What happened in Uttarakhand is a national tragedy. Why couldn't Dr Manmohan Singh announce that he was forming an Uttarakhand Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, with himself as chairman but inviting Narendra Modi to become the deputy chairman, asks T V R Shenoy.
The best, wisest, and fairest next step in strengthening our own cause is to restore statehood to Jammu & Kashmir and allow the resumption of robust political activity. That's a box that remains unchecked on the Modi government's report card as we approach the fourth anniversary of Kashmir's Constitutional shift, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Ramesh stressed that the prime minister should participate in the debate on Manipur.
The Modi government finds itself in a contradiction of its own making. It has encouraged pro-Russian, Westophobic public sentiment while setting strategic policy that's exactly the opposite, points out Shekhar Gupta.
There is a need for tax reforms in the country in a bolder way, Singh said.
India would not be seen to be anything but rude with the Pakistanis. In the big picture, who is the bigger adversary right now? Who is the bigger pain in the neck? And who is it that is keeping more than 3,000 km of our borders active, throwing our military posture and deployments into imbalance? asks Shekhar Gupta.
The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a batch of cross-petitions of Uddhav Thackeray and CM Eknath Shinde factions pertaining to the Maharashtra political crisis.
Nothing 'accidental' about this movie, feels Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'If we can award Madan Mohan Malaviya who died in 1946, then why not the Mahatma who died in 1948?' 'Why not go a little further back in time and give the award to Rabindranath Tagore who died in 1941?' 'And should we mark Lokmanya Tilak's 100th death anniversary in 2020 by giving him a Bharat Ratna,' asks Amberish K Diwanji.
'Unlike in Gujarat, where he could ask for votes based on delivery, in 2019 he will have to appeal to his core Hindutva ideology, by firing over someone else's shoulders,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'The unprecedented bitterness and rancour that marked this election campaign need not spill over into government and governance,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'The present-day Congress party does not lack leaders who want a Rahul-led Congress to taste electoral success, but wish he fails in his efforts to cleanse the party.'
India's most powerful prime minister in five decades gets publicly admonished -- if gently -- by the US vice-president. The question is, would this make him reflect on how and why, or which ones of his government and party's missteps exposed his flank like this? asks Shekhar Gupta.
'The collegium system will remove any such doubts from the minds of people and the political parties.'
The record of other prime ministers too shows how much can change when a prime minister is faced with the two-year challenge, says T N Ninan.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala was told by solicitor general Tushar Mehta that he had some discussion with the governor on the issue and would make a statement on the next date of hearing.
'If the Congress gets to form the government in 2024, then Sonia Gandhi by virtue of being CPP chairperson will have the authority to decide who will be the prime minister and not Kharge.'
We have a government with an extremely weak economic team advising a PM who hardly pays attention to their thoughts, says Jayanta Roy.
If he doesn't win next year, it will set back the party's prospects in 2024. If he wins, it will be seen as his win as much as the BJP high command's, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'We aren't so unreasonable as to demand that he should have fully reversed Indira Gandhi's worst economic legacy, bank nationalisation.' 'But he could have made a beginning by selling off the two most stressed small public sector banks, and then announced that each year for the next 10, one government bank with the most messed-up balance sheet will be sold.' 'It would have electrified the markets, shocked his other banks into better behaviour, and marked his name among the great reformers,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'Vajpayee would not have approved either of the way the BJP now functions or of the thoughts that it entertains in its mind,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
On the proposed Grand Alliance of the Congress and other parties in the state, Shah said the Telugu people had not forgotten how the Congress had treated their leaders like former (undivided) Andhra Pradesh chief minister Anjaiah and former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao.
The controversial interaction took place on Thursday when Rahul began taking questions from the audience.
'In the 1971 War my battalion suffered 4 casualties after fighting for 14 days.' 'In Operation Blue Star, I lost 19 men in just one hour.'
'There is a compulsion to look hard, decisive, and risk-taking; start something; and then conclude it in a way you can claim victory.' 'That is not such an easy option against China,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
What the Indian economy looks like next January will influence her view on India, not her genetics, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Differences will almost certainly arise over how the minorities are to be viewed and how educational institutions are to be treated.'
'These issues would be non-negotiable for Mr Modi's BJP.' 'So he may well refuse to lead a government in which his freedom of action is constrained by others in the coalition,' feels T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Many of the stories, the pictures going out of India worldwide lately with these provocative processions, taunting of Muslims, bulldozers targeting mostly their properties, the sweeping 'othering' of a community of 200 million are painting the front pages and TV screens in the democratic world. That is where most of the friends we covet lie. Soon enough, these will also make our vital friends among the Muslim nations, from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, uneasy. The best time for course correction is now, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'Many said his visit was very risky. But mercifully, Air Force One has taken off from Delhi without Mr Trump stepping on anybody's toes,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'And the same trust was evident in the Karnataka election.'
For the first time in our political history, Pakistan has become centre stage of the incumbent's campaign, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The note ban is Modi's make-or-break gambit for 2019. Opposition leaders see a vulnerability and won't gift pre-eminence to the Congress, says Shekhar Gupta.
At some stage this fall in the quality of life will begin to hurt anybody's popularity, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'I was present at a meeting where he decided to permit the IAF to strike at Pakistan positions in Kargil, with the caveat that they should not cross the LoC.' 'Confident that the Indian Army would succeed, Mr Vajpayee was positioning himself to tell the world after the Kargil conflict was won that India did not violate the 'sanctity' of the LoC,' recalls Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's envoy in Islamabad in that eventful year, 1999.
'The BJP has shown signs lately of returning to its trader mindset.' 'Several strong emotions get meshed in this: Nationalism, protectionism, mercantilism, and arrogance,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has five key aspects to his style of leading -- total command over bureaucracy, direct approval on every decision, flexible approach to issues, importance of communication and adept at repackaging schemes, says A K Bhattacharya.
'While the meeting on December 6th was perfectly legal, was it ethical?' asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'You can see the essential contours of his new Pakistan strategy. Rather than keep engaging with or humouring them, he'd rather work on taking their four biggest supporters -- the US, China, the UAE and later Saudi Arabia -- away from them.' 'In his calculation,' says Shekhar Gupta, 'with the total support of all four of these, Pakistan will be forced to moderate its policies.'
'Given his stint in Beijing, as India's longest serving ambassador there and that too through some challenging and interesting times, Jaishankar ought to have been appointed as foreign secretary in 2013 itself,' says Sanjaya Baru.
'The cooperation of Yakub with the investigating agencies after he was picked up informally in Kathmandu and his role in persuading some other members of the family to come out of Pakistan and surrender constitute, in my view, a strong mitigating circumstance to be taken into consideration while considering whether the death penalty should be implemented,' B Raman had written in August 2007.
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