R Rajagopalan on why September promises to be a crucial month for Tamil Nadu.
In what can be called as a major hint towards sewing up an unprecedented merger between two warring factions, the Sasikala and the O Panneerselvam groups of the All Anna India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam met on late Monday night in Chennai.
The Chief Minister Palaniswami camp, however, blamed the Sasikala family for the raids.
With the Tamil Nadu electorate having given him an unprecedented mandate that had eluded his father the late M Karunanidhi, Stalin has to prove his worth, ensuring at the same time that the Dravidian drag on the AIADMK's side does not open up space for the BJP to make inroads in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
E K Palaniswami had won the trust vote 122-11 in the 234-member assembly aided by the eviction of main opposition DMK and walkout by its allies, amid stormy scenes during which mikes were uprooted, chairs toppled and sheets of papers torn.
Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit has given his assent to a Bill envisaging 7.5 per cent reservation to government school students who have cleared the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in admission to medical courses.
'DMK is taking a wrong image of BJP to the people.'
The BJP will be the obvious gainer while the DMK will lose a major chunk of its vote bank.
Shah, 55, stated on Twitter that he has tested positive for the infection and is getting admitted to a hospital on the advice of doctors.
Tamil Nadu minister Sellur K Raju said the death of Amma was a huge loss.
"It is me in the video, but the voice is not mine," Saravanan told reporters.
K Pazhani of Kadukkalur village served the army for 22 long years and was due to retire in a year.
'If the EPS government falls, Sasikala will return. If EPS wins, he will become an indispensable leader and Sasikala will not be able to return.' T E Narasimhan reports.
The DMK chief said it was a 'resounding victory' given to his party led alliance by the people of Tamil Nadu.
The DMK feels its genuine gestures have had no bearing on the governor's politico-administrative conduct, which is 'more political and politicised than administrative and Constitutional', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kanimozhi told reporters that the Palaniswami-led government has become 'bloodthirsty' and the chief minister should be held responsible for the incident.
His remarks came a day after the opposition led by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam called for a CBI probe into the treatment and death of the former chief minister.
'No one was allowed to meet Jaya. Whoever came, would be briefed by Sasikala's relatives that she was 'all right',' Dindigul Srinivasan said.
The Bengal outcome can have a marginal impact on national politics. Whereas elections in UP next year might still change the course ahead of the parliamentary poll in 2024, observes Virendra Kapoor.
There was also no stay of the disqualification of rebel AIADMK MLAs.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
The salary and allowances of MLAs has been raised from Rs 55,000 to Rs 1.05 lakh a month.
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
K Pandiarajan has filed a petition in the apex court in which he has sought a direction for quashing Speaker P Dhanapal's decision rejecting the demand for a secret ballot to determine the outcome of the floor test.
Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah on Saturday invited Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to form the government after she apprised him of her election as leader of All India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam Legislature Party.
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.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday said it would soon move a no-confidence motion against Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal as it accused him of "deliberately harping on his community to malign" the party.
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
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.
A time has thus come when state encouragement for rural students led to empowerment of the socio-economically marginalised sections of the population. It included women. Today, with greater exposure and consequent enlightenment, it has gone beyond 'empowerment' to become 'entitlement', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
An adverse judgement could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant.
The interim order was passed on petitions by Stalin and Dinakaran loyalist MLA P Vetrivel.
The outcome of the bypolls to a total of 22 assembly segments in Tamil Nadu could decide the continuance of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government in the state.
Even as the unity moves between the two AIADMK factions seem to be going nowhere, former chief minister O Panneerselvam is working on a grand alliance of other Opposition parties, reports R Rajagopalan.
The CBI has dispatched a special team to conduct the probe in which several Tamil Nadu Police personnel are under the scanner and some have already been arrested by the state police, they said.
M K Stalin also opposed the naming of government schemes after her and "the use of taxpayers' money for her 69th birthday celebrations" on Friday.
The delegation comprised DMK leaders R S Bharathi, T K S Elangovan and Tiruchi N Siva.
In the wake of Fathima Lateef's tragic suicide at IIT-Madras, A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com speaks to students and professors to find out if one of India's leading educational institutions has a dark side to it.
Yadav said he had come for conducting a fact finding about acquisition when he was stopped from proceeding.
