Joginder Tuteja lists our theatrical entertainment for the month.
Modi spoke to the BJP's longest serving president, who is credited with crafting the party's rise through the 90s when it came to power for the first time as the head of coalition governments under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and congratulated him.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday declared that he will not realign with the Bharatiya Janata Party till he is alive, accusing the former ally of using investigating agencies for targeting political opponents like Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad.
The last Bharat Ratna award was conferred upon Pranab Mukherjee in 2019 and was posthumously awarded to Bhupendra Kumar Hazarika and Nanaji Deshmukh. The award was not given to anyone between 2020 and 2023.
"The Congress did not behave properly with my grandfather. I campaigned for the BJP during the Madan Lal Khurrana days in Delhi. My grandfather wanted me to join the BJP. He had introduced me to late Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani," he said.
The two leaders had some firm convictions in defence matters and are idolised by their respective people because they salved the scarred collective psyches of their societies.
'Advani went by the book, by files, by advice given by his babus. He may be well read and articulate and a pleasant conversationalist, but none of that makes for the kind of creative politician that Vajpayee was.' 'This is the kind of observation about the Vajpayee premiership, more than the promise of espionage or Kashmir gossip, that made writing A S Dulat's book a satisfying experience,' says Aditya Sinha.
The Bharat Ratna for him comes nine years after the honour was bestowed on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The two leaders together spearheaded the journey of the Jana Sangh and then the BJP for over five decades.
It is a measure of the overwhelming presence of the leadership of the original duo, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, in the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party that the party has had some difficulty in making the transition from the Vajpayee-Advani era. But in choosing Sushma Swaraj for the post of the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha, the BJP has put its best foot forward.
Politely decline to be prime minister, and hand the baton to someone else in the BJP -- like Sonia did to Manmohan Singh -- advises Krishna Prasad.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi once again went that extra mile to reach out to the aam aadmi. On Tuesday, Gandhi was travelling in New Delhi when he spotted a person hurt in a road accident on the road. He immediately stopped his car to help the victim and ensured that he was rushed to the nearby All India Institute of Medical Sciences for treatment.
Kharge claimed that though the BJP says the corrupt must be put in jails, when leaders facing corruption charges join the saffron party, they are "put on the lap" and sent to Rajya Sabha or assembly.
Aam Aadmi Party on Monday fired a fresh salvo at Centre over the statehood issue.
Some have been cherry-picked to assert the BJP's supremacy over its allies or, significantly, its leaders who charted an independent course in the recent past.
It is to Vajpayee's credit that he told Dilip Kumar to ignore Thackeray and to follow his own conscience. But the episode -- as indeed, the manner in which Dilip Kumar has been made to pay for being a Muslim throughout his life -- shames us all as Indians, says Vir Sanghvi.
'Those who hope for a strong united Opposition are disillusioned at the way in which the INDIA alliance has already been caught in debilitating squabbles.'
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime, on Saturday joined Trinamool Congress days ahead of the high-octane West Bengal assembly polls.
If the government of the day would like to set in place a smooth and well-planned changeover and facilitate the incoming chief to chalk out his action plan well in advance, the announcement of a successor needs to be done early, observes Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd).
'The West has always opposed a strong nationalist leader in India and Narendra Modi is no exception.' 'The West prefers weak leaders who are amenable to Western pressure and Mr Modi's independent stance is not to the liking of the West,' asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The coming assembly and Lok Sabha elections -- the choice of candidates, the campaign strategies and the negotiations with other Opposition parties --0 represent the real test for Mallikarjun Kharge.
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
'The sense of Constitutional propriety and political morality seems to be vanishing fast.' 'There are many things in today's politics of governance which Manmohan Singh would have never dreamt of saying or doing.'
It appears the row over the article penned by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha refuses to die down.
As the old Parliament building hosted a session one last time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday bid a poignant farewell recalling the country's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru's iconic 'tryst with destiny' speech for continuing to inspire everyone and another predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 'governments may come and go' remark.
Amid speculation that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose may be named for the Bharat Ratna, a Congress leader on Sunday said Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram and Aligarh Muslim University founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan should also be given the country's highest civilian award.
Moreover, there have also been speculations that while entering into an alliance in August last year, a "deal" was struck whereby Nitish Kumar would give up his chair for his deputy who in turn would back him for the top job in national politics.
'My understanding is that by the time President Xi Jinping came for the Chennai summit [2019], he had already instructed his army to undertake the action in Galwan in the summer of 2020.'
This is for the second time in the last three months that Sinha has come out with praising words for Rahul Gandhi and his 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.
Hailing former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, calling him a "role model", he also advocated for more women representation in the assembly.
A foundation in the name of former Deputy Prime Minister Babu Jagjivan Ram and father of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has been allotted a bungalow in the prime Lutyen's Delhi for 25 years.
In George Fernandes's passing, many will mourn him -- even those who disagreed vehemently with him, writes Aditi Phadnis.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Known for his clean image, Harsh Vardhan will face a stiff challenge of uniting the faction-ridden Bharatiya Janata Party as his nomination to the chief ministerial post comes after a bitter internal squabble that had threatened to derail the party's campaign to wrest power after 15 years in the capital.
Narendra Modi will be travelling to Israel, the first by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish country with which bilateral defence cooperation is on an upswing.
Mahajan, who turns 76 next week, said there had been speculations whether the party will field someone who has crossed the 75-year age bar.
'Rightly or wrongly, 1962 got ascribed to Krishna Menon and him alone. That's unfair.' 'Certainly, he was one of the guilty men, but he was not the only guilty man. Mistakes were made all around.'
A Web series shouldn't be outright unrealistic. Being Bollywoodesque is always suicidal, asserts Utkarsh Mishra.
'After Vajpayee-Advani, Modi-Shah is the second best in India.'
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