The Summit for Democracy seems to have done more harm than good, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The Left rewrote history in Kerala on Sunday by becoming the first government to get a second term in four decades but its fortunes fell to a historic low in West Bengal where it failed to bag even one seat, resulting in its complete decimation in a state it once ruled for over three decades.
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint session of the United States Congress, delivered on Thursday.
'If things don't work on the ground and they continue moving at this pace, it will vanish.'
The RJD tweeted, "In almost 10 seats, the Nitish administration is delaying the count and not giving certificates to the winning candidates. Sitting in the CM's residence, Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi are putting pressure on DMs and ROs through phone calls by the CM's principal secretary to decide closely contested seats in their favour."
'These are the people who don't want peace in the state, who want to disturb the harmony in the state.'
The White House and the Indian-American community are solidly backing the nomination of Neera Tanden as the director of Office of Management and Budget, describing her as the most appropriate candidate to hold the position.
Kaushik Kar, had been invited by Palodhi's group Ichcheymoto' in 2019, to play a character whose name had a reference to the victim who was lynched in 2015 Dadri case on suspicion of eating beef.
The RJD supporters were creating a ruckus outside 10, Circular Road, where Rabri Devi lives and had been locked from inside by a Central Bureau Investigation team which had raided the house on Friday in connection with its case against Lalu Prasad Yadav, her husband, in the railway recruitment scandal.
The agency has named 247 people as accused in the case, according to NIA sources.
In another major crackdown on the Popular Front of India, police along with other investigative agencies conducted raids across several states on Tuesday.
What these elections prove beyond any doubt (if ever there was one) that Modi's hold over public mind and Shah's mastery of election management are unparalleled. It doesn't seem likely that they will be matched any time soon in the Indian political scene, reaffirms Shreekant Sambrani.
So far, 124 accused have been arrested in the D J Halli police station case and 169 in the KG Halli police station case.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan, who led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the April 6 assembly polls, on Thursday took oath as chief minister of Kerala for the second time along with 20 ministers.
Ramesh Menon, the veteran journalist suggests Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi what he should do if he wants to win 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
What was shocking was the execution of the killings -- calculated, gory and intended to send a chill down the spine.
The direction to Kerala Rail Development Corporation Ltd (KRDCL), or K-Rail as it is popularly known, was welcomed by Congress-led United Democratic Front opposition as they termed it a victory of the first phase of the struggle against the semi-high speed rail corridor.
Obama, in an interview to CBS News on Sunday, said that they have to work with the media and the tech companies to find ways to inform the public better about the issues and bolster the standards to ensure that they can separate truth from fiction.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance released its manifesto for the February 20 Punjab polls on Saturday, promising a slew of sops for various sections, including 75 per cent reservation in all government jobs for youngsters from the state, an unemployment allowance, 35 per cent reservation for women in government jobs and massive infrastructure development.
The central agency has re-registered two separate first information reports under the UAPA and IPC sections related to arson, violence and destruction of public property. The case was earlier being probed by the Bengaluru Police, they said.
Social media giant Facebook has named Spoorthi Priya as its grievance officer for India on its website.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
The conspiracy theory about Harris started following a Newsweek Op-Ed by Dr John Eastman, who ran in the Republican primary to be California's attorney general in 2010. Trump did not give his opinion on it but acknowledged that he has heard about such claims circulating on social media that Harris is not eligible to be the president of the United States.
'India's defining characteristic has been its ability to manage and sustain democratic governance through an accommodation of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity.'
'Here is a woman who has got widespread appreciation for her work.' 'Social media was full of posts wanting her as the chief ministerial candidate.' 'This kind of popularity did not go well within the party.' 'See, today the party is Pinarayi Vijayan!'
He has refused to concede the election, while the mainstream US media has declared 77-year-old Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as the winner, who is now the President-elect.
The bill was passed by a voice vote after Shah sought to allay concerns raised by the Opposition, which claimed the draft law was "draconian".
'In its short life, AAP has distinguished itself in many, many, governance spheres.' 'But party democracy is not one of them,' notes Aditi Phadnis.
Mukesh Sahni's move to contest 55 seats in the UP assembly polls antagonised top BJP leaders.
The ban on accessing social media sites and applications was revoked by the authorities on Wednesday.
Haley warned Americans that a Biden-Harris administration would lead the country on the path of socialism, which has failed everywhere in the world.
Democracy is the heart of our body politic and elections are its life blood. Because there is some disease that affects it, we cannot apply leeches to drain it off, killing the body in the process, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
'Although Hong Kong weathered many a storm and displayed a remarkable resilience to bounce back, the developments in the territory have raised question marks with regard to its future stability and prosperity.' A revealing excerpt from Rup Narayan Das's Hong Kong Conundrum: Pangs of Transition.
There is a leader in every man waiting for the right moment. The Aam Admi Party has found it and is already ready with its list for the Lok Sabha. The challenge is enormous but the future beckons the way it had never, before, feels sociologist Shiv Vishvanathan.
'It was more than ego.' 'It carried with it a sincere belief that he was the quintessence of the country, that the country's destiny was irrevocably intertwined with his destiny.' An excerpt from T J S George's The Dismantling of India: In 35 Portraits.
Parliament and state legislative assembly are regarded as 'sacred places' and there can be no place for disorderly conduct in the House, where members are expected to show statesmanship and 'not brinkmanship,' the Supreme Court said on Friday.
'This year felt different -- and was different.' 'For the first time, the Indian American voter seemed to matter.'
Three people were killed after police opened fire on the night of August 11 to quell a mob that went on a rampage in a city locality, irked over a social media post allegedly put out by a Congress legislator's relative.
The Central Crime Branch probing the August 11 violence in Bengaluru over an alleged inflammatory social media post, has filed a preliminary chargesheet in a local court, naming former Congress mayor R Sampath Raj as an accused.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin on Sunday hit back at Union Home Minister Amit Shah for attacking his party with the 2G spectrum scam allegation and dynasty politics barb, saying it was an amusing and conjuring trick ahead of the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.