The former general physician, who is the son of an Irish nurse and a doctor from India, won the Fine Gael party leadership earlier this month.
Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar also said that an alliance similar to the one stitched up in Bihar is needed at the national level for the next Lok Sabha elections.
'A perception has been built in our country that whatever Modi says you cannot challenge that.'
Modi also asked banks to become socially more responsible
'It's a dream, but will I give it up? No bloody way,' Umesh Pandey, the former Bangkok Post editor turned Opposition candidate, tells Rahul Jacob.
'I am more concerned about my future, my family's future. The fate of the Ram temple is neither going to affect my career, nor would I let it be affected'
With a staff in one hand and the other on his granddaughter's shoulder, the old man briskly takes the lead as the sun breaks over the horizon.
The 'Shatrughan Sinha of the South' plunges into politics.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led party believes that art appeals to everyone and there is no better way to connect than through street theatres.
'This novel format of diplomacy -- the informal summit -- will not only facilitate bilateral communication and reduce miscalculations at the very top level of the two governments, but possibly open the space for China and India to speak in one voice on various issues of mutual concern,' note Feng Renjie and Ding Kun Lei
Stalin has started campaigning in the name of father Karunanidhi as the party's CM's candidate, but does not seem to have given up hope.
'With the Citizenship Amendment Bill, Hindus from Pakistan can come to India. They have got a way,' says Gurumukh Jagwani who came to India on his honeymoon, loved the country so much that he stayed back and got Indian citizenship.
Very few old-style RSS workers-turned-leaders have survived Narendra Modi's political ambush in state politics. Harin Pathak's end closes the chapter for Modi who started his post-2002 riots journey with a new mix of profit-centric development and middle class-pleasing commerce, technology-driven communication with voters, and an unspoken Hindutva that speaks only through posturings and symbols. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reveals the real reasons for the Modi-Pathak rupture.
'Every seat the Congress gets above 100 will keep pushing the Modi-Shah BJP lower in the dangerous sub-200 zone,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
'Those days, none of the leaders thought of amassing wealth.' 'All of them wanted to sacrifice their all for the country.' 'There are many who didn't have any money, but sacrificed their lives for the country.' 'There are many who spent their own money and worked for the country.' 'There are many more about whom we do not even know what they had done; they did everything so silently and selflessly.'
The level of preparedness of Daesh sleeper cells is evident from the fact that it took just four days after Salah Abdelslam's arrest to execute the Brussels attacks, says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Vajpayee had always felt that India must act with conviction and panache. He decided that, irrespective of the attendant risks, he would undertake what many felt was a precarious course. A fascinating excerpt from N K Singh's Portraits Of Power: Half A Century Of Being At Ringside on Atalji's 96th birthday, December 25.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'He failed to foresee that the campaign of hatred need not be continuous; a sporadic, scattered campaign is enough.' 'What was important is to keep the pot boiling, not let it overflow like happened during the masjid-mandir days,' notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
More than 25 years after the Babri Masjid was destroyed, another generation proclaims its commitment to building a Ram temple.
The New Delhi-born Krishnamoorthi, a lifelong progressive, was always the front-runner in the race against Republican Peter DiCianni. They were vying for the seat vacated by Tammy Duckworth, who won Illinois's US Senate seat.
At a time when the AIADMK has chosen the late Jaya's personal aide to lead the party, M K Stalin re-enters the scene with greater credibility and better clarity of his own role in the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'You shouldn't mistreat Muslims, you shouldn't mistreat Sikhs, you shouldn't mistreat anyone you perceive to be the other.'
The AGP, an ally of the BJP, voted for the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, after Amit Shah's assurance. However, the scale, intensity and, persistence of the anti-CAA protests since then have taken it by surprise.
The greatest progress on civil rights in the United States since Abraham Lincoln was under the Southern Democrat Lyndon Johnson, the past master of wheeling and dealing in Congress.
'Given the present force levels, India cannot fight and win.' 'India can't hope to terminate the conflict on India's terms and impose the nation's will upon the adversaries,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
"Will anybody want a servant that who is on vacation when needed at home? And nobody knows where he is," he continued.
Considering that the Supreme Court has now included two, rather three, new variable to the tribunal's findings, it could imply that whenever the current order comes in for review, the two states could raise specific issues flowing from them, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday promised an array of initiatives in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls like bringing a strong Jan Lokpal Bill, installing CCTV cameras in court rooms and bringing down the age to contest elections to 21 from 25.
After snapping his political alliance with the ruling National Democratic Alliance at the Centre, N Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, speaks to B Dasarath Reddy on what he now has in mind.
"What I said was if we had Rafale at the time (of aerial dogfight), then none of our fighter jets would have gone down and none of theirs saved," he added.
Earlier in the day, the Chinese embassy in Delhi first posted and later removed a statement on its website saying that the two met after the Congress denied it as "fake news".
With all its ups and downs, 2015 is now concluding. And the New Year will bring new expectations to all of us. So tell us your expectations from 2016:
'Had Muslims been a vote bank, they wouldn't be in the condition they are now,' Asaduddin Owaisi tells Jyoti Punwani.
Senior bureaucrats say the government has planned a 'feel-good' Budget after the 'pain' of demonetisation.
Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took his fight against the contentious land acquisition bill to Punjab as he travelled by train today to visit the National Democratic Alliance-ruled state and see the condition of farmers with his own eyes.
Nationalism, Hindutva, and war on corruption, not growth, will define Modi's politics until 2019.
'I became aggressive as a captain because I realised the players needed that backing...' 'We in India are brought up to be docile, goody-goody, but that needed to change on the field,' Sourav Ganguly tells Udit Misra.
What the Indian economy looks like next January will influence her view on India, not her genetics, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The government's leaks to the media and General Singh's very vocal comments on the charges against him have played right into the hands of separatists and their cross-border sponsors, says Nitin Pai
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