M K Stalin might not have his father's charisma, but he has learnt the ropes the long, hard way, says T E Narasimhan
The BJP's faces for 2019 will be Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman, Yogi Adityanath and Devendra Fadnavis, says R Rajagopalan.
With election fever rising in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi in court promised to be more than just a regular court hearing.
Having burnt his fingers with MGR very badly in the past and later with Vaiko, it suited the DMK chief, when disgruntled cadres upset with Stalin's choice for lower-rung party positions, began gravitating towards another member of the DMK's 'first family', says N Sathiya Moorthy
While a centralised approach to running things expedited decision-making in Gujarat it may become the very thing that decelerates Modi in the Centre, opines Nilmadhab Mohanty.
Wary of how its alliance with the BJP in the past had cost it votes, the party is determined to steer clear of any harm by association, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Nobody is telling you not to speak or learn your mother tongue. But making other languages an emotional issue is wrong.'
However, the tilting factor still remains: Can the rivalling 'Modi brand' of 'soft Hindutva' and 'hard-sell nationalism' garner more votes for the NDA in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
From Swachh Bharat to spearheading the Make in India campaign, the PMO seems to be at the centre of all policies, writes Nivedita Mookerji.
A look at the life and times of maverick businessman Chinnakannan Sivasankaran
'Slowing down of the economy was mainly due to the demonetisation shock...' 'If you cut off the oxygen supply to a patient in the ICU and the patient dies, the patient does not come alive again when you restore the oxygen supply.'
Sandhya Ravishankar describes the thorny relationship between the two political titans of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, both now part of the ages.
In private, AIADMK spokespersons say that the raid on Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao might be aimed at weakening the AIADMK, and demotivating the party from selecting/electing Jayalalithaa's confidante, Sasikala Natarajan, as her successor -- first as party head then possibly in the government, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
At a time when the AIADMK has chosen the late Jaya's personal aide to lead the party, M K Stalin re-enters the scene with greater credibility and better clarity of his own role in the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Today, Suzuki depends on Maruti for its place in the world
As the Opposition leader in the state assembly, M K Stalin has to fend off the ruling AIADMK on the one hand and prevent the re-emergence of a non-Dravidian Opposition on the other -- but his immediate challenge comes from within, in the form of his wheelchair-bound octogenarian party leader and father M Karunanidhi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With assembly elections only two years away, in 2016, the DMK may not have the luxury of time on its side. If the slow pace of reforms that the party has indulged itself in, in the past decade and more is any indicator, the committed 25 percent vote-share would either be frittered away, or lost, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In Muthuvel Karunanidhi's passing, Tamil Nadu has lost the last of its Titans.
The DMK still wants to look elsewhere for excuses to its electoral debacle, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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