'How can the BJP give Muslim candidates tickets if they don't have any good Muslim candidates?'
Karan Singh, Janardan Dwivedi and Parvez Hashmi would be retiring later this month.
'Some farmers know when elections are due.' 'Before that, they take loans.' 'They then ask their farmer unions for loan waivers and the political party who shouts first about a loan waiver (gets the votes).'
Maithripala Sirisena was considered so meek and self-effacing that he appeared no threat to anyone. What a mistake his rivals made!
The desecration of Vidyasagar's statue during Amit Anilchandra Shah's rally, which the TMC projected to be a 'Bhojpuri' and 'Dhokla' invasion on West Bengal's culture, may help her gain some favour with middle-class and erudite Bengalis in the last phase of the polls.
'Modi cannot content himself anymore with merely indulging in Congress bashing and referring to the Gujarat 'miracle'. He'll have to show that his party is as clean and as innovative as the AAP. And this is impossible because AAP is new and the BJP is now old: the people have tried it already. What they have not tried already is Modi, and this is what may make the difference,' says the respected political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot.
Xi, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, called the progress China had made under his watch "truly remarkable
Xi has already been elected as general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China at its once-in-five-year congress in October last year.
'This will be the first open university in Kerala and it is a great tribute to Gurudevan by the helmsman of the Communist movement in Kerala,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Nitish Kumar's decision to resign as the state chief minister was as dramatic as the time he decided to tie up with old foe Lalu in 2015.
On the occasion of the Narendra Modi government completing one year in office, Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com speaks to BJP president Amit Shah who is yin to Modi's yang. Don't miss it!
'What do you think the Congress is today?' 'Is it a political party heading for a life-and-death battle?' 'Or an NGO, just doing its thing and hoping it will improve the state of the world?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
'The diplomat's arrest has led to a major diplomatic spat, the likes of which I have not seen in my nearly three decades of covering the US-India relationship, says Aziz Haniffa. 'The knee-jerk reaction by the powers-that-be in Delhi was myopic to say the least.'
Demanding the case be handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation, the victim alleged that the administration has done little to ensure the security of women in the state.
Has New Delhi internalised the truth that it does not matter, asks Saeed Naqvi. Such deafening silence from the government, principal opposition, even the pundits!
'Clarifying that modernisation of national defence and armed forces should be completed by 2035, Xi Jinping asserted the goal is to make the People's Liberation Army a "world class force" that "can fight and win" by 2050,' points out former RAW officer Jayadeva Ranade.
The president said China would never allow "any people, organisation or political party to split any part of Chinese territory out of the country at any time, in any form."
The 74-year-old leader, who describe himself as "a rebel with a cause", earlier served as the country's president from 2005-2015, becoming South Asia's longest-serving leader. He was also prime minister for a brief period in 2018.
'Asked which Dilip Kumar films were among her favourites, she said she had seen not a single movie of his until that time. This became a sensational issue. She did not mean to offend Dilip Kumar. There was not a bone of diplomacy in her and she never acquired that calculating attitude even at the cost of some of the roles that she would eventually lose.'
In further rumblings within the Bharatiya Janata Party over its big loss in Bihar, party MP Hukumdev Narayan Yadav on Monday said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat's quota comments 'agitated' backward castes who rallied around the grand alliance and asserted that many who voted for the Modi government are not RSS supporters.
He also said in the Rajya Sabha that the people of the country have a predominant wish of retrieving the parts of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by Pakistan since 1948.
The Congress kept sheltering Quattrochi, and the BJP was more intent on shielding the Hinduja brothers. The fact is that the two roads crisscrossed, and neither the truth prevailed nor did the law take its course, says Mohan Guruswamy.
'If the government does not take any action soon, 21 cities of India will become like Cape Town, with no water.' 'Four cities -- Delhi, Gurgaon, Meerut and Faridabad -- will suffer the worst.'
'My heart weeps for Vajpayee, the prince among poets, the king among politicians and the emperor among statesmen,' says Sudhir Bisht.
Ram V Sutar, 89, has already created more than 200 distinct statues, many of them massive. Now, he is a leading contender for the commission to produce the world's largest statue: A 597-foot tall rendering of Sardar Patel, an independence leader who played a crucial role in uniting India's fractious states.
'All that Mr Modi needed to do was to call Urjit Patel over for a cup of tea and ask him nicely, and this fuss would never have happened.'
Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat are over. Another set of state elections is due in 2018. Here's an assessment of the next round of the electoral challenge and how it could change India's political equations.
Bharatiya Janata Party led by its prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi on Thursday launched a scathing attack on senior Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal after he mocked Modi's credentials for leading the country saying a tea-seller cannot make a good prime minister.
Mulayam on Sunday blamed the defeat on son Akhilesh's decision to ally with a Congress, which he said had tried its best to "ruin" him.
Manipur needs an integrated politico, military, socio-economic approach, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The BJP also suspended its state executive council member Kheto Semaparty, who had signed the joint declaration.
By throwing food at poverty that is result of faulty economics and lack of jobs, one is only trying to suicidal path.
Joining hands with his arch rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav, paid off for the Bihar chief minister
'His contributions in setting up transparent precedents of governance are still basically intact despite the cynicism of several of his successors,' notes Jamini Bhagwati.
"Will anybody want a servant that who is on vacation when needed at home? And nobody knows where he is," he continued.
The Opposition is putting up a symbolic fight for the presidential polls as it knows that the BJP has the numbers to get its candidate elected to the top post.
Arun Jaitley, who is recovering from a kidney ailment, attended the proceedings after a long gap.
'If Modi arrived like a juggernaut, he left like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were being dismantled bit by bit. It was as if India had seceded quietly from him.' Shiv Viswanathan's social science fiction about what India would be like in 2020.
M Karunanidhi was a masterful practitioner of modern-day politics, wielding considerable influence beyond his own state, in the corridors of power in New Delhi, for a long time and sewing up alliances with both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
As someone with nostalgia for the good cheer and friendly feelings of Brazilian people, former Ambassador to Brazil B S Prakash can only hope that when they see on their TV screens their President being feted on Rajpath, they will sense India's goodwill for Brazil.
