The Indian Defence Ministry has approved the procurement of 114 Rafale fighter jets from France, a significant step towards bolstering the Indian Air Force's combat capabilities. The decision comes ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to India.
rediffGURU Nayagam PP, founder of EduJob360, breaks down the top government competitive exams aspirants can target in 2026, along with their eligibility criteria, important dates, syllabus essentials and preparation strategies.
AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami is under pressure from his party as his unclear stand on the BJP alliance has brought back fears among party workers that the party may lose its identity, be forced into an unwanted coalition, and be taken over by the BJP later, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'In my 26 years at Raj Bhavan, working with more than ten governors, I can tell you C P Radhakrishnan Sir stands out.'
'The Election Commission's involvement in the avoidable SIR controversy has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
EPS' acceptance of Amit Shah's proposal for an electoral alliance with the BJP is being interpreted to mean how the AIADMK has signed up the NDA national leader as a junior partner. Not many have appreciated EPS for this strategic move that has now forced the BJP to play second fiddle to the AIADMK. This has meant that the BJP has buried its ambitions of capturing power in Tamil Nadu now, and is willing to wait until after the 2029 Lok Sabha polls, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Rather than taking a very short-term view on the markets, equity investing should be premised on longer term growth opportunities.'
The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the Centre to explain why, despite its orders, the intake of women candidates in National Defence Academy for year 2022 has been restricted to 19, the figure same as last year.
'I have never seen such a large parade being commanded with such precision just by a vocal word of command.' 'I would like to import this technology to England.' Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd), then a final year cadet at the National Defence Academy remembers Queen Elizabeth II's visit to NDA in November 1983.
'If the Singh government was characterised by policy paralysis, this one is afflicted by hyperactivism, sans a roadmap,' says Yogendra Yadav.
'Just because the NDA has a majority and the BJP is the single largest party does not mean that this Modi government enjoys a majority in the Lok Sabha.' 'It is always possible that some members (of the NDA and even the BJP) may defect, some members may not want him to be the prime minister and they might vote differently (against Modi) in the confidence vote.'
It's time India re-visited its Western alliances for the attitude and approach that the West reserves for the nation when it comes to security cooperation of the kind that they might not have visualised outside of China, India's bug-bear, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Supreme Court on Friday deferred the question of Aligarh Muslim University's minority status to a fresh bench and overruled the 1967 judgment that said the university cannot be considered a minority institution since it was created by a central law.
What is most troubling is that not a single party that is part of INDIA has talked about any kind of reform and economic sense, argues R Jagannathan.
As Modi's government embarks on its third term, apart from ensuring these schemes boost India's green mobility, addressing bottlenecks like battery swapping and meeting PLI deadlines are likely to be the government's major tasks.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
In compliance with the apex court's interim direction, the UPSC has decided to open the application on upsconline.nic.in for this exam to enable 'unmarried women candidates only' who are otherwise eligible in terms of nationality, age, educational qualification etc., the statement said.
The BJP state unit hailed Vasan and said his advice will be used in the coming days to guide the alliance.
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP is now inventing new angles to keep its campaign relevant -- even if it's old wine in an old bottle, which is what the allegation on 'Katchatheevu' is, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin still enjoys a lot of sympathy and empathy as someone wishing well for the state, but not full-throated support as in 2019 and 2021, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
If Tamil Nadu voters preferred the DMK combine, it owed to the Modi-Annamalai combo's ideological battle which often crossed the line of political decency and also challenged 'Tamil pride', argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
According to DMK, the voters are already consolidated on ideological lines, hence the impact of anti-incumbency, whether against the BJP Centre or the DMK state may not be too much, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
The office of the prime minister is getting the respect that is due to it now, says Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
Union minister Ananth Kumar alleged that the Congress was increasingly becoming intolerant of people's mandate for the Modi government.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
For his participation in Netaji's INA, Major Ghulam Ahmed Qureshi was put into solitary confinement in the Red Fort, charged with rebellion against the Crown. Despite Nehru, Asaf Ali and a host of top lawyers defending them, Qureshi and his fellow officers were sentenced to death.
Singh, accompanied by Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande, also carried out a comprehensive review of India's military preparedness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh and lauded the troops for guarding the border with "unwavering commitment and unparalleled courage."
The environment ministry till May 2014 (still under UPA) ordered that cases like Vedanta's expansion plans need to consult people. But in December 2014, the NDA government reversed this position and in March 2015 the environment ministry extended Vedanta's environmental clearance till December 2018. This it did even while the question of the need for public hearing by projects in different kinds of industrial parks was being contested in the courts. This allowed the company to carry out construction.
'The space required for wild cheetah populations to thrive was grossly under-estimated.' 'Cheetahs, because of their social system and ecologically fragile nature, live at only 1 cheetah per 100 sq kms even in the best habitats of Africa.'
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
With Jaitley preferring continuity over change, good days might take a little longer to arrive, says Shankar Acharya.
Memon said that the opposition should introspect why Modi keeps getting such a "positive mandate" and dismissed suggestions of manipulation of EVMs, an oft-repeated complaint of the Congress and other political parties.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The next general election is four years away. That's enough time to recover -- provided the government stops spending and taxing so much,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'The only thing that makes Nitish Kumar acceptable to Biharis, to the Mahagatbandhan allies, is the BJP.'
Joyita Ghose on the land acquisition laws in the country and the changes that the NDA government's controversial bill in Parliament makes to the land acquisition act, 2013 brought in by the United Progressive Alliance government.
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