With election campaign ending in Tamil Nadu before it goes to polls on Thursday, N Sathiya Moorthy lists a few questions uppermost in the minds of voters.
Preparations are on a war footing at Rashtrapati Bhavan in anticipation of the formation of a new government next month. President Pranab Mukherjee has already completed two rounds of reading his predecessors' judgments and interactions with Constitutional experts.
Since Parliament is still in session, the government refrained from making an official statement but the ministers said there were ample 'precedents by the Congress governments in the past' of Bills being pushed through the ordinance route.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
The deal, involving Abu Dhabi carrier Etihad's purchase of 24 per cent stake in Naresh Goyal-led Jet Airways, was approved last month by the Competition Commission of India.
Cautioning against forces which fan communal tension in order to polarise the situation in their favour, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday voiced concern over the Muzaffarnagar riots and said such violence cannot be allowed to spread.
'For the last 10 years the Congress made the RSS an idea of intolerance, anti-minority, especially anti-Muslim, and an idea of fascism.' 'That has been demolished now by Pranab Mukherjee.'
More than 5.79 crore voters will seal the fate of 3,740 aspirants including arch rivals Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Dravida Munnetra Kazagham president M Karunanidhi, as the stage is set for polling in 233 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu under tight vigil on Monday.
Akhilesh told his ministers and legislators that they should not worry about tickets.
Barring a stone pelting incident at Soibagh area in Budgam district, the situation was peaceful in the areas where the polling was held, the officials said.
'The ruling provides a Constitutional template, it draws boundaries, and there is this expectation that henceforth political parties will not make crude appeals to religion for electoral gains.'
The Congress president said that if he was allowed to speak for 15 minutes on a host of issues, including the Nirav Modi scam, PM Modi would "run away".
Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Saturday found himself in a controversy over sharing on Twitter a screenshot of Pakistan's daily Dawn website carrying Nitish Kumar's ad of vote appeal, prompting the Janata Dal-United to launch a sharp attack on him and seek his immediate sacking.
'While they were respectful of the PM, it was clear that as ministers, they owed their positions as much, if not more, to Mrs Gandhi.' 'When attacks were mounted on the PM, there was very little coordinated effort by the Congress, UPA ministers or other politicians to speak up in his favour and strongly defend him.' B K Chaturvedi, Cabinet Secretary during the early years of UPA1, reveals how the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi equation worked. A riveting excerpt from Chaturvedi's memoir, Challenges Of Governance: An Insider's View
"But we are concerned about human rights and we make sure rights of people are not violated," he said.
Indrani Roy/Rediff.com visits Ranaghat in West Bengal's Nadia district, the scene of the horrific rape of a 72-year-old nun, and encounters a clueless police and a frightened Christian community.
'It is best that an amicable solution to the dispute is found outside the precincts of the courts of law,' says former Union home secretary Dr Madhav Godbole.
Given the rapid changes in the Indian labour market, there is an urgent need to have current, accurate and publicly available data through regular, dynamic and comprehensive surveys. Indeed, this was the intention behind constituting the NITI Aayog Task Force on Improving Employment Data. The attempts by the government to "improve" labour data has actually made it worse, say Rosa Abraham, Janaki Shibu & Rajendran Narayanan.
PTI spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said that they have the required numbers to form government.
Trinamool congress MP and Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University Sugata Bose tells Kavita Chowdhury that there is a sense of fear and insecurity among our minorities.
The conductor, who was arrested, admitted to the cops that he also tried to sexually abuse the minor.
'Today, the situation in the country is bad.' 'The distance between Hindus and Muslims is increasing.' 'If an out-of-court settlement is reached, then a cordial atmosphere will prevail in the country.'
'I am more worried about the BJP as I see lot of marginalisation of top leaders in the BJP.' 'I am really worried about the terminal decline of the Congress. And the greatest tragedy is that there are so many good people in the Congress.' 'It will take a couple of years, but this is the most appropriate time for a new political party and leadership to emerge.'
Days after the Uttar Pradesh government denied the Vishwa Hindu Parishad permission for the yatra, the row has gained a religious-political colour.
Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Ansari believes a national debate on a Uniform Civil Code is a must. 'The need of the hour is to debate this issue at length in order to create a consensus,' Ansari tells Rediff.com, adding, 'Such a debate must take place at the grassroot level. We must understand all the divergent viewpoints before any draft can be prepared.'
A fresh confrontation between the Aam Aadmi Party government and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung flared up with the former refusing to comply with his order cancelling Swati Maliwal's appointment as Chief of Delhi Commission for Women even as she claimed on Wednesday night that the LG told her not to come to office from Thursday and that it will be locked.
'Gauri was a woman of great integrity and few people know how modestly she lived, generously sharing the little she had.' 'Her only asset was the home her mother built.' 'But she had even bigger riches -- her capacious heart,' remembers former husband and close friend, Chidanand Rajghatta.
Arpi deserves to be complimented for the commitment and hard work that have gone into this production. The frustrations of seeking reliable documentation from the catacombs of the Indian bureaucracy did not deter him from going after the best information available, and the result is one that he can take much satisfaction in. Ambassador Prabhat P Shukla, Member Advisory Council, Vivekananda International Foundation, reviews Claude Arpi's The End of an Era: India Exits Tibet.
'It is a very vital issue and we cannot keep it pending. We intend to pass an order as to who will hear the matter.'
The minimum support price for the rabi season will not radically alter the falling trajectory of farm incomes
'Three security challenges could emerge shortly. The possibility (almost bordering on certainty) is as certain as the fact that night follows day: A terrorist attack by a Pakistan-based group. Chinese intrusion on the border.Communal tension/riots.' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) explains what the Modi Sarkar needs to be prepared for.
'My appeal to ex-servicemen,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd), 'is please do not demean yourself and bring our izzat down to the levels of militant trade unionism of the banks or airline variety! Please accept a reasonable compromise and fight your battle with the 7th Pay Commission!'
Opposition parties ask the government to listen to the concern of the intellectuals returning awards.
'If Modi were to be elected, he would be part of a coalition government, and within that he would have to take this minority into account. Muslims cannot relate to the idea of Hindu nationalism. Although it is presented as a pan-Indian idea, it appears to them to be exclusive.'
The NHRC issued notice to the Union ministries of home and human resource development seeking a report over the reported ill-treatment of Kashmiri people in the aftermath of the attack.
Out of nearly 30 public sector undertakings and assets under 'strategic sale' plan, only the ONGC-HPCL plan has been completed
Kumar Gaurav, the second secretary at the Embassy of India in Brussels tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel that the Belgian government has closed off its borders and shut down its entire transport system.
Biju Janata Dal members had staged a walk-out while NDA ally Shiv Sena did not participate in the voting.
'In India a strong leader with a majority has never yet been defeated by a challenger.' 'He (or she, as with Indira Gandhi in 1977) must defeat himself,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Stepping up its attack on the Union Health Minister over the removal of All India Institute of Medical Sciences Chief Vigilance Officer Sanjeev Chaturvedi, the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday called for the immediate sacking or resignation of Harsh Vardhan.
