'I was present at a meeting where he decided to permit the IAF to strike at Pakistan positions in Kargil, with the caveat that they should not cross the LoC.' 'Confident that the Indian Army would succeed, Mr Vajpayee was positioning himself to tell the world after the Kargil conflict was won that India did not violate the 'sanctity' of the LoC,' recalls Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's envoy in Islamabad in that eventful year, 1999.
The Andhra Pradesh Raj Bhavan sex scandal and the paternity suit a love child filed against Tiwari dogged him in his 80s.
Former Kerala minister T H Mustafa was on Thursday suspended from the Congress for calling Rahul Gandhi a "joker" and saying that the party vice-president should be removed if he does not resign in the backdrop of the party's debacle in the Lok Sabha polls.
'The CBI should be bifurcated and the CBI's charter should be restricted to anti-corruption cases.'
'The investigation of major criminal cases having national and international implications, and national crimes spread over more than one state may be entrusted to a new national crime bureau,' recommends Dr Madhav Godbole, the former home secretary.
'Since the two successive drubbings of the Congress have rung the alarm bells about the party's future, the need to chart a new course cannot be delayed any further,' says Amulya Ganguli.
"Who will be his men?" a distinguished official close to the prime minister asked. Frankly, nobody has an idea. Hardly seven weeks are left for a regime change, but the idea of Narendra Modi on Raisina Hill looks abnormal, if not unreal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt captures the uncertain mood in the capital's bureaucracy ahead of the largest democratic transfer of power in the world.
'How do we explain that on the economic, internal security and strategic fronts, India's unstable coalitions have acted more decisively and boldly than all our full-majority governments yet?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
For successive governments the Election Commission remains a 'holy cow', where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Their dharma propels them to pay their workers; otherwise, they know the boys would starve.' 'At the same time they will not allow their business to suffer,' observes Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Chiefs of Army Staff in India have not been tactful about politicians. But they have stayed clear of politics, reports Aditi Phadnis.
The Rajya Sabha election was personal so it had to be won and Amit Shah needed to be sent a message.
From Sri Lanka's most popular political family to its most despised -- going by the voices on the streets calling for the Rajapaksas' ouster -- what went wrong for the clan? Veteran Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy offers an insight.
New entrants could include Flipkart, Paytm, Cafe Coffee Day and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, it says
No successive government thought of reviving the idea of an exit policy.
'While the meeting on December 6th was perfectly legal, was it ethical?' asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
What the Indian economy looks like next January will influence her view on India, not her genetics, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Controlled communal tension is useful in ensuring continued Muslim support. Fear of the BJP is a requirement for both, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, to keep their Muslim vote bank in line, says Saeed Naqvi.
How seriously should we take Natwar Singh's book? Indeed how seriously should all such memoirs and autobiographies be taken? The answer, I imagine, depends on the intent. If the authors are merely settling scores, as many think Natwar Singh is, future historians would be entitled to ignore such autobiographies. But if there is no mens rea (guilty mind), so to speak, these books must be taken seriously, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier called for consensus in passing the bill.
'People have a certain perception about my political leanings -- and rightly so.' 'But I am an actor first, and then an activist.' 'And I am not an accidental actor.' 'There was no way I was going to be dishonest with my acting,' Anupam Kher tells Veenu Sandhu.
'I hope he will continue to be what he is. And doing so, he won't be much different from those whose example he is being given right now,' says Utkarsh Mishra.
T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan on what's so fascinating about politics that books by journalists about it sell so well.
'NSCN-IM leader Muivah warns that the NSCN-IM has come very close to an honourable solution to the peace process with the Government of India, but if it does not materialise, then the Nagas will go away so far that it would be difficult to bring them back to the negotiating table easily,' note Sandeep Pandey and Meera Sanghamitra.
'We will be hoisting the tiranga, but this kind of celebration is uncalled for when the farmers in this country are dying by suicides, their families are ravaged by poverty and farmers are not enjoying any freedom.'
'Elections, my friends, are a boon for the Indian people.' 'That is the only time our high and mighty leaders are accessible to the masses.' 'So don't ruin that by agreeing to once-in-5-years elections,' argues A Ganesh Nadar.
In a gracious, 45-minute victory speech in Vadodara, Modi said the government does not belong to any particular party but to all the people of the country
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday disagreed with those in the Congress who were dismissive of the challenge posed by Narendra Modi but asserted that the party would approach the 2014 Lok Sabha polls with self-confidence, irrespective of the results of the just concluded elections in five states.
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
'Modi's victory is his own victory. Now what he has done thereafter, it seems to me, leads us to believe that he was a bit too prolific with his promises.' 'One achievement of Modi's I will praise is that he has put the fear of God among his ministers and officials.' 'Indira Gandhi's sentiment of controlling everything, centralising power in to her hands is the quality that persists in Modi' Veteran journalist Inder Malhotra casts his experienced gaze on one year of the Modi Sarkar.
He challenged the Congress to select someone 'capable' as its president, who did not belong to 'that one family'.
The BJP distanced itself from her statement saying it did not agree with her, as "Mahatma Gandhi's killer cannot be a patriot".
'It will be foolhardy to overlook that this stunning shift in China's stance comes as the culmination of the severely damaged India-China relationship under the present government,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'None of these three countries -- Turkey, Iran or Malaysia -- ever made a hostile move against India to support the Pakistan-based terrorist elements,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Modi leadership could lose Election 2024 if a communal flare-up becomes cause for all-round catastrophe, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
'This is what Hindu Rashtra looks like, which has been enabled by conditions of democracy.'
There was no breakthrough in US Secretary of State John F Kerry's India visit, but no breakdown either, says C Uday Bhaskar.
A new West Asia is emerging and India must engage at the highest level and help shape this change, says Saeed Naqvi
'India and China are at new inflection points, domestically and internationally. India needs to throw up a new leader whose vision is clear, experience laden with wisdom and articulation brimming with restraint and tolerance,' says Ambassador K C Singh.
support for the AAP notwithstanding, the BJP is convinced it will win Delhi.
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