Should a politician be the next President?
On Wednesday, Bengal's own daughter she firmly pitched herself as, was sworn in as the chief minister of the turbulent state for the third successive term amid raging fires of political violence and a rampaging pandemic.
Can the Opposition disrupt Parliament proceedings at its will? Tell us.
Gale-force winds, heavy rainfall and high tidal waves swept the coastal belt of Kerala, Karnataka and Goa as Cyclone Tauktae hurtled northwards towards Gujarat on Sunday, leaving four people dead in Karnataka and two in Goa, damaging hundreds of houses, uprooting electricity poles and trees and forcing evacuation.
BJP spokesman V K Malhotra said they would not allow any discussion in the Lok Sabha until the 'tainted' ministers step down.
The issue combined with its alliance with anti-Congress parties in 1989 won the BJP 85 seats in Lok Sabha elections against mere two in 1984.
The government must figure out what the Chinese game plan is and thwart the endgame before it is upon us, possibly in early winter, advises David Devadas.
Opposition in the Lok Sabha on Thursday took the government to task for its moves to divest its stake in oil majors -- Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation
India is too diverse to be governed centrally and with a single system. The way forward is for the central government to keep the monopoly of military power and a share of national resources while the provinces must have greater autonomy, recommends Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
Leaders hope the Ayodhya temple ceremony would pave way for harmony.
The electoral bounty reaped by the Congress was nothing more than an ill-gotten gain of a casteist, divisive campaign; nothing to be proud of and certainly not a moral victory, argues Vivek Gumaste.
A quick look at winners in the major categories.
Honorary Captain Bana Singh won the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest ranking gallantry award, for recapturing a Pakistani post on the Siachen Glacier. Living a retired life in a quiet village in Jammu and Kashmir, he makes you feel that his act of phenomenal courage was part of a soldier's day at work.
'Someone is needed to restore India back to Indians. So you decided you won't vote for Modi. But then, who will you vote for? List your leaders from the north to south and east to west, and ask your heart and mind, will any one of them be able to deliver and bring back India from the darkness it has fallen into?' asks Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Vijay.
The terrorists were armed with AK-47s, grenades, pistols, knives, many rounds of ammunition. Sepoy Jagdish Chand's weapons were his bare hands and enormous courage. He died, but not before he felled one of them. Archana Masih/Rediff.com speaks to the family of Sepoy Jagdish Chand, one of the 7 soldiers martyred in the terrorist attack on the Pathankot Air Force Station.
'When he has been retired against his will, Advani appears to have found the merits of tolerance.' 'It took his one-time pupil to teach the old man his own lesson,' says Aakar Patel.
Dr Kaushal Kishore Mishra, the prime accused in the assault case against Somnath Bharti, says he never attacked the AAP leader. He then explains the polarisation politics of Varanasi.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force started landing in Gujarat with the help of the Indian Air Force to undertake preventive evacuation of people living on the west coast, an IAF official said.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday set out with much fanfare to file his nomination papers for Delhi Assembly election but had to put it off till Wednesday after his road show made it impossible for him to reach the election office in time.
Meanwhile, an independent MLA in Gujarat has declared his support to the BJP.
Activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal will take oath as Delhi's seventh chief minister on Saturday at historic Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi, capping his party's stunning electoral debut in the December 4 assembly polls. The date for the swearing-in ceremony was finalised at a meeting Kejriwal held with Chief Secretary D M Spolia.
'Although the Congress party ethos resembles a court with courtiers, Sonia Gandhi's style was to be consensual.'
The temples are concerned about the religious sentiments of the devotees who donate gold ornaments in the name of the deities
'In his 2014 election campaign, Mr Modi had boasted that he would apply the Gujarat model to the rest of India. We just have to ensure he doesn't start with Parliament,' says Shashi Tharoor in this fascinating excerpt from his new book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi And His India.
As Delhi continued to face long power cuts, over 20 Aam Aadmi Party members of Legislative Assembly staged a protest outside Union Minister Harsh Vardhan's house in East Delhi demanding urgent steps by the Centre to improve electricity supply in the city.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar quashed the Centre's notification disqualifying the AAP MLAs, saying the the EC's recommendation against the legislators was "bad in law" and "vitiated".
'This is a negative campaign, of slurs and fears.' 'The BJP has no desire to fight a positive campaign as it did in 2014, on the issue of governance and achche din.' 'Where the BJP can use these tactics, it will,' says Aakar Patel.
'The Aam Aadmi's prophet is out of touch with both the city and his own flock.'
'Most Indians know very little about Patel which is a great shame.'
As his government completed one month in power, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said controversies surrounding the Aam Aadmi Party dispensation never affected its functioning and asserted that his team did a good job in addressing various challenges facing the city.
What makes Badrinath Ki Dulhania work, really, is the intent and the two principal actors, observes Raja Sen.
'The BJP must realise that a resurgent Rahul Gandhi will take the battle straight into its camp.' 'He is not going to be held back by the misdeeds of UPA 1 and 2, so there is no point harping on them,' says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Political parties are getting battle-ready, nominating their best candidates to contest Election 2014... Rediff.com's incomparable Sheela Bhatt begins a new column where she reveals the ground realities in the Battle for India, as only she can. Don't miss it!
Indrani Roy/Rediff.com explains what strengthened the saffron party's foothold in this eastern region of the country
'Whatever the result on December 18, Rahul has succeeded.' 'He has taken the battle to the rival's territory, and forced him to take him more seriously than he has done so far, or would have wished to.' 'A party, dominating and powerful as the BJP today, is spending all its time attacking the leader of one with just 46 seats in the Lok Sabha, and in the woods in Gujarat for 22 years.' 'This isn't the script the BJP had written,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The media wittingly or otherwise has been a key player in stymying the AAP. It is not so much the rivals, but the media, mostly the television and from its cues, large sections of the print segment, who got the trophy. The political parties, especially BJP and Congress, can now laugh in their sleeves, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The idea is to make unexceptionable broad promises so as to have the maximum freedom to devise policies if and when the opportunity arises, says Subir Roy.
'Arvind Kejriwal displayed crass male chauvinism and gender illiteracy in saying that "rape tendencies arise out of sex, prostitution and drug rackets." This shows a failure to grasp that rape has little to with sex, and even less with drugs. Such remarks are far worse than the deplorable comments of policemen and politicians who attribute rapes to women's "provocative" attire or their outdoor presence at night!' says Praful Bidwai.
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