by which he has governed Gujarat. If he becomes prime minister he will have to learn to speak in a more civil language about his political opponents,' historian Ramachandra Guha tells Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com
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