'They are worried that the BJP government is trying to reduce Kashmiris as a minority.'
'In Hindi, Mr Modi is unequalled as an exceptionally accomplished orator.'
'The unprecedented bitterness and rancour that marked this election campaign need not spill over into government and governance,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'BJP loses a democratic election, then buys MLAs from the ruling party's flock and rides to power in these states.' 'Do you think Atalji would have tolerated this?'
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Monday, November 8, 2021, Lal Kishenchand Advani -- the politician who took the Bharatiya Janata Party from its parliamentary nadir in 1984, when it won just two Lok Sabha seats, to establishing the edifice for its present dominance in Indian politics -- will turn 94.
Ramesh stressed that the prime minister should participate in the debate on Manipur.
'While the meeting on December 6th was perfectly legal, was it ethical?' asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Mr Modi would compliment a Nobel Prize winner, but members of his party or the government would not be restrained from either making unfair comments or criticising him for having offered advice to an Opposition political party,' says A K Bhattacharya.
With the role of the venerable elder thrust on him in UP, Mr Singh has had to attune himself to the politics at the Centre, observes Aditi Phadnis.
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.
'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.
The Congress sought her intervention in helping bring normalcy in violence-hit Manipur, and called for the constitution of a high-level inquiry commission headed by a serving or retired Supreme Court judge to probe the incident.
'India could become the newest Asian tiger under Modi's dynamic leadership. Modi could become the Nehru of the 21st century, and re-establish a new Tryst with Destiny, by stating once and for all that Mera Bharat Mahaan is and will always be a truly secular and inclusive democracy in the best spirit of Bharatiya-tva,' says Ram Kelkar, offering an NRI view of the Modi triumph.
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.
The party is less forthcoming about who the chief minister will be if it stays in power.
The bilateral and Quad summits, in which Prime Minister Modi played a significant role, has sent the right message to China, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Neither Modi nor Shah had held legislative or executive power in Delhi before 2014. They have no training in appealing to the diversity of India as represented in Parliament. Their prism is the provincial politics of Gujarat. An exclusive excerpt from Vinay Sitapati's fascinating new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi.
The Emergency greatly influenced the RSS' makeover from a fringe force in the Indian political imagination to one that could have its own man sworn in as prime minister in two decades' time. A riveting excerpt from Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-1977.
Much of the pre-2014 peace in our hotspots is diminished. Kashmir is on the boil and the Northeast is anarchic, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'...only if we sort it out with Pakistan.'
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says improving ties with India is "my favourite subject" even as he once again sought America's intervention in the Kashmir issue.
We get tangled up in our own crooked web on purchases, and the murky arms bazaar knows it, says Shekhar Gupta.
'What the interview with Modi told me was that now he is open to granting interviews.' 'And in this connection let me offer our credentials for being considered in this election season,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
e Union minister of state for home is somewhat brash and rowdy, and has enormous confidence.' Some of this derives from the fact that he has independent sources of income (he reported assets amounting to Rs 18 crore in his 2019 Lok Sabha nomination papers)
'She should stick to giving her opinion on cinema.'
He was appointed the national capital's LG in December, 2016.
'The two NSAs, who have been mandated to address mutual concerns on terrorism, will need to devise credible and irreversible measures to see that the likes of Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar do not ever get a free hand to run riot again,' says Ambassador G Parthasarathy, India's former high commissioner in Pakistan.
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.
Modi's minimum government, maximum governance will go a long way?
'He has divine power... For our future, safety is in the hands of Modi.'
'And he was really trying just to do the best by the shareholders, and by the laws of India.'
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.
'Why does Mr Modi only attack Nehru from the Dynasty?' 'At one level, it is pure politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Is China's intention not clear?' 'Do we still think that if we are nice to China, it will be good to us?'
'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.
'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.
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
'Rahul Bhai was well known for speaking the truth.' 'He did not accept anything he considered wrong.'
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