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 President in his book,The Turbulent Years:1980-9, has written about the conversation he had with Rajiv Gandhi in a bathroom about prime ministership.
'Parties which supported me were all threatened. This could hardly have been called a fair election.' 'This is Modi's India.'
'R N Kao was a spymaster, an institution builder and a gentleman.'
'It is obvious within these two months that in many ways Narendra Modi has a great degree of resemblance with Indira Gandhi.' 'The same style of management of power. The same kind of attempt to reduce a large section of the political leadership into, if not spectators, bureaucrats. His leaders are taking orders from him and executing those orders.' 'This is the model that has worked in Gujarat. And he is hoping that it will work in India.'
Vidya Charan Shukla, a former union minister and Congress veteran from Chhattisgarh, died on Tuesday in a Gurgaon hospital after battling injuries sustained in a deadly naxal attack on a convoy of party leaders a fortnight ago.
On the night of July 5, the Tigers launched their first kamikaze operation. Miller took the wheels of the explosive-packed truck, smiled at everyone as he turned the ignition key and drove it slowly towards the Sri Lankan military camp. A few moments later all of Jaffna heard a thunderous explosion that brought the complex crashing down in clouds of dust. Miller had given birth to a deadly tactic that Prabhakaran would employ time and again with devastating consequences to Sri Lanka -- and India. A fascinating excerpt from M R Narayan Swamy's must read new book, The Rout Of Prabhakaran.
Wing Commander Pratap Marathe's story is one of dedication, bravery, and humour, a shining example of the spirit of the Indian Air Force. Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd) salutes Wing Commander Marathe who passed into the ages last week.
The Congress kept sheltering Quattrochi, and the BJP was more intent on shielding the Hinduja brothers. The fact is that the two roads crisscrossed, and neither the truth prevailed nor did the law take its course, says Mohan Guruswamy.
For someone like me who studied Sam so intently, if a lump could form in the throat during the emotive scenes, I think the cast did a superb job, notes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'When I realised that I was to take the pictures of Pandit Nehru, I was very nervous and scared.'
'As of today, I don't see how the Congress can continue its struggle against the BJP without Rahul. There has to be a fulcrum. There has to be a center for any movement to take place.'
The Bharat Jodo Yatra, Ramesh said, has been a "real booster dose" for the public relationship of the Congress.
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wrote a personal letter to her British counterpart Margaret Thatcher soon after the 1984 Operation Bluestar in an attempt to justify her decision to send army to flush out militants from the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine.
Lillian Carter, a trained nurse and a Peace Corps worker, spent two years of her life, when she was in her late 60s, serving the poor in India, in the 1960s. She was posted as a volunteer to Vikhroli, then a village 30 km outside of Mumbai and a Godrej township, and was there from 1966 to 1968.
'Indira Gandhi proved herself a great war leader, but failed as a statesman,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Salman Khurshid on Wednesday hit back at their party colleague Kapil Sibal and other leaders of the G-23, alleging that they were trying to break the party by continuing to hold meetings even after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) had discussed 'all' issues during its recent meeting.
Ambassador Venu Rajamony, who served as press secretary to President Pranab Mukherjee during his tenure, salutes the statesman and political legend, who passed into the ages on Monday.
As Pranab Mukherjee passes away, we remember the man, the politician, the Rashtrapati.
'New Delhi's rulers should be alert to lighting a dangerous tinderbox,' warns Sunil Sethi.
'When an individual becomes authoritarian, you can overthrow the individual easily. 'When the system becomes authoritarian, whoever challenges the system will be called a criminal or an anti-national.'
ACN Nambiar's life was extraordinary and intricately linked to momentous turns in history. Having lived in Europe for five decades, he was witness to and entangled with what we today -- with the benefit of hindsight -- call recent history.
Richa Chadha to play Shakeela... Vidya Balan turns producer...
'If the Congress party wants to take on the BJP it cannot do it in this fuddy-duddy, grand old party, style.'
Chef par excellence Satish Arora recalls his days working as a chef to prime ministers to Chandrima Pal.
'Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai? Don't you believe it. I don't trust the Chinese one bit,' Nehru told Gopalaswamy Parthasarathi before he traveled to China as India's ambassador. Asking GP to be ever vigilant, Nehru advised the diplomat to send telegrams on important matters only to him. Many such anecdotes from a long and eventful career as diplomat and bureaucrat crowd the pages of GP: 1912-1995, discovers Uttaran Das Gupta.
'And when the floats go by in the parade garlanded and decorated with the posters of gun toting assassins and murderers and martyrs, you look the other way.' 'And in return we will bring you 10,000 votes because the people of the gurdwaras will vote as we tell them to vote.'
'George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position,' remembers Arun Jaitley.
'I came to hear you sing Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon. I am glad I have heard you sing.'
No single individual, institution, or action is to blame for this. The BJP is responding in kind -- definitely not without checking with its government. And they wait for Mr Trump, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'In India, a really popular and well-entrenched leader is not defeated by a rival.' 'Such a leader has to defeat himself,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
While the BJP has taken a beating, its leader still stands tall, points out T N Ninan.
There are so many patriotic songs that make us proud to be Indians.
N Sathiya Moorthy goes back in time to dig up three cases that may not have any citation in legal text-books or lawyers' ready-reckoners quoted before courts but which may still have a bearing on the current case against the arrested activists.
The competition for the worst or most perilous 10 years has always been between the 1960s and the 1980s, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'Patriotism won 400+ seats for the Congress party in 1984. How much will nationalism bring in, in 2019, is the question,' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Much of the the-foreign-media-is-biased hysteria that we see on social media these days is provoked by the bad press the regime is getting in the West, points out Vir Sanghvi.
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
Against the backdrop of the West Indies team's withdrawal from its tour of India, Rediff.com takes a look at instances when cricket tours have been called off midway through a series.
