Now that an elected chief minister is at the helm, it is high time the Centre initiate discussions to appoint a full-time governor at the earliest, given that the state is set to face some challenging times, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Like it or not, the Congress is still the only party with the potential to challenge the BJP at a pan-Indian level,' says T V R Shenoy.
India must weave a quick-fix formula to ensure growth.
'Some in the Congress believe the party should, somewhat brazenly, claim the cause of fighting corruption as its own. But the Congress's idea of fighting corruption is nothing but tinkering with laws, it lacks the stomach to take on the corrupt,' feels T V R Shenoy.
The Big Chill is an upmarket cafe in New Delhi's tony Khan Market and that's where Deora wanted to meet. He introduces me to his favourite cake: tiramisu with a generous infusion of Bailey's, the Irish creme liquor. I take a spoonful, recall the reading on the bathroom scales earlier that morning, and resolutely push it aside, writes Aditi Phadnis.
It took Gour Hari Das three decades to wrangle out a certificate recognising his work as a freedom fighter. His struggle is now the subject of a film
'Narendra Modi is single-handedly changing the formula to win elections. With money, human resources, mobile technology, the Internet, advance planning and tremendous confidence, he has spread his image more in UP villages than in urban areas.' Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reports from Lucknow on how Team Modi is changing the rules of the election game.
'We never looked at the Common Civil Code or the Ram Mandir from a narrow electoral outlook or treated them as electoral planks.'
Despite the indisputable facts demonetisation and its pain is yet to have a quantifiable political backlash. But this is provided the government can limit the damage to the next one week.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday evening discussed the party's strategy ahead at a meeting of the Parliamentary Board, its highest decision-making body.
After his revolt against elevation of Narendra Modi last month, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Thursday attended the first Parliamentary Board meeting along with the Gujarat chief minister to discuss the strategy for the next polls.
Making a strong emotional pitch over the Maoist ambush on Congress leaders in May, Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that former Pradesh Congress Committee chief Nand Kumar Patel was killed to stop him from becoming the chief minister and to silence the voice of the poor and the tribals.
Total subsidy bill could come down to around Rs 2 trillion.
'After the 2002 riots when the media and other political parties started blaming Modiji, thousands of people like us -- now, it must be crores of us -- started becoming staunch supporters of Modiji. The more you blamed him the more of our support he gained.' Pramod Singh of Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh is one of Narendra Modi's biggest fans and a member of Modi's India272 Web initiative, spreading the leader's message on social media and the Internet.
Seeking to buck the trend of recent Parliamentary election in which BJP decimated them, Janata Dal-United, RJD and Congress announced an alliance among the three for bypoll in 10 Assembly seats in Bihar, considered as semi-final before the crucial state poll next year.
'In the final analysis, all Budgets everywhere are like the schemes hatched by A A Milne's lovable Winnie-the-Pooh.' 'They may be well-intended, but often go awry.' 'Although Pooh and his friends agree that he 'has very little brain', he is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense.' 'This Budget at a first glance does not appear to belong to that latter category,' says economist Shreekant Sambrani.
Following the Supreme Court ruling against liquor being sold within 500 metres of state and national highways, the infamous Indian jugaad is in play once again. Veenu Sandhu, Nikita Puri, Ranjita Ganesan & Avishek Rakshit find out how India is coping.
'It is time someone told BJP leaders that they were not elected to remind people of Congress corruption. The people of India voted for Narendra Modi and the BJP because they believed that he and his party were clean, unlike the Congress-led government,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
While the PM is trying to hardsell his developmental agenda, his rivals are targeting him in the run-up to the assembly election
'Pakistan has a big role to play in fomenting trouble, but we need to ask ourselves why ordinary Kashmiris are coming out in large numbers to attend the funerals of terrorists.'
As Maharashtra and Haryana show, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah completely control the BJP and are taking it to the next level ruthlessly, without carrying forward any past baggage.
More than 600 people, including Congress leaders and workers, were detained during the bandh call given by the party demanding the resignation of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi over Indian Police Service officer D G Vanzara's letter.
'Amit Shah was, briefly, a stockbroker before devoting himself to politics. By instinct or training, he knows the value of keeping blue chips in one's portfolio.'
Voted to power with an absolute majority for the first time in nearly three decades, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, considered as an able administrator, promises "a fresh engagement" with the United States, a latest Congressional report has said.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday began a stock-taking exercise following the party's debacle in assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra even as a clamour for "course correction" grew within its ranks in the wake of the dip in electoral fortunes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said he would not a utter a word against estranged Bharatiya Janata Party ally Shiv Sena during the campaign for the October 15 Maharashtra polls as a mark of respect to Bal Thackeray.
The BJP took a gamble and won; Uddhav Thackeray is down, but not out; Sharad Pawar accepts Modi's clout... The many meanings of the election results.
Kidney scouts roam around the labour markets in the poorest districts of Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi in search of potential donors.
'There is nothing that Pakistan has done which deserves a resumption of dialogue. The assurances made in Ufa contain no commitment except a whole range of talks, which could take place without the paraphernalia associated with a joint statement of prime ministers.'
'This is an emotional issue and cannot be resolved by law alone.' 'This can be resolved only by creating trust again.' 'So much bloodletting has taken place, there is no point in going on and on.' 'Let us sit together and negotiate'
The government has returned to talks with Pakistan, but can it withstand pressure from a jingoistic press and a rabidly nationalistic social media.
The bravado of NDA ministers may have undone the gains made in cross-border security cooperation over the past several years.
Meaningful devolution of spending power to states could spread more confidence on the ground and stir precisely the sort of change Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised.
The BJP's panicky return to basic-instinct majoritarianism in Bihar has pushed Muslims back into the 'secular' basement, says Shekhar Gupta.
Dhananjay Desai has been allowed to spread his poison to young men in Maharashtra and Goa over the last five years, by a 'secular' Congress-NCP government. The 23 cases pending against him have not stopped him. He and his supporters must have thought they were immune when they lynched a bearded Muslim at night. Neither Desai nor his followers, nor the police, nor their 'secular' political masters, must have expected the nationwide furore that followed, says Jyoti Punwani.
'I don't know how they dared to send Krrish for a National Award. It was a horrible film! Films like Dabangg and Bang Bang are trash films. Goliyon Ki Rasleela: Ram Leela was so bad; only the music was good. Straight talk from Garm Hava director M S Sathyu.
'Will anything change for you after the election?' And the man said 'Kuch nahin badlega.' And he had a smile on his face. He knew nothing was going to change.
L K Advani's observation on Narendra Modi, an attempt to cut the BJP's prime ministerial nominee down to size, billing him a mere event manager like Vijay Raaz in Mira Nair's film Monsoon Wedding, speaks volumes about their differences... In the coming days, the Congress and BJP may lock horns over the AgustaWestland chopper deal. In an Italian court, Guido Haschke, one of the accused middlemen who allegedly bribed the Indian side, has sought a plea bargain to reduce his jail term if convicted. On or around April 11, we will know how much Haschke is ready to reveal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt detects which way the political wind is blowing these days.
'What hurts people most is dynastic impulses and corruption under a family-ruled Congress party -- and Nehru has borne the brunt of it... I cannot be blinded by how the Nehru family has functioned but just as Gandhi can't be judged by his descendents, why should Nehru?' asks political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
The AAP has adopted policies in an ad hoc manner, without thinking them through or deriving them from a broader framework. This must change if the AAP is to become a credible alternative, says Praful Bidwai.
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