While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
The Bharat Ratna for him comes nine years after the honour was bestowed on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The two leaders together spearheaded the journey of the Jana Sangh and then the BJP for over five decades.
The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh disapproved of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh's praise of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah
'The BJP alliance needs to handle the Maratha quota issue skilfully and address its root cause, which is agrarian distress. Then there is stalled industrialisation. If these issues are addressed, caste fault lines would wither away. But, this is next to impossible in a short span of three-four months.'
Ramesh asked the PM why river Ganga is "dirtier than before" even after spending Rs 20,000 crore on the Namami Gange project.
They realised that the Portuguese were better prepared to defend Daman than Dadra and Nagar Haveli. If reinforcements from Daman were to reach Silvassa, there was no chance of defeating the Portuguese. They decided that cutting Daman's communication lines would have to be their top priority before attacking Silvassa. A fascinating excerpt from Neelesh Kulkarni's new book, Uprising-The Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Bhagwat also said only the weakness of the Hindus are to be blamed for their oppression in neighbouring Bangladesh.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday termed the cancellation of over 25,000 school jobs as 'gross injustice' and alleged that it was a ploy by the Bharatiya Janata Party to stop these job losers from being deployed in poll duty.
"I am not talking about reorganisation of just Maharashtra but of all the states of the Indian Union based on the basis of population."
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh perceives the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections to be a fight for its own existence and all that it stands for. Archis Mohan reports
RSS head Mohan Bhagwat will be present through the exercise in which issues like census figures and OROP are likely to come up for discussion.
The rakshasutra programme organised by the RSS at BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu's residence shows how the Sangh and BJP leaders are no longer afraid to proclaim their identity with each other, says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal
Khaki shorts, the trademark dress for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh cadres for 91 years, is out and is being replaced by brown trousers as the Sangh wants to move with the times.
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed an interim stay on directives passed by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route must display names of owners.
"His own government has destroyed Gandhian institutions in Varanasi, Delhi and Ahmedabad," the Congress leader alleged.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the people have given his government a mandate for stability and continuity for the third consecutive term after seeing its work of 10 years and accused the Congress of trying to build a narrative that it has defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha polls.
Politely decline to be prime minister, and hand the baton to someone else in the BJP -- like Sonia did to Manmohan Singh -- advises Krishna Prasad.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Monday came in for flak from non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties for his suggestion that all Hindustanis are Hindus with many leaders wondering if he has read the Constitution and really believes in it.
'Modi is not assuring the nation that if he gets back to power in 2024 and remains in power till 2029, he will not change the Constitution.'
The alleged role of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member Indresh Kumar in orchestrating the Malegaon blasts of 2006 had shocked many supporters of the right-wing organisation.
Will Foreign Minister Mr. Jaishankar please refer to the RTI reply dated 27-1-2015...The Reply justified the circumstances under which India acknowledged that a small island belonged to Sri Lanka," Chidambaram said.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has launched an ambitious plan to reach out to at least 10,000 key opinion makers -- jurists, bureaucrats, etc -- in the next two years to dispel "misinformation" related to Article 370 of the Constitution.
Delhi Police on Monday drew flak as a video emerged in which male police constables can be seen purportedly assaulting protesters, including women, demonstrating over the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula near the RSS head office in New Delhi.
A day after drubbing, the Congress on Monday said it will introspect what happened in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan as it had hoped of winning these states.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday made an appeal for turning the country into a "Hindu nation" saying Hinduism believes in the principle of "unity in diversity" as visualised by the Nobel laureate polymath Rabindranath Tagore.
'The BJP is trying to change this mantra.'
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's similar remarks about the need for a review of the reservation policy, just ahead of Bihar polls, had cost the BJP dearly as it saw a massive consolidation of the electorate from the backward classes and weaker sections in favour of Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance.
'The job of RSS is to unite the Hindu society and make it fearless, self-reliant and selfless,' says RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat
'Nitish may take such a decision because he was the first person who was with the INDIA front.' 'He went back only because he did not get proper encouragement from the Congress.' 'Nitish will take a decision provided there is a strong alternative.' 'If he feels ours is a weak coalition, he will not come.' 'Then, this government will continue for five years.'
He will be around for another crack at the elections, and a clear majority, predicts Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'This survey, done on the basis of feedback from BJP-RSS workers at the booth level, has given Narendra Modi the confidence to start packing his bags in Gandhinagar. on Tuesday, he has done photo shoots with his colleagues and staff.' Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com presents the Sangh Parivar's assessment of how many seats the BJP will win in this election.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has added about 10,000 shakhas during the last decade and more than half of these came up in the last one year.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Calling cow slaughter a "vice" that must be removed, he pitched for stepping-up of cow protection efforts by bringing more people in the drive while "completely obeying the law and the Constitution".
The real brilliance of this RSS campaign, therefore, lies in building a dominant power base with, and for, a mostly non-RSS leadership. That is why the rise of the BJP in Assam is their stand-out victory, says Shekhar Gupta.
In an address that was telecast live on national broadcaster Doordarshan, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Friday patted the Narendra Modi government for initiatives on national security, economy and international relations in a short period of four months.
Will January 22 mark a point of no return for our Constitutional secularism? asks Shekhar Gupta.
Coupled with his administrative and organisational skills and experience, his loyalty to the party and RSS ideology seemed to have won the day for him.
The IUML is a major ally of the Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala and an influential political party among the Muslim community.
A day after being booted out by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from the post of Goa unit chief, Subhash Velingkar asserts that the Bharatiya Janata Party will pay dearly for his ouster.
