'If the prime minister wants to be seen as a global statesman, then is it not embarrassing to be so closely associated with a gang of foul-mouthed bullies?' asks Vir Sanghvi.
The RSS has been at loggerheads with Advani ever since he praised Jinnah as a secular leader during his recent Pakistan visit.
After several women were prevented from entering the Sabarimala shrine after the Supreme Court verdict upheld their right to do so, Bindu and Kanakadurga managed the seemingly impossible. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com finds out how they did it.
'No amount of digression can hide deflect the fact that the PM's visit was badly conceived, planned and executed,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The meet will discuss the current national scenario and pass resolutions on issues such as the initiatives of the United Progressive Alliance government for peace and progress in Kashmir, the situation in Nepal and Naxal violence in the country.
While most applicants seek positions in the personal staff of ministers, some want to be inducted into one committee of the government or other, G Sreedathan reports
'The appointment of judges must not be under the control of the government,' says Prashant Bhushan.
'The BJP had no traction in Karnataka and Siddaramaiah would have scraped through if he had not done all that he did.' 'When you pander to one community, the other community gets irritated.' 'Then, when you make fun of the cow and the treating of the cow as sacred, in your effort to belittle the Sangh Parivar and its obscurantism, you are hurting your normal voters too.' 'It is okay to make fun of the Sangh Parivar, but it is not okay to make fun of all Hindus.'
The prime minister had openly said the retail sector should be open to competition, domestic and foreign.
The way communal politics has become the only way to decide political discourse is unfortunate and bad sign for the future of democracy, says Syed Hassan Kazim
Bearing in mind how full India's pitcher is with ethnic and communal complexities, only the greatest circumspection can hold this country together in a willing union.
The parallels between Modi's direct and indirect methods and his fan base, and those of Trump, are blinding.
It is an open secret that Manmohan Singh is not a popular figure in the Congress, but Sonia's presence, support and strategy are proving a blessing for the good doctor. When P V Narasimha Rao ran into rough times, Sonia remained indifferent and the Congress had left him to the wolves, says Rasheed Kidwai, author of books on Sonia Gandhi and the Congress party.
'You may be an MP or an MLA; when we go to Bengal, we go as cadre.'
The government is going all out to spread awareness about the new indirect tax regime, and training lawmakers is being seen as a necessary first step.
Dattatreya Hosabale and Manmohan Vaidya have been invited as speakers at the event starting tomorrow.
Why not agree that, yes, India is a Hindu country though not all Indians are Hindus? And that for those who are not, our Constitution is sturdily secular and always will be, says Karti Sandilya.
Amit Shah is the man of the moment. The architect of the BJP's stunning transformation in the Hindi heartland during the Lok Sabha elections is all set to emerge as the CEO of Modi's political dreams and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's cultural passion, says Sheela Bhatt.
'Kanhaiya Kumar and others of his ilk are now out on bail. But what about the NIT 'anti-nationals'?' asks Amulya Ganguli.
'For the Shiv Sena, Hindutva is like a shawl which can be put on and discarded at will.'
Back from incarceration, JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar on Thursday night delivered a fiery speech peppered with humour at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus to target the Narendra Modi dispensation and the Sangh Parivar.
'If policy-makers hold the lives of animals to be more significant than the welfare of a human populace, I can't believe that they're likely to do anything progressive for India.'
The winter session of Parliament is set to be stormy with Opposition parties closing ranks to target the government on issues including 'intolerance' even as the ruling dispensation expressed its readiness to discuss all issues.
'In today's digitalised world, news about the prevalence of such intolerant groups with their pathological animosity towards the minorities cannot remain a secret.' 'Silicon Valley CEOs will undoubtedly factor in such disturbing inputs as they draw up their investment plans.'
It looked as if the BJP was hoping to use Rajinikanth to press their seat-bargain with the AIADMK. Now with the Rajini bait gone, the question now is not how much the BJP would settle for, but how much the AIADMK would be ready to offer, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Modi didn't face such belligerence in his home state. Moreover, as the prime minister, he can no longer resort to his earlier ploy of describing every attack on himself as an attack on Gujarat. Instead, he has to rebut the charges with calm logic,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Meanwhile, a group of college students, donning degree robes and selling 'pakodas' to passers-by in a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks over job creation, were on today whisked away by the police, hours before the PM's rally in Bengaluru.
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The issue of lynchings resonated in the Rajya Sabha; while in the Lok Sabha, the Opposition accused the government of not being sensitive towards farmers' issues.
Here's a list of the full first-time ministers in the second term of the Narendra Modi government.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "blatant U-turn" on the issue of transparency.
'The Mughals became completely Indian in every sense and united the vast Indian subcontinent, not only territorially, but also the hearts and minds of people with multiple religio-cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversities' 'The Mughals, arguably, made India an enviable superpower in the then world.' 'Are the Hindutva rulers of today scared of acknowledging Mughal accomplishments?' asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
'You had earlier sent a Prime Minister from Assam (referring to Manmohan Singh) whom people do not even remember now'
According to reports, Amit Shah has warned all of them and told them not to make controversial statements.
'Make no mistake, depriving water deliberately to a nation of 190 million people is a repugnant idea.' 'The world community won't forgive us.'
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
Higher education policy may be at the core of the Tamil Nadu assembly polls next May, with a potential to break the ties between the ruling AIADMK in the state and the BJP counterpart at the national level, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Most top industrialists rate PM's first 100 days in office as 'good', primarily due to his intentions, not concrete policy measures.
A combative Congress president also hit out at the Centre saying it should not try to frighten them and that they 'would not allow democratic institutions to be weakened or destroyed'
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