The BJP game-plan: Take the top slot, or a close second, either for the 'Lotus' or the larger NDA, if it can and push the AIADMK to the third place, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
Southern Railway however clarified that the issue was the result of a particular user selecting Hindi as the preferred language while registering in the IRCTC website. 'Language is an option in e-ticketing,' a Southern Railway release said.
The chemical worth Rs 1.80 crore was seized from a Tamil Nadu-based importer in 2015, who had allegedly declared it as fertiliser grade although it was an explosive grade.
The incident that came to light on Saturday came days after a farmer was beaten up by the police in the state over non-payment of loan.
After Shah said Hindi is the most spoken language which can unite the nation as a common language, Tamil Nadu parties rallied against it.
The BJP is now inventing new angles to keep its campaign relevant -- even if it's old wine in an old bottle, which is what the allegation on 'Katchatheevu' is, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The announcement was made by AIADMK coordinator and deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam and Union Minister and senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal, party election in-charge for Tamil Nadu, who described it as a "mega alliance".
'The BJP will be the ruling party.'
The deaths brought back the focus on NEET in the state, with all political parties but for the BJP opposed to the qualifying exam.
The young woman's death has led to an outrage on illegal hoardings being put by political parties despite them causing inconvenience and posing a threat to people's safety.
Amidst a raging controversy over remarks on smoking by a Bharatiya Janata Party MP who is a 'beedi' baron, another Member of Parliament from the party Ram Prasad Sarmah on Friday waded into the row, claiming there is no clear proof yet linking cigarette puffing and cancer while wondering whether tobacco contains "herbal medicine"
The prime minister said the opposition's hatred against him was reaching new levels daily and they have a competition over who abused him the most.
The Madras high court on Tuesday rejected a plea from mining giant Vedanta to order reopening of its Sterlite copper unit at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu.
'Appointed, sponsored and nurtured' by Jayalalithaa, P Rama Mohana Rao is now seen as a man who holds the key to the secrets of ministers and bureaucrats.
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.
'If they really wanted to give him competition, the AIADMK should have contested the seat, not its ally the PMK.'
Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convict A G Perarivalan on Wednesday celebrated the Supreme Court verdict directing his release by playing the Tamil percussion instrument 'Parai' and now wants to breathe the air of freedom before thinking about his future, as the apex court ruling put an end to his three-decade prison term.
The sub-quota scheme may now lead to a ganging up of non-Vanniyars in individual constituencies against the Vanniyars just as in the past, such ganging up against SC-ST candidates was seen in the non-quota constituencies, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the Supreme Court reinforcing its stay on jallikattu, the state BJP hopes it can persuade its party leadership to bring in an ordinance. But this is a path filled with risk, reports R Ramasubramanian.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
This is perhaps for the first time the CBI raided a serving police chief of a state.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a bill providing internal reservation of 10.5 per cent for Vanniyars, a most backward community in government jobs and in admission to educational institutions.
Tamil Nadu's politics returns to being bi-polar, and that's a good thing, says B Srikumar.
R Rajagopalan, who travelled through Tamil Nadu, says it will be an election of many firsts.
Should the Karnataka high court deliver a verdict in the Jayalalithaa case on Thursday, the Supreme Court bench on Friday could pass orders in her bail extension plea that may end up staying the former ruling, reports N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Of equal importance was the AIADMK's precarious assembly membership, what with 11 of its MLAs including deputy chief minister OPS facing court cases for disqualification and by-elections due in another 21. To shore up the party's numbers for anticipated eventuality on the 11-MLAs' front, the AIADMK leadership in general and chief minister EPS in particular, were even more focussed on assembly seats than LS seats, just now,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The deadlock over finalising alliances has had a deleterious effect on the candidates of every party. The delay in alliance conclusion has also sent out confusing signals to the grass-roots who are unsure who will be their party candidate, or which party within an alliance will be allotted a particular constituency, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Barring one of the earliest surveys of the kind in the country, in 1989, none has proved right in Tamil Nadu's case, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan said the vessel had more than 32,000 tonne of oil and has been emptied.
Will the 2016 assembly election be Stalin's to lead the DMK in?
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