Cautioning against forces which fan communal tension in order to polarise the situation in their favour, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday voiced concern over the Muzaffarnagar riots and said such violence cannot be allowed to spread.
Contest on their own and get washed out, as happened in the 2016 assembly elections? Or contest in league with one of the Dravidian majors and get submerged under its election symbol? With elections looming, minor political parties in Tamil Nadu are caught in this dilemma, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the bill to prevent disqualification of convicted politicians to decide the RJD chief's political fate, there's a lot at stake, especially with the upcoming elections in mind. Anita Katyal reports
The prime minister, says Ram Kelkar, could do a lot to advance his stature as a national leader by speaking in strong and unequivocal terms on the subject of opposing intolerance and emphasizing the rule of law, thereby setting the tone for the nation and the party.
'Most of the agitations are staged by the Opposition to disturb the peace of the state.'
Coming out in support of suspended Uttar Pradesh IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that the officer is not unfairly treated.
The bench said the AAP contention that the LG is bound to act on the aid and advice of Council of Ministers was "without substance and cannot be accepted".
Palaniswami and Paneerselvam joined to oust Dinakaran and EC cancelled R K Nagar by-election.
'The Congress, all these decades, worked on a slow Hindi-isation and Indianisation of Arunachal tribes. The RSS wants rapid Hinduisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Indrani exclaimed excitedly, her face lighting up like a little girl's: "I know him soo0o well." Sanjeev Khanna, Accused No 2, jokingly suggested to Badami: "Influencing the witness!" Badami retorted good humouredly: "She can't influence witnesses. She can only influence you and Peter."
Outlawed outfit Students Islamic Movement of India's possible role has come under the scanner of investigators probing the terror attack outside a restaurant here that killed a woman and injured three others, as government announced a raft of measures to ramp up security, particularly in crowded areas.
These elections will be remembered for the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal, feels Neeta Kolhatkar.
'This is a watershed election in Indian politics.' 'For the first time, we are moving away from identity politics to aspirational politics.'
The government is following a path where it will not be irresponsible or profligate with public money but will intervene in the interest of the poor
'Initially, we had 48 teams, now it has been enhanced to 133 teams: that is for every 10 to 12 villages, there is a team that is working round the clock.' '133 x 3, that is, given the 8-hour shifts.' 'They are monitored every hour, they are equipped with GPS -- everything is tracked live, real time, from the control room.'
The decision will benefit over nine crore such account holders having total deposit of around Rs 32,000 crore.
'I was at a very senior position in the CBI and what happens is, hints are dropped for you to act upon. But then it depends upon your conscience, to do it or otherwise.' 'I know the rank and file of the CBI, they will bounce back; it is the leadership which has failed.'
PMO's stance came as part of a reply to the whistle-blower forest officer, Sanjiv Chaturvedi, after he dragged the PMO to the Central Information Commission for denying information under the RTI Act.
The high-voltage campaign for the February 4 assembly elections in Punjab came to an end on Thursday evening following hectic campaigning by various political parties.
The illegal snooping row intensified on Monday with the Bharatiya Janata Party rejecting Congress demand for a probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge and the ruling party accusing Narendra Modi of heading a "fascist" set up in Gujarat under which a woman was allegedly ordered to be stalked.
Rumour has it that former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad had once misbehaved with Amit Khare, the then district commissioner of Chaibasa in south Bihar, in full public view. The incident was enough to enrage the strong lobby of Indian Administrative Service officers to take on the all-powerful chief minister.
The four-km distance from the Tiruchi airport to the venue of the meeting has 10 cops deployed every 100 metres. Five DIGs and 12 SPs have been posted along with 5000 policemen to oversee the security arrangements. A review meeting was conducted on Tuesday by the assistant DGP (law and order) T K Rajendran to go through the arrangements minutely, and on Wednesday there was a dry run from the airport to the venue.
Clusters of policemen and television journalists alertly anticipated the arrival of Mumbai's joint commissioner of police, who, it was confirmed by most people I asked, does not visit court often. No one could remember when they had last heard of Deven Bharti appearing as a witness in a murder trial.
Considering that the Supreme Court has now included two, rather three, new variable to the tribunal's findings, it could imply that whenever the current order comes in for review, the two states could raise specific issues flowing from them, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ahead of the assembly elections next year, the BJP has been wallowing in a welter of ideas that has resurrected the debate on populism versus pragmatism, as it has to pander to two important but incompatible constituencies, of the freebie consuming masses and Bengaluru's heavy hitters craving for even roads, pristine lakes and unbroken power supply, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Contradictions have emerged over the death of eight SIMI men, who were gunned down in an alleged encounter with the police on the outskirts of the Bhopal hours after they escaped from the high-security Bhopal Central Jail killing a security guard.
Congress Member of Parliament and party spokesperson Sushmita Dev tells Kavita Chowdhury that party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's "new kind of politics" has revitalised the party, lifting it from the gloom of the 2014 general elections.
Although a fiery speaker and mass leader in her own right, Bharti has to necessarily fall back on what is being repeatedly described as a 'Modi lehar' to wrest this seat from the Congress, observes Anita Katyal
If either faction of the AIADMK failed to muster a floor majority, then the governor would be called upon to ask MK Stalin as the leader of the opposition if he would like to try his hand at government formation.
'Human rights violations are there in rural areas and in cities. In rural areas it is crude and in the open. In urban areas it is well hidden.' 'Awareness has grown several fold. India has 160 national and state human rights institutions. No other country in the world has this.' 'Unfortunately the right to association, right to assembly, freedom of expression, right to protest and discuss are all being curtailed systematically one by one.'
Given the history of the trial proceedings, and the documents that the judges and lawyers in the appeal courts have to read at every stage, Jayalalithaa's bail plea, when moved, will take time to be decided, placing a question mark over the party's electoral prospects in 2016.
Rallying behind the government, the BJP decided to launch a counter-offensive against the opposition "disinformation campaign" on the controversial land bill with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserting that his growth model was pro-poor.
'The BJP should know that simple caste arithmetic may have ceased to follow the basic law of addition.' 'Adding up seemingly distinct vote banks can even cause overall reduction in numbers,' says Sudhir Bisht.
This is dil ka alliance, mil ke jeetenge (It is an alliance of heart, we will win together)... says Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi while addressing a joint press conference with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Will Arundhati Bhattacharya be the RBI's first woman governor? Or will Urjit Patel succeed Raghuram Rajanas RBI governor when his term ends on September 4?
There is a great danger of the government getting stampeded into actions in Kashmir that could result in long lasting damage, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Sunday cautioned voters that neither an Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance nor a united SP can check Bharatiya Janata Party and that only her party would render a crushing blow to Modi government by defeating the saffron party in Uttar Pradesh so that it does not take "immature" steps like the note ban.
'This is the first time that the Americans have agreed to refer to "cross-border terrorist attacks" in a joint statement.' 'No wonder Pakistan has called the joint statement "singularly unhelpful" and has blasted it, and its all-weather friend China has applauded Pakistan's frontline role in combating terrorism,' points out former foreign secretary Ambassador Kanwal Sibal.
Uttar Pradesh is under the scanner again as that state IAS Association has taken on CM Akhilesh Yadav for the suspension of Durga Shakti Nagpal, who campaigned against the sand mafia
The two rival factions of the AIADMK may have merged, but there are problems staring at it on all fronts -- governmental, political, electoral and organisational, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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