'A full majority might please the stock market for a couple of days, but the damage it usually does over five years is too high a price to pay,' argues Aakar
Sixty-seven years after he led India to freedom from British rule, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi would be installed in Parliament Square in London by early next year.
Russia's envoy to the UN and President of the Council for October Vitaly Churkin announced that after the sixth straw poll, Guterres has emerged as the "clear favourite" even as hopes for a woman to succeed Ban Ki-moon as the world's top diplomat suffered a major setback.
Protests demanding Jallikattu swelled on the streets of Tamil Nadu after agitators rejected statements by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and the state braced for a shutdown on Friday.
The street-fighter is back and the introspecting, sparingly speaking avatar of Kejriwal has gone on an extended recess. In this grime of heightened Delhi politics, all the good work done by the Delhi government may go down the drain, warns Sudhir Bisht.
'When you forgive a farmer's loans there is this ideological economists lobby which says: 'That's socialism. And that's bad'.' 'But to forgive the loans of big people, so that they will be interested to invest further is capitalism and is good.'
You know how, given the right lighting and the right positioning, you can project huge dramatic shadows onto a screen with nothing more than a couple of wiggling fingers? The India show we take around the world, and around India at election time, is a bit like that.
After the Ladakh fiasco where Xi Jinping did not expect the Indian Army to resist his land-grabbing tactics, he has to save face before his colleagues in the Communist party.' To bring the threat of a mega-dam to the northern Indian border is a clever move, observes Claude Arpi.
Hard men with guns cannot manage the state forever.
'Information highways are getting stronger and being strengthened.' 'Occasionally, accidents could occur. But do you stop constructing highways because two motor cars collide?'
'What was predictable, but entirely missed by Modi's strident critics, is that the excessive and intemperate demonisation of Modi allowed him to assume his own metaphor -- the underdog, the martyr, the marginalised,' says Dr Aseem Shukla.
'More than 1,000 start-ups are created from colleges, and more start-ups are coming up every year.'
Pledging full protection to minorities, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday questioned the practice of conversions and advocated a debate on the need for an anti-conversion law.
Men and women of the Indian Air Force who conducted rescue missions in Kerala's worst deluge speak to Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
When the high court delivered the stringent norms, which in no way eliminated the fun of the proceedings but made it safer, by requiring proper safety measures, there was an undercurrent of defiance. Sensing the adverse implications of loss of a mass contact platform, the government persuaded itself to seek a review, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Harsh Sethi, consulting editor of Seminar magazine, is an analyst who is always lucid and sharp in his commentaries on human rights and development and issues related to politics or nation building. In a rare interview to rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt he spoke on the broader issues related to Congress party's endorsement to a separate Telangana state.
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
The Narendra Modi-led government has issued around 50 fresh guidelines easing conditions for industry in about six months, beside launching an online system for applying environment clearances.
'If Modi sincerely thinks that Dalits are also Hindus then spread this message to the entire nation through programmes like Mann Ki Baat.' 'We would love to listen to the PM tell the nation to look upon us as fellow Indians and human beings.'
'The Maoists want the tribals to boycott the election while the police think the election is a farce and do not want to risk going deeper in the conflict zone.' 'Newton (played with sincerity and deep felt passion by Rajkummar Rao) wants to make sure that the locals cast their vote, a right given to them by the Constitution.'
Manipur needs an integrated politico, military, socio-economic approach, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
He challenged the Congress to select someone 'capable' as its president, who did not belong to 'that one family'.
'The attempt to make Aadhaar mandatory has now emerged as an act of bullying by government agencies, turning citizens into subjects by making fundamental rights conditional on biometric identification,' says Gopal Krishna.
'The Parivar's ideology and politics was and remains the very opposite of what Dr Ambedkar stood for.'
'All of Indira Gandhi's bad economic ideas are being strengthened, from nationalised banks to anti-poverty, handout yojanas,' says Shekhar Gupta.
He also made it clear that judiciary cannot depend on executive in choosing judges.
'Some of the policies NITI Aayog has taken, we feel lean towards the corporates.' 'In a democracy, when you are making a policy decision, you are expected to take the views of all the stakeholders.'
'The Naga Hills region, Nagaland and Manipur, have had the most uncaring and corrupt state governments with little to show on the ground despite the nation's highest per capita development expenditure,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
De-scaling of businesses, job losses and subsequent impact on disposable incomes has created negative sentiment among traders, business owners and workers alike, says Abhishek Waghmare.
T P Sreenivasan was India's high commissioner in Fiji in 1987, when Sitiveni Rabuka toppled the Indian-dominated government there. Ambassador Sreenivasan stayed on for two years after the coup, fighting for the rights of the people of Indian origin before he was expelled by Rabuka. 'Meeting Sitiveni Rabuka, who had overthrown a democratically elected government, discriminated against the Fiji Indians, brought untold humiliation and suffering to them, tried to disenfranchise them, ordered me out of Fiji and closed down the Indian high commission was a difficult decision to take even after 25 years,' notes Ambassador Sreenivasan who eventually caught up with Rabuka over a game of golf.
We should improve the business climate in Mumbai and Delhi, and India's ranking would immediately shoot up, says Bibek Debroy, a full member of NITI Aayog.
The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance. This plurality of our society has come through assimilation of ideas over centuries. Secularism and inclusion are a matter of faith for us. It is our composite culture which makes us into one nation.
'Tamil Nadu's youth bulge will soon be 70 per cent of the population, many of them smartphone-toting millennials looking for gains more tangible than what screen gods can give,' says Sunil Sethi.
'ISI mouthpieces in the media have been quick to blame India for the attack. Clearly, the intellect and worldview of these characters (which includes fairly senior retired military officers) is based on Bollywood movies like Ek Tha Tiger and Agent Vinod... More seriously, the fact that ISI touts have been using this opportunity to train their guns on India raises serious questions about all the talk of the army being on the same page as the civilian government on the issue of improving relations with India,' says Sushant Sareen.
