'He should not come to Kerala and fight against the CPI which is an integral part of the INDIA alliance'
The PDP said the party will take a call on government formation in the state as and when it is confident that it can fulfill the vision and mission of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
In nearly 100 seats, the BJP stands almost no chance of winning. In 200 seats, it is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress where the BJP has an upper hand. In 243 seats, the BJP is pitted against regional parties and it is not going to be easy. That is why 400 seats may end up as a pipe dream, states Ramesh Menon, author of Modi Demystified: The Making of a Prime Minister.
The real risk is that the core assumption -- that the votes for a candidate sponsored by an alliance will at least equal the sum total of its parts -- proves to be facile, observes T N Ninan.
The Bharat Nyay Yatra will be mostly covered by bus along with short stretches of walking.
Had it not been for the slow but sure emergence of China as a threat to the western order, would India have been accepted as a near-equal partner by individual western nations, jointly and severally, questions N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Respect the pledges you have made to the people of Kashmir.' 'Jammu and Kashmir is not like any other state of the country.'
The Congress-led grouping has some reasons to feel emboldened over recent political developments.
'Increasing Indian influence meant "people here in Washington DC, in Brussels, in London or other world capitals don't talk about Kashmir".'
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.
'It is not his doing, but Rahul Gandhi is forced by circumstances.' 'In taking political decisions, everything has to get his clearance.'
'It is time to not merely assert that Kashmir is an internal problem, but begin to act on it,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Chidambaram pitched for greater autonomy for the restive Jammu and Kashmir yet again on Sunday, drawing stinging criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party, with Union minister Smriti Irani calling it "shocking and shameful".
In a significant move to enhance its strategic resource security, India has officially released its first-ever critical minerals list, identifying 30 key critical minerals crucial to the nation's economic growth and technological development. This pioneering step aims at reducing import dependence, enhancing supply-chain resilience, and supporting the country's net-zero objectives. Union Minister Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines Pralhad Joshi, while releasing the Critical Minerals for India report in New Delhi on Wednesday, said, "India is readying for an Atmanirbhar Bharat."
The best, wisest, and fairest next step in strengthening our own cause is to restore statehood to Jammu & Kashmir and allow the resumption of robust political activity. That's a box that remains unchecked on the Modi government's report card as we approach the fourth anniversary of Kashmir's Constitutional shift, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
PDP said the coalition will move forward on the basis of last year's 'Agenda of Alliance' which encompasses all issues -- political and economic.
Kashmiris hope that India and Pakistan can find a lasting solution to what many call the Kashmir 'problem'.
She also sought confidence building measures to be undertaken on the lines of those initiated in 2002.
She said poor people and farmers have been badly hit by high denomination rupee ban decision.
There is only one perpetrator, Hamas. It is a terrorist organisation. It is obscene to argue that until the Palestinian question is solved, anybody has the right to use terrorism as an instrument of policy, argues Shekhar Gupta.
The Opposition parties need to spell out how exactly they will protect the citizen from government excess, asserts T N Ninan.
Jairam Ramesh said the Congress has to be the "fulcrum" of any Opposition alliance to take on the BJP in the 2024 general elections as it is the only political force with a pan-India presence.
The Congress will launch a two-month door-to-door campaign across India from next week to spread Rahul Gandhi's message among the masses, senior leader Jairam Ramesh said on Friday.
'US officials must grapple with the possibility that one of its closest partners attempted an extrajudicial killing on its soil.' 'This is not something that friends typically do to friends.'
The new PDP chief will have to work hard to keep everyone in the state happy.
'It should be of concern that some youth in Kashmir have started raising Daesh flags along with those of Pakistan.'
'There is a problem with the rise of a popular view that sees Kashmir through the prism of the larger, chronic Hindu-Muslim tensions.' 'By redefining the Kashmir problem simplistically in Hindu-Muslim terms could end up keeping Kashmir but losing most Kashmiris,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The former Union minister asserted that an objective analysis of the political situation will lead to the conclusion that the Congress has to be the "pole" around which Opposition unity in the 2024 Lok Sabha election can be built.
'The performance of any government is benchmarked on five parameters -- India's external security, the state of the economy, social cohesion, internal security, and India's relations with the world or its foreign policy. On each of the benchmarks in the past nine years, the NDA-BJP government has come up completely short'
'The Government of India should start a dialogue with the people of Ladakh, but the trouble is they are not willing to listen to our grievances.'
'India needs to learn in Kashmir how to spread development.' 'Pakistan needs to learn in Balochistan how to spread development.' 'China needs to learn in Xinjiang and Tibet.' 'And if they can show tangible benefits, there will be less terrorism.' 'No one wakes up in the morning saying 'I want to kill myself', right?'
'The National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party, as recent events suggest, are quite content as New Delhi's collaborators rather than trying to be true representatives of the Kashmiri people,' says Athar Parvaiz.
In the prevailing difficult circumstances, the Congress is the only party that can provide capable and decisive leadership to the country, Kharge asserted.
Violent clashes broke out between a group of youths and security forces in parts of the city on Saturday, leaving a youth and a policeman injured in stone pelting as separatist groups called a strike in Srinagar condemning the police action on Jamia Masjid on Friday.
The ongoing violence in the valley is driving students to excel, but it is also making them angry, discovers Ritwik Sharma.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD-U launched a frontal attack on ally BJP, asking it to rein in 'loudmouth leaders' whose 'arrogance' had cost it an old partner like the Shiv Sena.
Neither Biden nor his successors can any longer ignore the threat China has come to pose to the US in both economic and military fields, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'AAP is more acceptable to sections of the middle class because it has pragmatically tried to accommodate Hindu sensibilities.'
'From what evidence has come up, General Bajwa somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.' 'And so, it [the plan to oust me] wasn't imported from there. It was exported from here to there.'
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