'As we enter 2025, it must be acknowledged that there is a convergence of capital, influential people (from business and politics) and technology deciding the destiny of others in the name of pride, patriotism, nationalism, nation building, all of it thinly veiled disguises for personal profit and glory,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
The specter of how the Munambam issue was exploited during the November by-elections is proof of the price Kerala is paying for its emergent politics. Controversies become the stuff of slow-burn and brinkmanship. The former promises mileage; the latter searches for an advantage, notes Shyam G Menon.
Kerala-based journalist Siddique Kappan, who was recently granted bail by the Supreme Court, will continue to remain in a jail in Lucknow as a case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate against him is still pending, officials of the prison department said.
After a fresh round of human rights dialogue, India and the European Union on Friday concurred on the importance of safeguarding freedom, independence and diversity of civil society actors, including human rights defenders and journalists.
The 52-year-old, who joins her mother Sonia and brother Rahul as an MP in what is a rare instance of three members of a family together in Parliament, would visit Parliament as a teenager to listen to her father Rajiv Gandhi speak as prime minister.
Will Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, who gets his orders from New Delhi, call the shots or allow a democratically elected government to independently govern, questions Ramesh Menon.
Netflix India's content head Monika Shergill on Tuesday met Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju in New Delhi, amid a row over the web series IC-814: The Kandahar Hijack.
Kerala-based journalist Sidhique Kappan, arrested in October 2020 on the way to Hathras where a Dalit woman had died after allegedly being gang-raped, has deep links with the Popular Front of India and is part of a larger conspiracy to "incite religious discord and spread terror", Uttar Pradesh government has told the Supreme Court.
Kappan, currently lodged in the Lucknow district jail, was arrested two years back while he was on his way to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, where a Dalit woman had died after allegedly being raped.
What may work for the BJP is the growing resentment against V K Pandian, a bureaucrat-turned-politician who Jay Panda alleges has hijacked the Odisha government.
Hundreds of newspaper and news agency employees from across the country today marched to Parliament demanding new Wage Boards and a ban on foreign direct investment in print media.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned twice in the post-lunch period on Thursday as a war of words broke out between the treasury and opposition benches, triggered by Congress MP Charanjit Singh Channi's spat with the Bharatiya Janata Party's Ravneet Singh Bittu.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two persons including a key accused in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) paper leak case who allegedly stole the paper from a National Testing Agency's trunk in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, officials said Tuesday.
As a consequence of prominence given to the brutality during those few days, a very important aspect of that episode got almost glossed over. This was the intervention by a very significant section of people who restored faith in humanity, and conveyed the message that only a small section of Indians, that too politically backed, were consumed by anti-Sikh majoritarianism. The overlooked facet of the events of 1984 was the story of significant sections of the city's populace, public figures and nondescript ones, stepping out hand-in-hand, to first stand with little but bravery in hands, in the way of attackers, and thereafter to provide immediate relief to those who lives were uprooted and who lost family members in the violence, recalls Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The row over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur's remarks in Lok Sabha escalated on Wednesday with the Congress submitting a notice to move a privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for posting on 'X' a video that allegedly also contained expunged portions of Thakur's speech.
In a statement, Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said that in yet another crackdown on press freedom, two editors from two language newspapers have been arrested by the Manipur government.
Mumbai's historic tryst with the Lord of Wisdom began at the Keshavji Naik Chawl in 1893.
'The struggle of insurgents and pro-independence political activists is fuelled by a deep conviction that not only is a free Balochistan possible, but they also believe that Pakistan will inevitably break apart, leading to Balochistan's independence.'
Captain Sharan and Flight Engineer Anil Jaggia both confirm that the hijackers seemed to know a lot about flying an aircraft. Without help from the ISI or the Pakistan army, it was impossible, points out Utkarsh Mishra.
'BJP and RSS may have differences over minor issues but their hearts long for one common aim -- that of A Hindu Rashtra.' 'And this time to prove this point the RSS has prepared to help BJP win this election with all its might.'
If the BJP has to work as a junior partner of Vijay's TVK, then either the party will have to change the state leader, or the latter should change himself. Incidentally, ever since Vijay started talking politics and elections, the pro-BJP/Hindutva social media had stopped dragging his name into any non-existing issue.' In particular, they have stopped referring to him by his Christian name, 'Joseph Vijay', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com tried to buy a house on his recent visit to Srinagar.
'If you look at the average age of all our candidates, you will notice that their average age is between 35 and 40. It is a kind of revolution that the MNS is bringing in Maharashtra.'
The recent 'revelation' by TN fishers freed by Sri Lanka after they had paid up Lankan rupees 50,000 each in fines, that their hair was tonsured in prison and they were forced to remove their garments other than the underpants, and were also made to clean toilets, as if with vengeance, has touched a raw nerve this time, just as another issue or issues had done it ahead of the Jallikattu protests, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In days of smart, networked technology and no shame over collateral damage, what will blow up next -- cars, mobile phones, TV sets, refrigerators? And where?, asks Shyam G Menon.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'I would think that India faces less damage from opinions voiced overseas compared to the damage it suffers if the right to free speech of its citizens is curtailed in the name of image management,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
'The tide started to turn against the BJD when V K Pandian toured the districts gathering people's grievances last year.'
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Call Me Bae is a spirited new addition in guilty pleasures for the fashion-loving, rom-com starved soul, applauds Sukanya Verma.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
The Delhi police on Tuesday arrested two persons including NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha in connection with a probe in the portal's foreign funding, officials said.
Manjhi's son Santosh Suman, who is a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, made the statement a day after reports emerged that a seat-sharing formula has been arrived at in the National Democratic Alliance, and the HAM was likely to get only one of the state's 40 constituencies.
The Union Information and Broadcasting minister also said the well-being of the country and society should be kept in mind before broadcasting or publishing any news, and stressed that news and views should not be mixed.
Practising journalism has never been easy in the volatile Kashmir Valley. But since the state's special status was revoked, it's become almost impossible for the media to go about their job, reports Umar Ganie/Rediff.com.
A statement to this effect was made in Patna by RCP Singh, a close aide of Kumar, amid buzz on cabinet expansion at the Centre.
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