'The karyakartas who wanted to contest were disappointed and it took some time to explain to them why we needed an alliance.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington, DC, on Wednesday on an official visit to the United States during which he will hold the first face-to-face meeting with President Joe Biden and his deputy Kamala Harris, attend the maiden in-person Quad summit and address the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
'Mr Prime Minister, you have violated the time honoured principle of Indian foreign policy of not interfering in the domestic elections of another country'
Rahul said that although Modi repeatedly attacked him, his father Rajiv Gandhi, grandmother Indira Gandhi and great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, he gave him a hug.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Monday traded barbs with her party dubbed as 'Behenji Sampatti Party' and she punning on his initials calling him 'Mr Negative Dalit Man'.
'The general idea is to unite all the anti-Modi parties into an alliance, to dent the PM's image as a vote-winner, and then stymie him in Parliament -- particularly in the Rajya Sabha -- in order to ruin his credentials as a reformer,' says T V R Shenoy.
The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
'For Modi, it's not just winning, but winning with style.'
The current public mood is that it will be a hung assembly. No one, not even in the BJP, is talking about even a simple majority for the party.
In his condolence message, Israeli Prime Minister Lapid said that the thoughts and prayers of all Israelis are with the people of India following yesterday's devastating bridge collapse in Gujarat.
One of the reasons why the TMC decided not to demand a JPC is that the chairperson and most of its members would be from the BJP, he said, adding JPC means putting the issue under the carpet.
Days after Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi and China's President Xi Jinping expressed their concerns about the war in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the SCO summit in Samarkhand, the tyrant of the Kremlin has raised the military stakes in the conflict.
'Anyone can string together a few alliterative words, but are they a substitute for serious thought?' 'And do they make for a strategy or plan for coherent action?' asks T N Ninan.
On the eve of the meeting hosted by it, the Congress clarified that it will oppose the ordinance on Delhi services in Parliament, a key condition put by the AAP to attend the talks.
'Modi is nobody's fool. He recognises that China has a sort of quality that attracts and repels. It attracts in terms of its performance and it shows in a sense a mirror image to India of what it could be if everything went right in terms of economic performance,' says Ashley Tellis, senior associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and head of its South Asia programme.
As Modi prepares for his first meeting with United States President Donald Trump, we can't help but wonder will the PM go in for a hug or will 'The Donald' opt for one his 'famous' handshakes?
'Mr Kejriwal is almost exactly the package that Mr Modi offers: Personal aggrandisement, the building of a personality cult through full-page newspaper ads day after day, populist schemes involving subsidies (whether affordable or required), abandonment of secular principles, exaggerated claims and no checks on leadership,' points out T N Ninan.
For Sikhs, they say, honour is the bottom line; and whatever the state of the SAD's political fortunes today, arrogance will not be helpful in the negotiation.
Ashish Nehra enjoyed a dream start to his coaching tenure as he guided debutants Gujarat Titans to the IPL 2022 title on Sunday.
Asked about the selection of chief ministers in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, he said there will not be any issue and it will be done smoothly.
"My heart goes out to the families of the victims and the injured," Modi said.
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.
'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.
'I am not interested in anything but the truth. I only speak the truth, it is my work and I will keep doing it even if I get disqualified or get arrested'
The chief executive officer of Pakistan's Dawn Media Group, Hameed Haroon on Friday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a 'shrewd politician who makes strong moves without making too much of noise prior to them happening'.
At some stage this fall in the quality of life will begin to hurt anybody's popularity, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group was on Thursday hit by fresh allegations of associates of the promoter family using Mauritius-based 'opaque' investment funds to secretly invest hundreds of millions of dollars to fuel the spectacular rise in group stocks during 2013 to 2018, a charge the conglomerate denied vehemently.
If they will allow I will speak inside the parliament, the Wayanad MP said.
Today, with China centrally seated and located, the Global South has an intriguing road ahead. Odds of it becoming a Chinese bloc in the emerging new bipolar world are higher than we'd wish them to be, observes Shekhar Gupta.
A controversy erupted on Tuesday after the opposition parties tagged a video of DMK leader A Raja purportedly showing him making remarks that India has never been a nation, but a subcontinent with diverse practices and cultures, prompting strong response from the BJP which described the comments as a call for 'balkanisation' of the the country and demanded for his arrest.
Even if the BJP gets 60, 70, or even 100 per cent of the votes in the seats where it scored more than 50 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, these will still add up to only 224 seats, argues Shekhar Gupta.
'The untimely demise of Shri Cyrus Mistry is shocking. He was a promising business leader who believed in India's economic prowess,' Prime Minister Modi said in a tweet.
He cited the Congress' poor performance in the 2019 general election after victories in assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh the previous year to buttress his point.
The BJP game-plan: Take the top slot, or a close second, either for the 'Lotus' or the larger NDA, if it can and push the AIADMK to the third place, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
As Prime Minister Narendra D Modi finished four years in power and India gears up for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, we ask you, dear readers, what you think of Mr Modi and his government.
'I was amazed at how tasty it was.' 'They did a good job with millets and lentils, which Mr Modi liked.'
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
Struggling, corrupt construction industry will be challenged by the prime minster's $250-billion plan
'The politician in him saw to it that the foundation stone was laid in Ahmedabad in the run-up to the assembly election in Gujarat in 2017.' 'But the statesman in him also wants it to be his legacy.'
The advertisement with the PM's face has not amused social media. In fact, it wondered if the usage of the image was even legal.