UP CM Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav fired barbs at each other at an event to celebrate the SP's silver jubilee, barely two days after putting up a united show.
Joining hands with his arch rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav, paid off for the Bihar chief minister
India is mushrooming with Deve Gowda wannabes because being a former prime minister is better than being a former chief minister, says Shekhar Gupta.
This election has some striking resemblances to the landmark one of 1977, with sub-caste combinations and antipathies still the bedrock of measures
'In India a strong leader with a majority has never yet been defeated by a challenger.' 'He (or she, as with Indira Gandhi in 1977) must defeat himself,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Although Narendra Modi had no direct participation in the Ayodhya agitation, he would not have been in the dominant position he is now had it not been for the Ram Janambhoomi agitation.'
Mamata Banerjee was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the second consecutive time, heading a 42-member ministry.
'We have to rise over our divisions.' 'Divisions within us allow unscrupulous politicians to divert attention from issues like corruption and governance.'
Sharad Yadav, President of the Janata Dal (United), is one of the architects of the proposed merger of six political parties who trace their roots to the erstwhile Janata Dal. Yadav tells Archis Mohan how the grand alliance with Left parties and even the Congress is the need of the hour.
'You won't find such an apathetic indecisive party in the world.'
Naidu was an ABVP activist during the Emergency and was arrested and jailed.
'Like in cricket, M S Dhoni was the captain and Virat Kohli played under him.' 'Then Dhoni played under Kohli.' 'Now imagine, having a second switch.' 'That is the analogy here, and I find no other example in Indian politics, or even world politics.'
'Who are these people on the streets?' 'They are youth and students who were hoodwinked, bluffed by Modi for the last seven years, with a promise of 2 crore jobs every year.' 'And Mamata sings the same tune.' 'But the youth can see that as long as there is Mamata or Modi, there is no hope.'
'I met someone who came out of jail and started telling me wild things that they did inside.' 'I couldn't believe it and then my curiousity led me to do some more digging.'
'Even if the anti-Modi 'Mahagatbandhan' gets a majority there is simply no way that Nitish Kumar can ensure even a stable government, leave alone a good -- clean, development-oriented -- government,' argues T V R Shenoy.
'What do you think the Congress is today?' 'Is it a political party heading for a life-and-death battle?' 'Or an NGO, just doing its thing and hoping it will improve the state of the world?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
'The lockdown was for both: To flatten the curve or more correctly, delay the rapid spread of COVID outbreak, and to create healthcare infrastructure.'
'There is a storm of unrest brewing as a younger, more educated and independent India grows up. The government needs to realise that force may give them temporary respite but force never is the answer,' says filmmaker Suparn Verma.
'The people of India have not only challenged the ruling dispensation with the constitution, they have also opened the eyes of the leadership that sits in the Opposition.'
Kejriwal believes in good governance and takes pride in his Hindu identity, points out Sudhir Bisht.
In an era when the misguided youth of today are trying to build political careers by subscribing to divisive ideologies, they need to look to independent thinking icons such as Acharya Kripalani, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Shaheen Bagh is no longer a mere ghetto of lower middle class Muslims.' 'Now, it is a metaphor for resistance, secularism and struggle,' notes Md. Zeeshan Ahmad.
'The Congress has collapsed and is fighting for survival. Other parties carry no weight in comparison to the BJP. This situation does not augur well for democracy,'
'It can be said without hesitation that Rahul, Priyanka and Sonia Gandhi enjoy perfect relations of mother-daughter-son all together in the family.' 'But their worldview is different and their style of functioning is different and their favourites in the party are different people.'
Sandeep Pandey salutes women who have contributed to social transformation in India after 1980.
'It was a battle that took many forms, ranging from non-violent mass satyagrahas, mammoth public meetings, huge protest rallies in cities and towns to underground organisation of sabotage of communication and transport networks, an underground radio, illegal patrikas (newsletters) and the formation of parallel governments in Ballia, Midnapore and Satara.'
Is Hyderabad the reason Telangana wants separation from Andhra Pradesh? Or has perceived backwardness of the Telangana region fuelled demand for a separate state? Mayank Mishra reports
'Swaraj Samvad sees itself in the role of a watchdog in Delhi,' Professor Anand Kumar tells Rediff.com.
Ramdhari Singh Dinkar's poems speak to every Indian, uniting them across political, social, religious and caste divides. They elevate; they inspire; they stir the soul and goose-bump the flesh.
Ramdhari Singh Dinkar's poems speak to every Indian, uniting them across political, social, religious and caste divides. They elevate; they inspire; they stir the soul and goose-bump the flesh.
'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.
'It would be too sweeping to say that the elites and the middle-class don't care about liberty.' 'It is just that they are always calculating the trade-offs: What's in it for me, what could it cost me?' 'To that extent, we haven't changed in 40 years,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Given her penchant for obfuscating issues Mamata is encouraging the false perception, parroted by her political hangers-on, that all refugees from Bangladesh would face the brunt of deportation once the BJP came to power. In fact, Didi's theatrics and those of all her extras, in the last few days, have been based on propagating this falsehood, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
U R Ananthamurthy's assertion of leaving the country if Modi is voted to power is an affront to the deep sense of the Indian voters who have time and again shown a certain sagacity and wisdom of judgement. It certainly shows a 'corruption of the mind' on his part and not on the one he chooses to irrationally oppose, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
Darryl D'Monte mentored more journalists than any other editor of his generation. Some of the biggest bylines owe their beginnings in our glorious profession to this wonderful human being.
There is a leader in every man waiting for the right moment. The Aam Admi Party has found it and is already ready with its list for the Lok Sabha. The challenge is enormous but the future beckons the way it had never, before, feels sociologist Shiv Vishvanathan.
Non-Congressism is the answer to India's current difficulties, says Dr Shambhu Shrivastava, who gives a historical perspective of non-Congress experiments in 1967, 1977, 1989 and 1998.
'Nitish has no future in state politics.' 'Nitish harassed the Yadav community no end in his earlier tenure as chief minister. So who will the Yadav community vote for in the coming state elections?'
Pranab Mukherjee's book The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years takes the readers through the economic and social unrest of the period leading up to the emergency, rise and fall of leaders, many splits within the Congress, while promising to offer more in the next two volumes of the trilogy, says Nivedita Mookerji.
Each 'adarsh village' should have piped drinking water, connectivity to the main road, electricity supply to all households, library, telecom and broadband connectivity including CCTVs in public areas. Emphasis will also be on e-governance, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
