Even as the dust settles on one election, glory in Thiruvananthapuram has come with a new question on the horizon: Who will be UDF's candidate in the next Lok Sabha election given Shashi Tharoor has said 2024 would be his last? It isn't a vacancy that can be easily filled, points out Shyam G Menon.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan, who led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the April 6 assembly polls, on Thursday took oath as chief minister of Kerala for the second time along with 20 ministers.
The go-ahead given to prosecute Arundhati Roy would be seen by supporters of freedom of speech as an announcement that the Right-Wing doesn't feel humbled by the results of the elections, argues Shyam G Menon.
Much drama is likely to continue in the coming year, within the Sangh Parivar as well as involving the Opposition parties and, of course the BJP's allies, predicts Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Wayanad will continue to support Rahul but not to the same extent as in 2019, when his margin of victory had been enormous. Articulate, to the point and speaking in fluent Malayalam, CPI's Annie Raja, had the people who gathered to see her, listening in rapt attention, notes Shyam G Menon.
The senior politician's arrest was formally recorded after he was brought to Thiruvananthapuram via road from his residence and thereafter, he was produced before a duty magistrate who granted him bail.
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
A little over a year after it retained power in Kerala with a massive victory, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front suffered a huge setback on Friday in a bypoll held to Thrikkakara assembly constituency, with Congress candidate Uma Thomas winning with a historic margin of 25,016 votes, giving a boost to the morale of the party-led United Democratic Front in the southern state.
There are few leaders in the Opposition line up who can claim a path to party leadership like Sitaram Yechury and certainly, very few who blended that ascent through student politics with awareness about non-elite real India, urban India and liberal politics, as he did, notes Shyam G Menon.
Shah said that the complaint was lodged based on the provisional certificate which he got after receiving the shot at a vaccination centre on Thursday morning.
Imaginative, innovative and exceptional. The election posters of both the Left Democratic Front and the ruling United Democratic Front are creative and unique in ideas and execution.
Opposing the contention, the state government had argued that the Railways Act was only applicable to Special Railway Projects and SilverLine did not fall in that category.
Personal competence, where it should have been acknowledged and appreciated, was sacrificed for that oft heard line: Party-is-supreme. It angered that at a time when lives are at stake amidst the pandemic, the government didn't deem continuity in leadership important for the health portfolio, observes Shyam G Menon.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.
'As we enter 2025, it must be acknowledged that there is a convergence of capital, influential people (from business and politics) and technology deciding the destiny of others in the name of pride, patriotism, nationalism, nation building, all of it thinly veiled disguises for personal profit and glory,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a stinging attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of not addressing the problem of Manipur even during the debate on the violence in the northeastern state in Parliament a few days ago.
'After taking the decision on Kashmir, nearly 20 days have passed and even now, the people there are not allowed to react or respond to it'
'A campaign that goes beyond caste, creed and religion.' 'This is a campaign that aims to end hunger in society'
Veteran Communist leader and former chief minister V S Achuthanandan, one of the most popular and crowd-puller leaders in the history of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in the state, turned 100 on Friday.
He could have blazed a trail that few Indian judges had. It was a missed opportunity of a lifetime, notes Ramesh Menon.
'Man-made interventions vastly increased the magnitude of the tragedy.'
The senior police officer said the four, after interrogation, revealed their roles and that the police now knows all the participants, conspirators and collaborators involved in the killing of the RSS leader.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
'Rahul Gandhi has done nothing for the constituency'
'We waded through the wet mud into the school, and what we saw were dead bodies strewn all over.' 'We could also see parts of human bodies buried under the wet mud.' 'It was a sight I will never forget in my life. Total devastation everywhere.'
The Congress chief, however, said he was not expecting any cooperation from the prime minister and the BJP-led central government for the development of Wayanad and Kerala.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
He also said a total of Rs 38.75 crore, deposited by people in the Karavannur Cooperative bank in this district, which is now facing charges, had already been returned.
Opposition parties will hold the next meeting of their 26-member INDIA coalition in Mumbai on August 25 and 26, sources said on Thursday.
'I think of that young baby, still in her diapers, balancing with her arms held up by her mother, a Tamil woman wearing a salwar kameez and a dupatta, seated on a stoop,' recalls Aseem Chhabra.
Nothing is going to change in a hurry unless attitudes change and punishments are speedy and fair, notes Ramesh Menon.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's meeting with Bengaluru blasts accused Abdul Nasser Madani has drawn the ire of investigators and the prosecution team in Karnataka.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a post on X that his 18-year-long stint in public service has come to an end.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has honoured Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain refugees by giving them citizenship through Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Union home minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday and maintained there is no provision of stripping of anyone's citizenship in the new law.
'What happened to Andhra Pradesh? It is the perfect example of the transientness of Federal Units.' 'Federalism is a transient thing in this country.'
Making a scathing attack against the Left government, he said the practice of giving pension benefits to the personal staff of ministers just after completing two years a few months ago was a 'gross violation and abuse of authority.'
"One can understand when a woman is raped once. But what if she repeatedly says it. A woman with self respect will either die by suicide after she is raped or try not to be sexually assaulted again."
