'Is Rahul turning the Congress' covert soft-Hindutva support into overt support now?' 'And if so, following in the BJP's footsteps, is the Congress going to abandon Indian Muslims and Muslim causes altogether?' asks Dr Najid Hussain whose father-in-law former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed during the Gujarat riots.
The title alludes to Socrates willingly drinking poisonous hemlock as his punishment after he was convicted of corrupting the minds of the young and impiety in ancient Athens.
'It will be our attempt that in order to get the country out of the condition it is in because of their (the BJP) coming to power, the Congress will go to them (leaders of parties opposed to the BJP) and if there is need for support we shall do so too.'
'We don't know where he will go from here and how he will conduct his government.'
Few people know Ratan Tata as well as R K Krishna Kumar does. Widely perceived to be among the managers closest to Tata, Krishna Kumar assesses Ratan Tata, the man and business leader, in this exclusive interview to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
'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.'
Launching a scathing attack on Narendra Modi for his oft repeated 'recounting minister' jibe, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday called the Gujarat CM an 'encounter minister'.
Many important RSS people believe the 2014 result was the consequence of Hindutva and not just Modi's outstanding oratory, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'Blocking Parliament brings attention to a party that has poor speakers like Rahul Gandhi. It is unlikely to shine in debates, assuming we were a nation that enjoyed listening to sparkling intellectual exchange, which we are not.'
The prime minister took the first-ever flight by such a craft in the country on the last day of campaigning for the Gujarat polls.
Congress said it expects the truth to prevail after the report on the Rafale deal is made public.
'If Modi wants to help the poor and get the credit for it as well, he must do what China does. He must openly adopt pro-capital policies.'
'It is an important and significant election -- but there is nothing make-or-break about it. A victory is always great, but if the BJP wins, it can't make Mr Modi any stronger in his party and government than he already is,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Tokyo-bound AFI medical commission chairman AK Mendiratta dies of COVID-19.
It is in no way a government of the economic Right. The Right is limited to religion and nationalism. The rest is as Left as the Congress or any other party, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Amit Shah now enters an unfamiliar and interesting phase of his political career. His success or failure will henceforth be assessed based on his performance as a key minister, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'...because we are truer to the spirit of the Hindu faith.' 'There is absolutely no question that the Hinduism of the mob lynchers, the people who have killed others because of what they are eating or how they are worshipping or the faith they belong to or what they're doing professionally, those are, to my mind, not Hindus at all.'
'He always avoided eating non-vegetarian food in presence of his deputies if they were fasting for the month of Shravan.' 'There were no Hindu, Jain, Parsi and Swaminarayan festivals he would forget.' 'He was a conservative Muslim and therefore could get along well with conservative Hindus.'
'If the school of bluffers includes those who get to the top not from deep knowledge but from delivering 'a clever quip or a leftfield surprise argument', then Modi is the undisputed Bluffocrat Emeritus,' says Sunil Sethi.
'If Khan Market today -- a neon-drenched spectacle of blingy shops and pricey eateries -- is what it is, it's not due to the dramatic shift in political dispensations, but because free-market India is another country,' notes Sunil Sethi.
Modi also dared Rahul to speak in any language for 15 minutes about the achievements of the Siddaramaiah government without referring to a piece of paper.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
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.'
'This term -- "Nehru-Gandhi" family -- is a misnomer. Nehru was not a dynast; he did not even name his successor... The big mistake she made was to push forward Rahul Gandhi who is a dead loss as a leader,' says Nayantara Sahgal, whom Sonia Gandhi calls 'Tara Masi.'
'These are lies that Priyanka Gandhi rung up Sachin Pilot.'
'India has jackboot laws legislated by all parties, a State prepared to stomp all over you, and citizens who don't often realise how easily they can be crushed under both,' says T N Ninan.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the management of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), that markets its products under the Amul brand, to "maintain status quo" on the issue of removal of Vipul Chaudhary as its chairman.
Tamil Nadu chief secretary said that the request could not be sanctioned, owing to the legal issues at Marina Beach.
'They (the government) want to tame everything.' 'The entire systems they are trying to change.'
The argument that a Bharatiya Janata Party government has no business marking the 125th birth anniversary of Panditji makes little sense, says Virendra Kapoor
Top opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday agreed to work together to prepare a common minimum programme.
'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.
Rakhi Sawant is as uncensored as they come.
'If Mr Modi and Mr Shah have made a poisonous, polarising campaign their brahmastra for 2019, Mamata Banerjee is showing them its limitations,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Six men are in the news, and in very different boats
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Wednesday dubbed the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party as "KASAB", adding yet another acronym in the Uttar Pradesh poll campaign, and said development will elude the state till "Kasab is laid to rest".
'Sachin Pilot once calculated that with a million Indians flooding the labour market every month, only an additional 12 million jobs annually could keep unemployment at the same level.' 'That's chickenfeed for the functionaries who cram my e-mail inbox every day with such a constant flow of job offers that trying to empty it is like trying to drink dry the horn connected to the ocean in Norse mythology,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Indian secularism doesn't deserve a tombstone. It needs a new shrine,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Rahul Gandhi has also slammed Hegde, saying he is 'unfit' to be a Union minister.
