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.
With Vijayakanth rebuffing both the DMK and the BJP Tamil Nadu will witness a six-cornered fight, which can only benefit Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, says 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
Tamil Nadu chief secretary said that the request could not be sanctioned, owing to the legal issues at Marina Beach.
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 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.
We don't have confidence in the chief minister, the MLAs said.
'Why don't they suggest artificial intelligence training for SC/STs?' 'Why can't they be trained in computer programming?'
The Modi juggernaut is all set to paint the five south Indian states in saffron colours, writes R Rajagopalan.
This is perhaps for the first time the CBI raided a serving police chief of a state.
'In the last three to four months the BJP vote share in Tamil Nadu, which was 2.86% in 2016, has gone up to about 5%-6%.' 'The AIADMK will lose the minority votes and others who don't like the BJP and Modi.' 'The AIADMK decided to take the risk to get the 5%-6% votes that the BJP will bring in.'
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.
'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.
Obviously, the not-so warm vibes between the two during the recent election season is a thing of the past, with Jaya scheduled to offer the Tamil angavastram as a mark of respect to Modi in his South Block office.
BJP-led govt will need regional parties' support in Upper House to get legislation cleared. Archis Mohan reports
Scripting history, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday stormed to power in Assam bagging a government in the north east for the first time dethroning the Congress which also lost Kerala while Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee retained power in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal with spectacular victories.
The last leg of poll campaign saw many national leaders canvassing for their parties.
In an age when the electorate is increasingly impatient and changes governments every 5 years, how did the Tamil Nadu chief minister beat anti-incumbency?
Gopalkrishna Gandhi could only manage 244 votes.
The results will be declared on July 20 in New Delhi.
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.
'As Karunanidhi and Ramadoss flagged the law and order issue, Subramanian Swamy said Home Minister Rajnath Singh should send Chief Minister O Panneerselvam a directive under Article 246 of the Constitution. Swamy also dangled the fear of Article 356 over the state government.'
Tamil Nadu's politics returns to being bi-polar, and that's a good thing, says B Srikumar.
AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam is said to be upset at his son Raveendranath Kumar, a Lok Sabha MP, being denied a ministerial chance for a second time in a row, beginning with the formation of Modi 2.0 in 2019, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan dashed off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention for repealing the measure. He said the Centre's decision amounts to an "intrusion" to the rights of the states in the country's federal structure.
The moot point is if a re-energised Jayalalitha will order snap polls when the Opposition is in disarray and her own political starts are on the rise, says N Nathiya Moorthy.
The CM thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his support to Jallikattu, an emotive issue which triggered mass protests across the state.
Modi's non-reference could also imply that the BJP may be keeping its alliance options open vis--vis the AIADMK. It could also imply that the BJP's national leadership had not given up on the DMK returning to power in the state post-poll, and the Centre having to do business with a new government in Fort St George, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Strategy or confusion? The Tamil Nadu BJP has many reasons to feel let down by Prime Minister Modi's whistlestop tour to the state on Tuesday, says R Ramasubramanian.
The situation is unlike any other legislation/ordinance that governments at the Centre and states had passed on earlier occasions after the higher judiciary had held certain laws, orders or decisions ultra vires of the Constitution, 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.
Sasikala's declaration of staying away from politics does not necessarily have to mean that she was retiring for good. She is only taking time to evaluate the post-poll chances of hers before digging in again, if possible, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin has started campaigning in the name of father Karunanidhi as the party's CM's candidate, but does not seem to have given up hope.
Tamil Nadu's ruling AIADMK may choose to capitalise on the confusion within opposition ranks and hope to ride to power on Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's popularity, writes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Without strategising together, Jayalalithaa's successor, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, and M Karunanidhi's son-cum-successor, M K Stalin, have used tough-talking on seat-sharing with allies, to replace charisma that they purportedly lacked, during the run-up to the assembly polls scheduled for April 6, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
R Rajagopalan, who travelled through Tamil Nadu, says it will be an election of many firsts.
Farming and debt go together in Tamil Nadu's Ariyalur district. There are those who have learnt to live with it and others like Alagar who could not cope with the loss.
'Most of those involved in these honour killings are the people who belong to the class that feels left out.' 'The high development index in a way is perpetuating conditions that result in social tension.' 'The only solution to the problem is politicise inter-caste marriages.'
There is nothing to suggest that the DMK stands to gain from the AIADMK split nor is there anything indicative of an extraordinary advantage for the BJP, independently or in the company of the AIADMK, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
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