The 61-year-old feisty leader, who had single-handedly wrecked the red bastion in West Bengal in 2011, was unfazed by the Left-Congress alliance ahead of the assembly polls.
Ambassador Natarajan Krishnan and Ambassador Shankar Bajpai helped shape Indian foreign policy at a glorious, but difficult, time in history, recalls Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
Reflecting the strong bipartisan support to the India-US relationship, the lawmakers welcomed the decision of the House Speaker Paul Ryan to invite Modi to address the joint meeting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint meeting of the United States Congress will be an opportunity to energise efforts to improve bilateral ties, top American lawmakers from across the political divide have said.
Policy discussions now should urgently focus on the road map for serious economic and institutional reforms to put India on a sustained high growth trajectory like the Chinese economy, says Jayanta Roy.
The decision to take to the streets and demonstrate support for beleaguered former PM Manmohan Singh could be a turning point for the Congress.
Armed forces and the police can only ensure that violence is kept under control but for any kind of lasting peace, politicians will have to find an answer to the perception that the Indian State is anti-Islam. Therein lies the biggest challenge to the Modi government, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retired).
'According national security and higher defence management empathetic political attention they warrant is critical. Will Prime Minister Modi pick up this gauntlet?' asks C Uday Bhaskar.
The success of the government will depend substantially on the quality of its team of key ministers, officials and advisors
An article published by the party's Mumbai unit has caused a stir as it blames Jawaharlal Nehru for the state of affairs in Kashmir, China and Tibet.
Did Xi deliver a message to Modi at Mamallapuram, which though couched in a velvet glove was time-bound? What was that message? It is clear Indian/Israeli/US spy satellites would not have missed detecting Chinese troop movements towards the Ladakh-Tibet frontier. Then why did some important functionaries in the Government of India choose to only ask the Russians about this in April 2020? Was Russian reassurance of Chinese troop movements being part of a routine exercise the reason that the Leh-based XIV Corps did not mobilise itself for its annual summer exercises near the LAC? A fascinating excerpt from Iqbal Chand Malhotra's new book Red Fear: The China Threat.
Shastri took the first big step to transform India's agriculture, the benefits of which his successors reaped in plenty, says A K Bhattacharya.
Thanks to Sharad Pawar and him alone, Maharashtra has shown that the Modi-Shah duo can be halted. The next step is to take the battle to Dilli, says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The frenzy to be present at the Madison Square Garden on September 28 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Indian-American community likely rivals a rock concert held at the famous New York venue.
'An opportunity is at hand to think big and recast the India-China relationship on a new template, which would help the pursuit of our country's dream of major power status,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Businessmen love low import duties on their inputs and high duties on their outputs. And the Bharatiya Janata Party has a keen ear for business sentiment.
Together, they controlled nearly Rs 26 lakh crore of assets at the end of FY16.
Mayawati was outmanoeuvred by the BJP in the race for the Rajya Sabha in Uttar Pradesh just days after she helped the Samajwadi Party snatch two Lok Sbaha seats from the saffron party in bypolls.
A weak presence in the Rajya Sabha has forced the NDA to try and rope in 'weak links' in the Opposition ranks to pass key legislation in the Upper House.
'Modi didn't face such belligerence in his home state. Moreover, as the prime minister, he can no longer resort to his earlier ploy of describing every attack on himself as an attack on Gujarat. Instead, he has to rebut the charges with calm logic,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Fali Nariman, one of India's best-known lawyers, tells Aditi Phadnis that plurality of political opinion is the only way to counter intolerance
'I had expected them to fight this election on the issue of development, but they are not doing that.' 'Now they have decided to belittle Gujarat's development.'
'It seems to me that bringing Rahul in now would be like throwing petrol on the flames consuming Congress,' says Aakar Patel.
'The next prime minister will be from an Opposition party and not from the BJP.' 'The BJP may be the single largest party, but not with a majority and there will be a fractured verdict.' Anti-Modi and non-BJP parties will be in a majority.'
KCR is now having to resort to the lowest common denominator in elections: Reservations.
Controlled communal tension is useful in ensuring continued Muslim support. Fear of the BJP is a requirement for both, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, to keep their Muslim vote bank in line, says Saeed Naqvi.
'The debate, by being mostly in Hindi, lost much of its educative relevance to the southern states.' 'All the prime minister's debating skills and oratorical prowess went over the heads of the South Indian audience,' points out B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
If an elected government had been sworn in, Jung's tenure and the government would have been more or less co-terminus and Jung would have been just the ceremonial head of Delhi. Now, he will run Delhi, pending another round of assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
If Nitish Kumar did not make his choice now, he could not re-enter the NDA later on and hope to be counted in as a prime ministerial possibility whenever the chance arises, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'What Trump and Kim have demonstrated is that leaders need not remain prisoners of the status quo and they can, by showing the necessary will and courage, break out of the hang-ups and constrictions of the past and carve out a new pathway for themselves,' says B S Raghavan.
"Even when Vajpayee is ill in hospital, I was the first one to visit him, since the Congress believes he has contributed to the country," he said.
'Modi's visit is path breaking in the sense that India has come out of the closet and is prepared to deal with Israel openly and in a host of fields, military as well as civilian,' says P R Kumaraswamy, one of India's leading experts on the Middle-East, currently in Israel.
'I suggest Rahul Bajaj come out in the open and give us his own white paper on the perceived sense of fear that he thinks haunts corporate India,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Senior Supreme Court advocate Ranjit Kumar, considered an expert on constitutional laws, was appointed as the solicitor general on Saturday. The law ministry issued a notification appointing Kumar, who has defended Gujarat in a number of cases, as the next solicitor general of India.
Report card of the Narendra Modi-led central government for the first six months, on the basis of ratings by top CEOs, under key parameters.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's hot saffronite swami is yoga teacher Ramdev.
From being the hand-picked choice of Sonia Gandhi as Andhra Pradesh chief minister to sitting on a dharna in Delhi against division of the state, Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy has turned from a Congress regional leader to a disgruntled rebel in his nearly 39-month tumultuous tenure.
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