In UP and Bengal, it is willing to sacrifice its interests to stop the BJP and would work towards ensuring the BJP did not win incremental seats in Odisha and Telangana.
Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
Tamil Nadu has around 30 per cent or more of 'swing voters', and it is this segment that will swing the pre-poll alliance decision, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Vellore is one of the two seats that the DMK alliance won by the narrowest of margins in 2019. For the DMK's vote-score to be so low in a constituency with a substantial Muslim population has not missed the BJP strategists' eyes, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
Stalin still enjoys a lot of sympathy and empathy as someone wishing well for the state, but not full-throated support as in 2019 and 2021, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha, arrested in a case lodged under anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for allegedly receiving money to spread pro-China propaganda, told the Delhi high court on Monday that the allegations against him were "false" and "bogus", and "not a penny has come from China".
India's women wrestlers push for reforms after sexual harassment case
In 1666, Shivaji Maharaj and his son Sambhaji escaped from the Agra Fort, one of the most miraculous escapes in India's history.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's key ally in Tamil Nadu, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday slammed the saffron party alleging that it is anti-Tamil and claimed that the party could never grow in the state.
Will Vijay will go the most successful MGR/Jayalalithaa way, or that of Vijayakanth, Seeman or Kamalahaasan, or will he end up as another Rajinikanth who cries wolf at the last minute and quits the scene even before it all had really begun, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Four BJP leaders and former Supreme Court judge S Abdul Nazeer, who was part of the Constitution bench that upheld the archaeological report on Ayodhya, were among six new faces appointed as Governors on Sunday.
'The really striking thing is that the Taliban has suo moto presented to us certain firm benchmarks against which it expects us to hold to account the Taliban rulers's actions in the period ahead' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A total 2.51 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise for the second phase of elections, including 1.29 crore men and 1.22 crore women.
'It is important to note that American officials were trying their best to use the Taliban for their oil games till December 1997 when Mullah Ghous was invited to America. State Department officials did not show any interest in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden even at that time.'
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
There are now 10 male cheetahs and as many females at MP's Kuno National Park.
It is not much of an issue just now, but it could become one if the idea of caste census captures socio-political imagination, going beyond electoral tags and identities, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
On Friday, Putin formally announced the annexation of four regions -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia -- and claimed that "this is the will of millions of people".
The Bharatiya Janata Party's comprehensive defeat to the Congress in Karnataka where the two parties ran a campaign of contrasts has left the ruling party much to ponder as the two rivals are facing a direct contest in three more state polls this year in the run-up to the all-important 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP has nothing to lose after a point. For the DMK it is a difficult choice, as it would not want to give too much of space to a 'national party' lest the 'Dravidian duel' of the past decades should be lost forever, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Without naming Uddhav Thackeray, Shah, who was speaking at the launch of Marathi version of the booked 'Modi@20', also reiterated there was no agreement on sharing the chief minister's post in the run up to the 2019 assembly polls.
Tribals constitute 7-8 per cent of the state's population, and are a deciding factor in 47 assembly seats and seven Lok Sabha constituencies spread across the Junglemahal districts of Purulia, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Jhargram in southern Bengal and Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar in the north.
The ceremony on Friday will be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and chief ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
Once the novelty of the plot wears off, Jamtara 2 becomes just another small-town cops-and-gangs story, observes Deepa Gahlot.
All the eight cheetahs looked fit and fine and drank water kept at their quarantine enclosure in the KNP.
The ATR 72-600 aircraft was accorded water salute as it landed at the Jaffna airport, about 400-km from capital Colombo.
The US intends first to cripple the Afghan government financially through sanctions, freezing of assets, denial of access to international banking, etc, and then proceed to do pretty much what it wants to do with scant regard for Afghanistan's sovereignty, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Any future course of action towards active participation in the alliance when formed would need a lot of deliberation, long term vision and should be in our best national interests,' notes Commodore Vengalil Venugopal (retd).
The issue of fog and low visibility primarily impacts airports in northern India and Bengaluru.
Over 83 per cent of the more than 13 lakh electorate cast their vote on Monday in the single-day Nagaland state election which passed off by and large peacefully, Chief Electoral Officer V Shashank Shekhar said.
Himanta Biswa Sarma -- who is also the North East Democratic Alliance convenor -- took the oath of office and secrecy in Assamese.
Sri Lanka's Minister of State for Prisons Management Lohan Ratwatte tendered his resignation on Wednesday, days after he allegedly threatened to kill Tamil prisoners during his visit to the Anuradhapura prison.
Remember the US withdrawal agreement was signed in February 2020. In the intervening period, a proper evacuation plan ought to have been in place. It was not. Consequently, tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked as interpreters, drivers, suppliers of goods and services, etc, face brutal retribution from the Taliban, Virendra Kapoor points out.
The BJP and the AIADMK are unable to sort out ideological differences, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK leadership may now have to deal with a demand for more seats from its Congress ally in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
India is worried about Pakistan getting the Taliban to ignite trouble in Kashmir, observes Ramesh Menon.
Seven decades after they became extinct in India, eight Cheetahs arrived in the country from Namibia by a special flight on Saturday morning and were released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP).
