'Did anyone else get the feeling that AWIAL -- despite being ostensibly based in the Mumbai of today -- is actually set in a Neverland of Solemnity?' asks Sreehari Nair.
China would have become another India "where around 20% of the world's poorest live" if it adopted democracy
China's stand is that relevant parties should find a solution internally.
Two women are in contention to become prime minister for the first time in Japan's history -- a potential turning point for a country that ranks below Saudi Arabia in terms of female political representation, points out Rajaram Panda.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren expanded his cabinet on Thursday, inducting 11 new ministers, including six first-timers and two women. The swearing-in ceremony was held at the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi. The new ministers include six from the JMM and four from the Congress. One minister is from the RJD. The expansion comes after the JMM-led alliance won the recent assembly elections with a comfortable majority. The cabinet expansion is expected to give the government a fresh impetus to push its agenda and accelerate development in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday returned to power in Delhi after more than 26 years to sweep away the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party with a two-thirds majority on the back of a hyper localised campaign and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'AAP-da'(disaster) blitzkrieg.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and African heritage, has formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination becoming the first Indian-American to win the nomination from a major political party, and chose Minnesota Gov Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday.
Of all recent Japanese leaders, new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been the most enthusiastic about the future of India-Japan relationship and gave it an entirely new dimension. New Delhi now has a chance to greatly improve its ties with Tokyo. It must seize the moment, say Harsh V Pant.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had suffered decimation in the last general elections, was leading in five seats, out of 23 where it had fielded candidates.
Though May won her Maidenhead seat in south-east England with 37,780 votes, she faced pressure to resign after losing her parliamentary majority.
Will Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, who gets his orders from New Delhi, call the shots or allow a democratically elected government to independently govern, questions Ramesh Menon.
This is the first conversation between Modi and Yunus after he assumed the responsibility following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government.
The leader of Liberal Democratic Party Shinzo Abe has become Japan's new prime minister, giving top priority to overcoming the prolonged economic slump. Abe, who led the LDP to a landslide victory in the general election after three years in opposition, will form a new Cabinet later in the day with his close allies.
Opposition Conservative party is now being closely followed by the Labour party, though the former still leads the race in the in the 2010 general elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to achieve a clear majority in Rajya Sabha after bye-elections for 12 seats scheduled next month, which would help the party get the nod for key legislations such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
The Democratic Party of Japan has won a landslide victory in the elections on Sunday, ending 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, the BBC has said.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) could have performed better in the recently-held Lok Sabha polls and perhaps, too much time was spent in reaching seat-sharing agreements, Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has said.
It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
'Nehru remains central to the polemic between the Congress and the BJP, or stated ideologically, between secular and Hindu nationalism.' 'The reason is that Nehru represents what is optimally possible as a secular politics along with liberalism and democracy in a country like India.'
Conservative leader David Cameron, whose party has secured the largest number of seats and highest percentage of votes, is expected to form the next government in Britain that is set for an India-style coalition politics after no party won an overall majority.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
After being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Trump started his inaugural address with a sentence that echoed Modi's coinage some years ago, notes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'The Kerala BJP leadership is doing the job of clerical staff. What the boss orders, they just follow them.'
People in Bangladesh have welcomed the new interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, hoping it would restore order, end repression and hold a fair election to facilitate a democratic transition of power.
In a stunning comeback, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance on Saturday stormed to power in Jharkhand for a second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, despite an all-out blitz by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which managed only 24 seats.
...Even if it means less democracy, so that their everyday problems get solved? argues R Jagannathan.
Johnson has set his hopes for getting his snap poll bill through the Commons threshold. His latest attempt may just succeed after the Opposition Labour Party said it would back an early election in December.
With challenges such as raising the legal age of marriage for women, combating malnutrition among women and children, and addressing women's safety issues, the new ministers face a formidable agenda.
If one were to go by the latest manifesto, Hatoyama's world consists essentially of Japan, the US, China, South Korea, North Korea (all mentioned by name) and "other countries". India has been relegated to the position of one of the "other countries".
'Is there a connection between the way we pitched the entire issue of Udta Punjab's censorship and the apologetic, full-of-very-specific-answers tone of the movie?' 'Maybe it's just me, but as an Indian liberal, I am more scared of us liberals than I am of the average Indian conservative bloke,' says Sreehari Nair.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made reviving the economy his government's top priority, but his spending promises have raised concerns that Japan's public debt burden, already the worst among major economies, could deteriorate further.
Jailed rights activist Binayak Sen's wife on Monday said it appeared that the only recourse left to her is to seek political asylum in some 'liberal' democratic country as she felt that her family is not safe in India.
India said it will continue to extend its developmental assistance to the friendly people of Sri Lanka.
The two major parties offer the United States choices that are basically unacceptable and the bench strength, such as it is, is not entirely capable of winning popular acclaim, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
In a village of Rajputs, the vote is for Modi even though the BJP is not contesting from here.
Showing total disregard for the US constitution, Trump has said that this could be the last election to be held in the country. A Trump presidency could lead to mass deportation of undocumented migrants and harsh family separation, warns Aseem Chhabra.
Britain's new Conservative- Liberal Democrat coalition government in its first policy pronouncement on Tuesday promised to "enhanced partnership" with India, but said that restrictions will be imposed on the entry of non-European Union immigrants.
'The intellectual A G Noorani and A G Noorani the family man sound like a contradiction in terms, but both aspects were integral parts of the individual.'
A new India-UK relationship would need to include an annual strategic dialogue, cooperation on counter terror and enlarging the role of the G-20, writes Rahul Roy-Chaudhury
