'We don't need to hinge India-UK relations on shared hostility toward China,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'He spoke about 20 jawans in Ladakh, but he couldn't even name China.' 'He said the world had seen what had been achieved, even though we Indians don't know because Modi has himself said that nothing had happened and nobody had come,' points out Aakar Patel.
If anything has become clear during this campaign, it is this: Mr Modi can bat on almost any wicket and hit the ball over the ropes, points out T N Ninan.
Yes, India needs desperate measures to kick-start growth. But selling off its lungs to the highest bidder to hack away cannot be the way out, says Sumit Bhattacharya.
The message for 2024 is that the man on the street is not going to be euphoric if the G-20 crowns Modi as king-emperor for 2023, or if India sends its first man to space just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Even a 'temple consecration' in Ayodhya, or a Uniform Civil Code, or both of them together, may not have enough electoral purchase if fuel and commodity prices are not rolled back, and money-in-the-pocket does not fatten, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'My son is not against anybody. For him Desh Prem is more important than anything else in life'
'Certainly if Advani had agreed to Vajpayee in sacking Modi, then we would never have been talking of Modi today.'
The Statue of Unity, touted as the world's tallest statue, will be nearly twice as tall as New York's famed Statue of Liberty. Check out all that you need to know about India's tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
The first President born after Independence takes office.
'If the Modi government is successful in extraditing a high-profile fugitive such as Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi before the 2019 election, the government will be able to link demonetisation to this and turn it into a positive.'
The appointments committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared Bhalla's appointment as OSD in the ministry with immediate effect.
As and when the pandemic recedes from these shores, rebuilding the economy will be the biggest challenge for Modi in the remaining three years of his term, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'If Mr Modi and Mr Shah have made a poisonous, polarising campaign their brahmastra for 2019, Mamata Banerjee is showing them its limitations,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Both have been robustly muscular leaders who began as immensely charismatic politicians conveying an impression that they were makers of history, raring to go. Both have been hyperactive on the world stage. But in the final analysis, Abe is departing on a sombre note, unceremoniously and apologetically, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Surprisingly, the BJP's nearest rival in ad spend was not the Congress, but the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
The BJP is raising funds by selling NaMo Again T-shirts, mugs and wristbands through the Modi smartphone app.
'If Modi-Shah had not changed the leadership, one section would have parted ways with the BJP for sure.'
Other strong men have stopped Modi and his hordes in states before, but none of them with a footprint or battle cry to shake up New Delhi, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'My understanding is that by the time President Xi Jinping came for the Chennai summit [2019], he had already instructed his army to undertake the action in Galwan in the summer of 2020.'
The winds of nationalism laden with religion will now yield to those of concern over the stalled economy, unemployment, and a general malaise and unhappiness, predicts Shekhar Gupta.
Before the MCC came into effect, Modi was busy laying stones, cutting ribbons, and unveiling plaques across the country.
Interestingly, in his entire remarks, Modi never once mentioned regional security, Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar points out.
Dominic Xavier is puzzled by the NIA's campaign against Leftist activists and intellectuals and wonders if we will ever get to know the truth behind all these arrests.
'This announcement is big foolishness.' 'The government has no idea of economics. They are just announcing what comes to their mind.' 'Let them implement what they have announced and just see what will happen in two years.'
'By not even acknowledging China's occupation of Indian territory Modi signalled to Beijing that he was not prepared to used forceful means to vacate the Chinese occupation, and that his government was reconciled to this loss of territory and accepted the fait accompli engineered by the PLA.'
You too can choose the next Congress president now!
'It is a fight for principles for him, where he shall be presenting his protest to the wrongdoings.'
'The Modi Model we see now is still the old Gujarat Model.' 'But with an acknowledgement that governing India is more challenging than governing Gujarat,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Given the many policy areas where the Centre and the states have not been seeing eye to eye in the last few years, it is time the Modi government convenes a meeting of the Inter-State Council, recommends A K Bhattacharya.
This 14-year-old schoolboy's invention can save lives.
'Modi has not lacked courage in the political sphere. It is time he showed it in the economic sphere as well.' 'To do this, he needs to shed the simple-minded nostrums about economic growth and swadeshi that he learnt in the Sangh Parivar,' suggests Virendra Kapoor.
The inaugural Sangamam turned out to be a political Hindutva function than a gathering on the Hindu religion, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Data for the first nine days of January shows that tourist arrivals from India to the Maldives has been at similar levels as last year during the same period.
Pawar and his Manch can deliberate to their hearts' content, but so long as the Congress does not play ball the BJP has little to worry, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
The timing of these events give rise to the strange impression that the defence ministry has been co-opted for the run-up to the assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.
'Fiscal purists would quarrel with the idea of selling assets to pay for current expenditure -- such as the payout to farmers and the health insurance programme -- for the obvious reason that the process cannot go on forever.' 'At some point, the list of assets available for sale will run out,' notes T N Ninan.consultations -- something already aired in connection with the lease of airports to the Adani group, says T N Ninan.
'Only then will we withdraw the agitation.'
'Given this dissonance between India's age-old multicultural tenets and the anti-minority temper of the present times, it cannot be easy for the BJP to maintain its balancing act to convince the world that all is well,' observes Amulya Ganguli.
'If the BJP doesn't want to accept the will of the people, then we will show them what a majority means.'
