One unwanted fallout of Stan Swamy's death from the government's point of view will be the increased attention on those senior citizens who are still in jail on charges which are taking a long time to prove, believes Amulya Ganguli.
Jayant Chaudhary has plenty of time to make his own mistakes. But this election is a crucial test of his leadership.
India should observe October 22 as Kashmir Martyrs Day to pay tribute to those who lost their lives to Paakistan's State terrorism, suggests Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
'Since the goal of taking everyone along on the path of development -- sabka saath sabka vikas -- requires an atmosphere of amity, there cannot but be an emphasis on the primacy of law and order -- and it cannot be only against road-side Romeos or gutka chewers,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'Whoever thought that building toilets and providing free rations to the poorest of poor Indians would give Modi a halo other political leaders would envy?' asks Sheela Bhatt.
Internal strife and tribalism is endemic to Afghanistan, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'No civilised nation can thrive if it is possessed with the spirit of Hindutva.'
As many as 2,128 people have been arrested on the second day of a nationwide anti-terror crackdown, police said, adding 48 of them belonged to various militant outfits.
'Bhagwat, aware of the advantages of keeping the BJP in power, is wary about the RSS taking steps that would undermine the popular standing of either the PM or the party.'
Devdutt Pattanaik responds to the decision by Penguin to withdraw and pulp Wendy Doniger's book The Hindus: An Alternative History.
The Modi-Shah definition of secularism is, India is a confident, resurgent Hindu, and therefore secular, country.
The politics of hate does not pay. The people are too sensible to fall for such a ruse, says Amulya Ganguli.
In their comments, the Indian-American stand-up comedians said the arrest of Faruqui was incredibly unjust and against the freedom of expression.
The Howdy Modi put a dagger into the heart of the 'bipartisan consensus' in the US regarding the relations with (Modi's) India, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Given this dissonance between India's age-old multicultural tenets and the anti-minority temper of the present times, it cannot be easy for the BJP to maintain its balancing act to convince the world that all is well,' observes Amulya Ganguli.
'Indian nationhood is indeed at the cusp of alarming redefinition -- hate-filled, and exclusionary.' 'Nations are not built this way, instead these are the ways of liquidating nations.' 'We must pre-empt it.' 'Can we?' asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'Rahul Gandhi has personally paid a heavy price for this character assassination and remorseless ridiculing and the Congress, of course, has been demolished politically.'
'He is wily and has everything that a political leader needs to succeed at that level.' 'He would be outstanding as a counter to Modi in the Lok Sabha, if he had the Opposition benches behind him,' says Aakar Patel.
'Will this communal pendulum, which is swinging towards the extreme of division and violence, ever swing back to its position of the '60s and '70s within my lifetime?' 'Or will my children, and their children, have to continue to suffer the consequences of the country, that we all love, torn apart along communal lines,' asks Najid Hussain in anguish.
Initial investigations found that Shahidullah was involved in a property dispute with neighbours 'which could be a reason of the murder'.
The Hindu right-wing body in its mouthpiece taunts "liberals" protesting the Dadri lynching incident, asking what exactly is their idea of India.
If Kejriwal wins the Delhi election, then most regional parties will copy Kejriwal's do's and don'ts of jugaad to win an election against the Modi-Shah juggernaut, reports Sheela Bhatt.
'It is obvious that the RSS's desire to gatecrash into the gated establishment which has generally been seen as the redoubt of the liberal intelligentsia is putting it at odds with the BJP which is less tolerant of the mentor's freshly-minted open-mindedness,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
It is this new Muslim who is not burdened by the Pakistan guilt, who is ready to fight it out for the rights enshrined under the Constitution, and who is not defensive about Muslim identity that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are out to crush, argues Mohd Asim.
'One has to move with the times to stay relevant.'
While Himanta Biswa Sarma scotched rumours that he would be the king this time, political sources in Guwahati maintained that he, and not Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, had a bigger say in choosing candidates, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
'In 2013, Modi said his government would be of Dalits and OBCs.' 'During his tenure, the highest number of atrocities have taken place.' 'What they want is that this Ambedkar Constitution must not be practised in India in the future.'
While the DMK fears that the Congress with its poor strike rate will pull it down in the 2021 state elections, like it did five years ago, the ruling AIADMK is worried that the BJP may ultimately do a Bihar on it, relegating it to second place in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Painting opponents as the enemy of the State, using fake news, making wild allegations about rival parties, curtailing civil liberties and challenging the Constitution itself are worrying developments.'
Despite all its drawbacks, I was engrossed in Toofaan and the intensity Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra imbues it with for most part, observes Sukanya Verma.
The submission was vehemently opposed by senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, representing deity 'Ram Lalla', who said: "This is totally unwarranted".
'Like Nehru, too, Modi has found dealing with Beijing more and more difficult and has adopted an increasingly assertive approach towards managing India's northern neighbour.'
By clinging to the past misdeeds of some Islamic rulers, present day Muslims are making reconciliation of communities an impossibility, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The Congress may not be able to dump the family entirely, but it could move to a new operating model in which the family takes a 'chairmanship' role while day-to-day affairs are handled by a new CEO.'
'The entire brouhaha with regard to the CAB smacks of blatant Hinduphobia, a duplicitous exercise, morally corrupt in its construct and aimed at divesting deserving Hindus of basic human rights by raising the bogey of Muslim discrimination, and must be called out for what it is,' says Vivek Gumaste.
Violence has always been a fact of life in Bengal's politics; it is just that the faces have changed, the contesting ideologies have changed, says Saisuresh Sivawamy.
'The mobilisation is nothing but a political ploy -- a sort of a fixed match between Hindu and Muslim communal forces, towards polarisation, in a run-up to the next election,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
'And if you think this is alarmist nonsense, you are helping it happen,' says Mitali Saran.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has warned ethnic Indians that they could be held under the Internal Security Act if their actions threatened national interest and asked the police to monitor their movements.
India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador T S Tirumurti, said on Tuesday that India condemns all forms of anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination on religious grounds anywhere in the world.
