With the unanticipated floods across Tamil Nadu catching the unprepared administration unawares, Stalin finds that some of the early positives that had rubbed on his initiatives have been lost, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The fact that this happened and the fact that we were not able to bring it down, we were not even able to trace from where it came from and where it went, certainly raises questions on our level of preparedness.'
'It is not something that is going to unfold in the next few weeks or even the next few months.' 'This process will continue for some time. And that's how it should be.' 'If the politicians are coming on board, then that is a welcome step.'
We knew from the moment the pandemic took hold that this would be a long haul -- at least 12 to 18 months. Nothing should have changed that assessment, says Mihir S Sharma.
Prime Minister Modi has certainly pulled back, and his political capital -- dependent as it is on an image that he knows best and never retreats -- may have taken a bit of a beating. But, equally, it is hard to say that the protesters have 'won', argues Mihir S Sharma.
Kulkarni said that he has accepted Kasuri's invitation to join the launch of his book 'Neither a Hawk nor a Dove' in Karachi on November 2.
Munde, a Nationalist Congress Party leader, had attended a state cabinet meeting earlier this week and taken part in the Nationalist Congress Party's foundation day event two days ago in Mumbai.
'The missile mounted near Kailash-Mansarovar is called DF-21. It is a medium-range, 2,200 kilometres ballistic missile. Its advantage is that it can cover all cities of north India, including New Delhi'
Relations between an elected government of Delhi and the LG can never be cordial: It is just the way the relationship is structured.
Pragmatism and flexibility is a virtue. An untethered and short-term approach to policymaking is a flaw, argues Mihir S Sharma.
A high-pitched battle between party patriarch Karunanidhi and son MK Stalin for power and the failure to oust corrupt leaders and maintain a clean image has left the party in shambles, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Jaya-Jaitley meeting poses more questions than answers -- and not just for the Tamil Nadu BJP.
With the spectre of nuclear terrorism growing, the international community is concerned about the security of India's nuclear facilities. The worry has grown since 2010, when radioactive Cobalt-60 surfaced in a New Delhi scrapyard, killing one person and hospitalising eight others.
India's sprawling digital public infrastructure received a glowing endorsement from billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Wednesday as he praised the country's "great" digital network, reliable and low-cost connectivity, and said this will be the cheapest 5G market. Under the G20 presidency of India, a session on 'Building resilient and inclusive economies- the Promise of Digital Public Infrastructure' was held on Wednesday in New Delhi, where the Microsoft co-founder spoke of India's digital identity Aadhaar, its payment infrastructure, and rapid strides that the country has taken in bringing more people into formal banking system. "India in particular, by laying the groundwork for digital public infrastucture starting with identity system, allows people to build on top of that.
C Christine Fair, an acclaimed Pakistan expert who teaches at Georgetown University rebutted some of the common perceptions of Pakistan.
"The weak don't survive, the strong survive. You make peace, alliances with the strong. You are able to maintain peace by being strong," he said.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
This is a high-stakes strategic conflict between a power which wants to preserve the status quo in its favour and one which wants to usurp that throne. The rest is all theatre, says Harsh V Pant.
As of now, there is nothing to suggest that the 'Michaelpatti episode' has the potential to polarise Dravidian Tamil Nadu on religious lines, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The battle to manage the international environment over Kashmir has just begun, but what is expected to help is the lifting of internal controls. All eyes are now on that exercise. Aditi Phadnis reports.
Trump's visit symbolised heightened partisanship and a return to chemistry between leaders defining bilateral ties, notes Kashish Parpiani.
In the ensemble trial, Johnson & Johnson's vaccine was 85 per cent effective against severe/critical disease and demonstrated protection against hospitalisation and death. The vaccine was consistently effective across all regions studied globally, including in South Africa and Brazil, where there was a high prevalence of rapidly emerging Beta and Zeta variants during the study period.
Tamil Nadu's unending legislative fight for exemption from NEET has now flagged the question if it's time to review the Supreme Court's famous verdict in the 'Mandal case', fixing 50-per cent upper-limit for all reservations, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rahul Gandhi is neither Congress president, office-bearer nor Congress leader in Parliament. This technical leeway provides adequate cover for Shiv Sena-Congress ties taking a nosedive, says Rasheed Kidwai.
The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
'This is a fascinating side to Sonia Gandhi, the way she disarms her opponents.'
Shiv Sena activists threw ink at me and smeared my face. They abused me, Kulkarni alleged.
India and Indians can ignore Pakistan, but that cannot be said of other nations in the neighbourhood, where New Delhi's 'Neighbourhood First' policy constantly reverberates. Four of the eight SAARC member-nations are Muslim -- Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The rulers decide the nation's India or anti-India policy in the first two, and street-opinion contributes to the same in the latter two, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The study also shows that levels of these antibodies that are able to recognise and fight the virus are lower with increasing age, and that levels decline over time, providing additional evidence in support of plans to deliver a booster dose to vulnerable people.
Overall, the Thalaivi trailer is a convincing experience, says veteran Tamil Nadu politics watcher N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a country where 'booth-capturing' and open intimidation of voters used to be a part of the poll processes until not very long ago -- and remains a factor even now - postal vote can challenge the very credibility of the electoral process as a whole, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I don't see how any Indian government or any Indian military leadership can now ask the soldiers to patrol without weapons.'
In the unlikely event of the BJP-NDA losing all five states going to the polls in February-March, the Presidential electoral college numbers could be significantly altered, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is increasingly clear that for the BJP to try and establish itself as an electoral force in Tamil Nadu, the party has to come out of the old Brahminical mould, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Will Priyanka contest against Modi in Varanasi? Will Rahul also contest from Karnataka? Rasheed Kidwai -- Sonia Gandhi and the Congress party's biographer -- reveals what is churning in the Congress.
If an elected government had been sworn in, Jung's tenure and the government would have been more or less co-terminus and Jung would have been just the ceremonial head of Delhi. Now, he will run Delhi, pending another round of assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
Most of the extra spending in the Budget is in fact an accounting entry that shifts the cost of an interest subsidy to the agriculture Budget that was previously borne by the finance ministry
US admiral's suggestion for a revival of a strategic maritime quadrilateral with Japan, Australia and India leaves China livid, says Rajeev Sharma.
Indicators are that there has been little enthusiasm for Rajinikanth's entry into politics, owing possibly to his 'hide-and-seek' game over the subject since the early to mid-nineties. That was when Rajinikanth was already a superstar, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
