'Congress is being increasingly seen to be standing with Pakistan as Tharoor's statement was not an isolated incident'
Nitin Gadkari is the rising star, Arun Jaitley commands respect while minister of state Dharmendra Pradhan seems to be the PM's new favourite.
The Tablighi Jamaat avoided confrontation, stayed clear of conversion of non-Muslims, abjured politics and focused only on religious attainment. >A fascinating excerpt from Ziya Us Salam's Inside The Tablighi Jamaat.
The scale and nature of Modi's election victory mean the higher tiers of the Sangh Parivar feel no need for restraint, says Sreenivasan Jain
Till 2000, K N Govindacharya, former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak, was considered the Bharatiya Janata party's chief ideologue. Govindacharya, who now heads the Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan, which opposes anti-people policies of governments, tells Sahil Makkar and Archis Mohan the Narendra Modi-led government is still in the election mode.
As president of the Congress, he said he is responsible for the loss of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
This is a national leadership gone so wrong that India's most powerful prime minister in four decades has personally taken charge of medical oxygen shortages, observes Shekhar Gupta.
BJP-led govt will need regional parties' support in Upper House to get legislation cleared. Archis Mohan reports
Ten central trade unions on Friday gave a call for a nationwide strike on May 22 to protest against the suspension of labour laws by some states during the lockdown period, and also decided to take the matter to International Labour Organization (ILO). "The joint platform of Central Trade Unions (CTUs) in their meeting held on May 14 , 2020 took note of the critical situation for the working people in the country during the lockdown period and decided to enhance united actions to meet the challenge," a joint statement by 10 CTUs said.
None of them had anything to do with the violence at Bhima Koregaon, where they were not even present, points out Aakar Patel.
'The Sanatan Sanstha does not believe in violence. The concept of violence and threatening people doesn't fit into our ideology and principles.' 'There are some people who are opposed to Hindu religion. They think propagating the tenets of the Hindu religion is a sign of backwardness.' 'While the RSS and Sanatan Sanstha propagate Hindutvavad and cultural nationalism, we do have our differences, which in a democratic society is absolutely normal and required.'
From playing to the Sikh vote bank because Punjab elections are round the corner, to ensuring that a discordant 'us versus them' note was struck, whatever could be done to exploit every last drop of communal appeal, was done, observes Jyoti Punwani.
This doesn't mean the Sangh will do away with its trademark khakhi shorts, white shirt and black cap, or its core shakha-setup.
'The officer told the women police to slap me. He was not satisfied. He then himself pulled my hair and kicked in my stomach and knee'
'If the platform is public, then every Indian regardless of his ideology and commitment has got the right to convey his view'
He also attacked Modi on the CBSE question papers leak and on the 'leak' of assembly election date for Karnataka, saying Modi was silent on these issues too.
Modi's real problem is not his silence on Hindutva excesses growing in the country. He needs to transform India without the minute-by-minute tweets.
However, as the region with the state's highest concentration of Muslims readies for polls on November 7 in the last phase of the elections, it is the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress-Left alliance that draws considerable support from the community amid sporadic voices in Owaisi's support as they weigh their choices.
Sources say even some senior pracharaks are in the race to bag top positions in the government.
'The Congress today has lost contact with the Hindu clergy.' 'They go to to Hindu clergy only during the time of elections.'
From handling the party organisation, finalising candidates, shooting the breeze with the media to pow-wows with diplomats and liaising with the PMO -- Arun Jaitley is the BJP's chief backroom manager in this election, reports R Rajagopalan.
'... while leaving the dirty work he orders to his subordinates.'
'The politics of Goa is moving around a sole entity, which is land.'
The beleaguered UPA government may provide Narendra Modi all the ammunition he wants. Still, without the politics of persuasion, the BJP's crowned prince has a daunting task before him, argues Akash Bisht.
Seven years is a long time for any of Modi's promised actions to show up. If voters are angry and cynical today, it is because the rhetoric stings, argues Ramesh Menon.
'There is nothing like the Sangh agenda or the BJP agenda... we believe only in the Nation's Agenda,' says newly appointed BJP Vice-President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.
e Union minister of state for home is somewhat brash and rowdy, and has enormous confidence.' Some of this derives from the fact that he has independent sources of income (he reported assets amounting to Rs 18 crore in his 2019 Lok Sabha nomination papers)
On the eve of Sardar Patel's birth anniversary rediff.com publishes exclusive excerpts of his soon to be published book Sardar: The Saint Emperor.
On the eve of Sardar Patel's birth anniversary rediff.com publishes exclusive excerpts of his soon to be published book Sardar: The Saint Emperor.
'BJP leaders are trying to save their lives in Punjab.'
'Under the more strident Modi version of Hindutva, Nehru has almost become a contemporary political figure.' 'The ruling party knows that without total erasure and distortion of Nehru, their fantasies will always be wobbly.'
'We will certainly perform and take India to newer heights. We will really like to see India become a world power in every sense of the term and build a strong and robust economy that is capable of employment generation on a scale required for a country like India,' BJP ideologue Vinay Sahasrabuddhe tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com
'The dirt in the Indian Ocean must be less than the abuses Narendra Modi got from secular forces.' 'If you are going to put the blame on the central government and the RSS for every wrongdoing, then it is not going to serve any purpose, rather it will complicate the issue instead of resolving it.' 'There are fringe elements in every society, but for an ideal State it is important to finish off the fringe elements.'
The commission had rejected the theory that it was a spontaneous act by karsevaks whereas the CBI court has ruled that there was no evidence that demolition was a conspiracy.
'One goal of the Congress would surely have been to rebuild its organisation so that it begins to match that of the BJP.' 'However, this has not happened, though Rahul Gandhi has been in the party for 15 years now,' says Aakar Patel.
'If you talk about any kind of equality, you are under attack.'
Attend seminars, fine tune your skills and enrich your competencies.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Saturday said the political atmosphere in the country is ideal for the party to get "record breaking results" with the Congress-led government failing to tackle corruption and price rise, creating a favourable condition for the main Opposition.
Indian politics, held captive in one way or the other by Ayodhya, may now well seek its emancipation from this issue, and the pursuit of welfare, asserts Congress leader Salman Khurshid in this excerpt from his latest book, Sunrise over Ayodhya.
'The claim that Hindi unifies our country is absurd. That language is not the mother tongue of a majority of Indians. The move to inpose Hindi on them amounts to enslaving them. The Union Minister's statement is a war cry against the mother tongues of non-Hindi speaking people'
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