Unfortunately, in India, infrastructure projects are lost in a miasma of political and personal vanity, observes Shyam G Menon.
'Modi, focused on youth and their aspirations, has articulated a truly disruptive change: One of hope, of duties rather than rights, of standing up to the world instead of being bullied by it,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'When they completely surrender to the BJP or the BJP has completely taken over the party, what's the point in the AIADMK surviving and doing business in the state?'
Voted to power with an absolute majority for the first time in nearly three decades, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, considered as an able administrator, promises "a fresh engagement" with the United States, a latest Congressional report has said.
The Prime Minister also underscored the importance of public sector undertakings in the country.
Neither Barack Obama or John F Kerry were involved in the decision for Ambassador Nancy Powell to meet Narendra Modi. Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa reports from Washington, DC.
'Defaulters like Mallya can't be offloaded, but activists like me are. And that too for raising questions.' 'Today, what is the meaning of development?' 'Take over land, water and forest from the Adivasis and hand it over to corporates.' 'I am surprised how a minister who is supposed to protect the forests and the environment is happy reaching out to investors for more and more clearances.'
'Premature lifting of the lockdown will spread the disease from asymptomatics, and those undetected, to the whole community, ushering in prolonged misery, preventable and avoidable deaths, famine and social unrest,' warns Dr Debashish Danda.
'I believe one of the most critical issues is the common threat we face from Islamist radicals and the continuing and unimpaired financing of Al Qaeda, the 'D' Company, the Haqqani network, the LeT and the Jaish-e-Muhammed.'
With Narendra Modi about to make his first Independence Day speech, there is a buzz in Delhi that Modi will make some big announcements to signal major reforms and directional shifts. But we have to wait and see if it happens, says Mohan Guruswamy.
The AIADMK is convinced that the BJP will remain an electoral burden for a long time to come, beginning the Lok Sabha polls next year, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ashley J Tellis, a leading authority on Indo-US relations, tells Archis Mohan in an emailed interview that it is time Washington and New Delhi agreed on the contours of their 'strategic partnership', and that India's elite could learn from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in how he has put India's interests first and his own sentiments about the Americans second.
'The speeches of Modi in Assam, Bengal, Kerala, Baghpat and the border areas of Bihar, overplaying the themes of terrorism, izzat of mothers and sisters, are to be read carefully to understand that he is trying to keep the fear of Muslims alive in the Hindu masses,' says Apoorvanand.
The previous government set up a cabinet task force to clear the backlog of projects but failed to make much of an impact.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday cautioned against "commodifying" yoga, saying using it as some sort of business will do great damage to this world heritage.
The apprehensions about Narendra Modi among Muslims will "go away" once he becomes the prime minister as there will be policy initiatives to remove such perception, his close aide Amit Shah said on Sunday.
'Is the idea of a committed judiciary once again being floated, though surreptitiously, unlike in the past when it was direct?'
'BJP has risen to second spot, ahead of the BSP, as the political party of choice for Muslims in UP.' 'Only the BJP government has worked tirelessly to usher in the minorities to the mainstream of society'
Today beef, tomorrow namaz, the third day Sunday mass the fourth day hijab, the fifth day halal, the sixth day love jihad will always be the issues on hand, asserts Aakar Patel.
'Our plan to set up a semiconductor facility in India is back on the table'
'The time has come to substitute the present Constitutional set-up with an alternative democratic framework,' argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Two seconds of Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai pack in more chemistry than two hours and 44 minutes of Ranbir and Shraddha's romance in Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, feels Sukanya Verma.
'I see you as a man who has split the nation into two. Vajpayee or even Advani would hold it together. One senses you cannot do this. To heal, to apologise, and to glue together a nation seems beyond you,' Shiv Visvanathan tells the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Narendra Modi, says T V R Shenoy, is 'busy trying to woo back two constituencies that were crucial when the BJP won power in the elections of 1998 and of 1999, namely UP (and the Hindi belt in general) and educated youth.'
The Congress won 77 seats or 42% of seats in the 2017 polls. How then can Gujarat be called a BJP bastion, asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
ndependent of the political fallout, which Stalin has sought to arrest through the withdrawal of the measures as fast as they were introduced, there are concerns about the way those decisions came to be taken, without adequate application of mind, not in official terms but in political and electoral contexts, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being 'casteist' and 'anti-Dalit', and said his party will always stand against the BJP's 'oppressive' ideology.
'During his visit to Vietnam on September 3 -- the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 15 years -- Modi will notice the widespread anti-China sentiment in that country.'
'That is the one headline the world is reading about India this week, and it is a potentially damaging story...' 'I don't think a panic mentality has set in, but this story is one that investors and market watchers are absolutely seized with.'
Meaningful devolution of spending power to states could spread more confidence on the ground and stir precisely the sort of change Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised.
'If you want to really grow, it has to be geometric progression like it happened at the Centre or Haryana or Tripura, where you made a quantum jump.' 'This is possible in Kerala provided we present a better alternative with a great leadership, but the current leadership is busy fixing each other.'
'The Modi government has been taking credit for improvement in respect of the ease of doing business in India.' 'But when I look at the scams I cannot help feeling that it is too easy to do business with banks in India, if one is a Harshad Mehta, Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi and their tribe,' says former Union home secretary Madhav Godbole.
Modi's Make in India will work only if the cost of borrowing comes down.
Any NGO critical of the government is unlikely to receive a green signal. The new amendment will leave NGOs vulnerable to harassment. It was the NGO sector that helped provide compassion and food to millions of people during the lockdown. The new Bill will render such cooperation and camaraderie impossible in future, observes Rashme Sehgal.
Instead of a consumption stimulus the government must address the NPA issue with a war footing and invest in infrastructure, affordable housing and exports, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
There is a need for tax reforms in the country in a bolder way, Singh said.
Suspended Indian Administrative Service officer Pradeep Sharma, who took on Narendra Modi over the snoopgate scandal when he was the Gujarat chief minister, was arrested on Tuesday in a corruption case, a day after the Enforcement Directorate attached his properties for alleged money laundering.
'When I talk to my colleagues in the Railways, they say 'aadmi toh bohot hai, lekin matlab ka aadmi ek bhi nahi hai (the Railways has a bloated workforce, but doesn't have employees with have the skillsets that matter)'.'
A pro rata expansion of that number for 100 Gw means investing that much every year.
Crude oil shipments from the US to India rose to the highest levels in November since the conflict began in Ukraine in late February, sparking hopes of a resurgence in oil flows from the US to the subcontinent, reveals shipping data. Shipments from the US have surged as Western nations prepare to impose additional sanctions on Russian crude flows. The US shipped around 450,000 barrels per day of crude last month to India, twice that of shipments in October, according to data from London-based commodity intelligence provider Vortexa.
