Presenting the Union Budget for the year 2009-10 in the Lok Sabha, Mukherjee said that the United Progressive Alliance government is committed to ensuring that the Sri Lankan Tamils enjoy their rights and legitimate aspirations within the territorial sovereignty and framework of the country's constitution.
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu had begun seeing Governor Ravi's decisions and actions as a part of the state BJP's non-stop criticism of its government and directed from Delhi, a view strengthened by the governor's decision to return the NEET exemption bill, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Polling will be held between 7 am and 4 pm, except in some polling stations of the interior districts of Nagaland, where the process is scheduled to conclude at 3 pm. The two states have a 60-member House each, but voting will be held for 59 constituencies in both.
Voters in Sri Lanka's Tamil majority Northern Province on Saturday began voting in the first local elections in 25 years to elect a council to govern the former war zone, four years after the military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after decades of bloody civil war.
Wisner said during a discussion organised by Asia Society here yesterday on the Indian elections.
This time round, even 'petrol coupons' were reportedly distributed for those attending campaign rallies, especially those addressed by top leaders, cutting across party lines. If this owed to the rising cost of petrol and diesel -- which is a poll issue this time -- there were the customary coupons for 'quarter' (liquor bottle size) and non-vegetarian biryani. Some media reports claimed that some of these 'crowds' attended more than one political rally on the same day in the last week, and at times for rival political parties in adjoining constituencies or districts, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
But the question before the leadership will be whether to retain the BJP alliance or dump it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Forty people were killed and 45 wounded in two suicide blasts as worshippers were leaving a Shiite mosque in Baghdad after the weekly Friday prayers, a security official said.
Unlike football, which offends the sensibilities of some very conservative Muslims because it is normally played in shorts, cricket is played in long sleeves and trousers, in line with traditional dress codes. It also bears some resemblance to traditional Afghan children's games involving throwing and using sticks to hit smaller sticks or balls.
While they are trying to unite different parties to form a non-Bharatiya Janata Party, non-Congress alliance at the Centre, the Communist Party of India - Marxist and the Communist Party of India on Monday intensified their tussle over the Ponnani Lok Sabha constituency in northern Kerala's Mallapuram district.After the CPI announced its intention two days earlier to field its own candidate from that seat, the CPI-M's Central Committee today put its foot down.
The revived factionalism in the AIADMK, if not curbed now, has the potential to split the party vertically, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday made a historic visit to Sri Lanka's war-ravaged north and met newly-elected Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran and members of the Tamil community who narrated "harrowing" stories to him about alleged rights violations.
The Akali Dal-BJP alliance won on four seats and the AAP bagged one.
China is emboldened to meddle in Sikkim after Tawang district did not fall in the itinerary of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh, BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad told media persons. Blaming the aggression on the 'weak-kneed foreign policy' of the United Progressive Alliance, first in Arunachal Pradesh and now in Sikkim, the party said China should be told in clear terms that India will not tolerate any further incursions.
In a Sri Lankan House of 225 members, the cut-off figure comes to 113. With Wickremesinghe side touching 102 and Rajapaksa's team at 101, the three-party Tamil National Alliance with 16 members and the left-leaning Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna with 6 members hold the key. But with the latter declaring that they will not support either formation in a vote count,that leaves the TNA as the deciding factor, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon arrived in Colombo on Monday to hold crucial talks on the controversial 13th amendment on devolution of power in the Tamil-dominated northern province and a trilateral maritime security treaty with Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Referring to the 73-day long Doklam standoff, the army chief warned that the situation could gradually snowball into a larger conflict on the northern border.
'Maybe the BJP believes, in the post-poll scenario, it will have the might to foist, anybody endorsed by the RSS, upon Bihar,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
From Chief Minister EK Palaniswami to Seeman to TTV Dhinakaran to elder brother M K Azhagiri, everyone's favourite target these days seems to the DMK chief Stalin, which is good news in an election year, but that doesn't mean he is going to sweep the polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
P B Chandra reports from Kabul on the Afghan presidential election, that has entered a run-off stage for the first time. The battle now is between the two frontrunners Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, with Abdullah holding the edge.
Making his first public appearance after claims of injuries he sustained surfaced over three months ago, Tamil Tiger leader V Prabhakaran paid homage to a slain pro-LTTE lawmaker in the rebel-held Wanni area in northern Sri Lanka. Attired in combat fatigues, Prabhakaran offered floral tributes to K Sivanesan, a Tamil National Alliance MP who was killed in the blast.
The DMK has Stalin and Stalin alone as the key campaigner. The rest of them all, including half-sister Kanimozhi, are tied down to their own constituencies while those like party treasurer and former minister S Duraimurugan, to those of their children's constituencies.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
'It will be a repeated folly to ever think that China will not attack us.'
Citing China's example, he said a powerful military will enhance India's strategic clout.
The Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana has joined the saffron alliance in Maharashtra. Will the votes it brings to the table loosen the political hold of the entrenched Maratha-dominated sugar barons of the NCP-Congress in western Maharashtra?
He, however, expressed confidence that a series of state-specific alliances, where like-minded parties would come together on an anti-BJP platform, was likely for the 2019 general election.
India celebrates 17th Kargil Vijay Diwas on Tuesday, pays homage to martyrs of 1999 war.
The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
India cannot choose its geography and devise regional strategies to dovetail into the Western Indian Ocean hypothesis conceived in the Pentagon, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'With the deaths of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, the BJP and Congress thought that they had a chance.' 'They have conceded that power is with the Dravidian parties.'
The impact of a 'dengue-COVID-19' season would entail two different diagnostic tests and extract a huge toll on patients too, each disease making the other more complicated to deal with and perhaps more fatal.
Caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra.
President Maithripala Sirisena's new Cabinet was also sworn in and Rajapaksa was named the new minister of finance and economic affairs.
Smart cities would be built in a way so that they have uninterrupted power, water, proper sanitation, efficient management of solid waste, decongestion of roads, last mile connectivity and effective use of ICT.
'The fact that Modi and Xi exuded confidence to accelerate the negotiations for a border settlement alone underscores that the Russia-India-China triangle has become very dynamic,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The IAF chief also said Pakistan has become a pawn of Chinese policy and its dependence on China would increase further in future. He said India needs to understand the interplay of some major events in its vicinity that would impact the security scenario of the region.
Senior Congress leaders say Sharad Pawar's 'clean chit' to Modi in the Rafale deal is the most recent example of regional parties succumbing to pressure. The Congress is also convinced that Mayawati is being arm-twisted.
'We should expect a cold-blooded, transactional relation that requires a lot of engagement and mutual trust to sustain,' says Constantino Xavier, Fellow, foreign policy, Brookings India.
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