'It is the regional parties and their leaders who are the ones we have to watch.'
Will voters in Ernakulam take to the Communist MP who asked 447 more questions and took part in 162 more debates than your average MP? Will Arun Jaitley's wish come true? Krishna Prasad, the renowned journalist and Outlook magazine's former editor-in-chief, reports from Kochi.
The Congress accuses the BJP of engineering defections and trying to dismiss the Congress govt in the state. The BJP says the CM has lost a majority in the assembly and must go for a vote of confidence.
The man who led this journey is 50-year-old Kalanithi Maran, chairman and managing director of the Sun Group.
We sorted through countless photographs taken around the world to come up with the top photos of 2019. Together these images tell the story of the year -- capturing moments of hope and heartbreak, triumph and tragedy.
Nationalist Congress Party leader and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar tells Sanjay Jog the allegation of corruption against his party is a political conspiracy. Edited excerpts:
With 32 people being killed in Assam, the Centre on Sunday said it is determined to curb attacks on minorities as the violence there was aimed at starting a "full-fledged communal conflagration".
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi, Left parties and CMs of various states congratulated Kovind.
The Marxists are heading for their worst debacle in many elections. How will May 16, 2014 affect India's Communists? T V R Shenoy surveys the landscape.
Despite the recent electoral reverses, Rahul is getting ready to walk the fire once more. The question is whether he will get burned or burnished in the process, says Saroj Nagi.
Amid speculation over the fate of alliance between the Janata Dal-United and Rashtriya Janata Dal ahead of the crucial Bihar polls, JD-U President Sharad Yadav on Thursday insisted that both the parties will fight the assembly polls in the state together in alliance with the Congress to challenge a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party.
In comments that are likely to create a political storm over the next few days, former Research and Analysis Wing chief A S Dulat has reveled that former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had expressed his discontent over the 2002 Gujarat riots and called it "our mistake".
'Modi has entered blunderland as he does not understand the army. He has actually meddled with the army, which is much more damaging than the ignorance of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.' 'People had an impression that the BJP was different. Now it has been made very, very, plain that it is not.' 'Look at the contrast in the behaviour of the prime minister. When they burnt buses in Gujarat for an unjust demand, the prime minister addressed them in Gujarati while the army veterans were on relay hunger strike for the 74th day on that day, but no word on this from the PM.'
'Modi's idea of India is to make it less liberal, less tolerant and a less accommodative of diversity.' 'We are headed, if Modi continues, to become an ill liberal democracy.' 'Modi is not Vajpayee. Vajpayee was fundamentally decent, tolerant and fair. He played by the rules of the game. Modi is a different story.'
The Congress on Thursday dismissed Narendra Modi's attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reminding him that the country has over two-and-a-half a dozen chief ministers and rejected as "tall talk" his challenge to Singh for a public debate on pressing issues.
Hollande will be arriving in Chandigarh on January 24 where he is expected to be received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As Bihar decides its fate on Sunday, political leaders from across the spectrum weighed in.
Sandeep Mawa is a Kashmiri Pandit married to a Kashmiri Muslim, intent upon spreading the message of love and Kashmiriyat through his campaign. He wants to hug Assaduddin Owaisi, Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and do a pau lago to Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi.
Sushma Swaraj has fought battles fearlessly, lost a few, and won many. By rights, according to many, she is the one who should have been declared the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate for this year's general elections. But that didn't happen. Is that why she is so quiet these days?
Here's a look at some of the other darbars in the hard-to-please city of Amritsar, known for its appetite for food and drink and its insolent humour:
If the Opposition is bent upon shouting its own agenda on a deaf ruling dispensation, then it becomes binding upon the chair to ensure that the parliamentary affairs aren't reduced to a farce.
'For short-term gain, the BJP makes extraordinary promises, they take extraordinary decisions, but in the long term it is going to impact both them and the country.'
"Will anybody want a servant that who is on vacation when needed at home? And nobody knows where he is," he continued.
Roshan Shah, a Canadian citizen and an Overseas Citizen of India, filed a Right to Information application in Gujarat in 2013 to demand that Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat chief minister, make his educational qualifications public.
he has to demonstrate the ability of his government to take a quantum leap, almost tantamount to setting the Ganga on fire, in the next six months, if not in 100 days, if the people were to take seriously the cascade of commitments spewing out of the President's address to both Houses of Parliament on June 9, says B S Raghavan. B S Raghavan suggests five practical propositions through which the Modi government can bring in paradigm changes.
Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in mankind's history has such an idea taken the concrete shape in form of a law. The National Food Security Bill, which will come via ordinance and not after the debate in Parliament, is an incredible economic tool to tackle the hunger of poor Indians. Also, it has already been condemned widely as a political gimmick.
Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday attacked the coalition partner on issues like Pakistan, beef, Ram temple and inflation but ruled out walking out of the Maharashtra government any time soon.
His sartorial taste is not something he acquired suddenly as the chief minister of the prime minister. His "god-given" dress sense is like his politics: inventive, imaginative if slightly unconventional, often loud. It goes well with his oratory, robust persona and penchant for coining terms, says Mahendra Ved.
On display was India's military might and cultural diversity.
'Modi as the PM of the country has to take everybody on board and deliver on good governance. That is his responsibility. In that talking alone won't help, he's working.' Commerce Minister Dr Nirmala Sitharaman tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com how the Modi government plans to change India.
'In Hindu society, marriage is not between a man and a woman, but between their castes; politicians do not ask for human votes, but for caste votes....' 'Have you heard of such nonsense anywhere else in the world? And we claim we are civilised!' 'One or two or a few people becoming President, Prime Minister, Chief Minister, Speaker etc from the downtrodden do not mean that the untouchables are uplifted and caste-based slavery is over.'
Now that Tamil Nadu's tallest politician is no more, it remains to be seen how new political re-alignments could shape up, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The difference between black money in India and the black money out of India is, in India, it is tax evaded money and Indian money outside India is not only tax evaded money, but money which has been taken out of India's capital resources needed for India. So it is not only tax evasion, but treason too.'
Opposition on Monday picked holes in various government decisions like demonetisation and surgical strikes as well as allocation of funds for MNREGA, agriculture sector and Scheduled Castes, saying it has failed on all fronts despite which it is trying to "fool" the people.
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