'Putting Yogi Adityanath in the CM's seat two years before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls is something to be read carefully.' 'Opposition parties would be dishonest themselves and unfair to secular people if they failed to unite and work as a single force to defeat the BJP.'
'Surely a higher standard is required when ministers speak in public to an audience that will assume they are factually correct, says Karan Thapar.
Truth be acknowledged, Rajinikanth is not known for wanting to leave his comfort zone to take the politico-electoral plunge, even if it meant his becoming the chief minister of a state that has conferred Tamil cinema's superstardom on him over the past 25 years. Today, his fans belong to the younger generation all right, but their numbers are far fewer than their counterparts in the '90s. They are not devoid of personal ambitions and agendas, unlike what Rajinikanh wants them to be, if he and they were to enter politics, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ruling party has indicated willingness to discuss opposition-sponsored motions on 'intolerance'; Jaitley has also shown willingness to accommodate concerns on GST
'Why would my husband leave a beautiful wife like me?' Priyanka Jagga asks Rajul Hegde.
The BJP has 165 first-time MPs. Are we to expect such utterances from all 165 of them? Or only those from a rural background? Because that is the explanation given by the PM, says Jyoti Punwani.
Despite a poor show, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah chose not to resign stating that the verdict was a not a referendum on his government. Mahesh Kulkarni reports from Bangalore
Devanik Saha wonders if saffronisation of India is on the rise
'The non-violent movement would not have brought freedom to the country, that had to be an armed struggle.'
In the crazily complex cauldron that is India, where caste, community, class and cash are just the primary ingredients, no one has yet come up with a fool-proof method to ascertain how voters make up their minds, on which button to press, in the privacy of their 'confessional' booths, notes Krishna Prasad.
The year 2015 was a mixed bag for the Grand Old party --with the performance in Bihar being a consolation while the the National Herald case came back to haunt its leadership.
UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
Sangh affiliates believe the government's apparent anti-poor message led to their loss
'The belief that FDI will shift from China appears to be a strategy of politicians to keep the media busy, chasing irrelevant news to ward off pressure and questions about the government's plans to deal with COVID,' observes Debashis Basu.
'Karna is the greatest warrior in the Mahabharata -- in fact, Arjuna is a nobody in front of Karna.' 'But Arjuna had a better advisor in Krishna than Karna.' 'Karna failed because he listened to the wrong advice given by Salya.' 'It just shows wrong advisors can land even the mighty in trouble.'
'Here I am, a BJP candidate, with a Muslim's blood running through my veins. This is simply magical!' P C Sorcar Junior, perhaps India's best-known magician, tells Rediff.com's Indrani Roy.
'This is India, bhai. This kind of country does not exist anywhere in the world.'
States are apprehensive of losing their rights to raise revenue during emergencies.
Political scientist Vinay Sitapati explores the role played by the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao in steering the reforms through in his new book Half Lion.
Forty years after the declaration of Emergency by Indira Gandhi, the Sunanda K Datta-Ray recalls life when civil rights were suspended and press censorship was in force
'Kanhaiya Kumar and others of his ilk are now out on bail. But what about the NIT 'anti-nationals'?' asks Amulya Ganguli.
Rakhi Sawant is as uncensored as they come.
'Challenges will come but we will stay the course. No big step can be taken if one is afraid of criticism. We will not flinch from criticism,' says Railways Minister Piyush Goyal.
As the news of Kalam broke, condolences and tributes poured in from all corners of the country, reflecting the huge popularity he enjoyed both in and out of the highest office of the country that earned him the sobriquet of the "people's President."
With election campaign ending in Tamil Nadu before it goes to polls on Thursday, N Sathiya Moorthy lists a few questions uppermost in the minds of voters.
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.
Here is the full transcript of Congress vice president and Lok Sabha poll campaign chief Rahul Gandhi's first formal TV interview with Times Now Editor-In-Chief Arnab Goswami.
Complaints of electronic voting machine malfunctioning poured in from several booths on Tuesday during the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha polls which saw voters turning out in large numbers to cast their vote in 116 seats, including all constituencies of Gujarat and Kerala.
On the 40th anniversary of the beginning of one of the darkest periods in our history, here are six painful facts about the Emergency.
Dr Raghuram Rajan's departure holds lessons for all, be it sections of the media, politicians or the people themselves. We need to learn how to value and retain talent. At the same time the talented must realise that talent alone does not ensure the top job, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'Will the BJP now replace a Muslim name for a street or a railway junction with Naipaul's name?' 'It is the least the party can do for its sole Nobel Prize-winning admirer,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'It will be interesting to see how Dr Patel handles gadflies with the maturity of egregiously petulant three year olds.' 'That Dr Patel does not, in so far as we can tell, cause society matrons to gush like hormonal teenagers can only be a good thing for him.' 'Look where their febrile imaginations and breathless prose took his predecessor.'
'Unity in diversity is a dated notion as India, today, is more unified and cohesive and yet more pronouncedly diverse than ever in its history,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
A used shipping container transforms the lives of women in a remote Tamil Nadu village.
Baba Ramdev may be controversy's child, yet he has a fan following not just in India, but almost all over the world. Sanjeev Nayyar recounts why he is fida about Patanjali products.
The logic behind the BJP targeting Mayawati's votes.
Congress accuses Centre of 'protecting' state BJP chief's son.
She has been losing her party's core voters since the 2007 assembly polls, whereas the Samajwadi Party has managed to keep its flock together. The BJP believes she is a soft target.
'If they were really serious (about conferring the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar) what were they doing for the last five years?' 'Why do they have to take so long?' 'Gandhi himself never got the Bharat Ratna so it does not really matter.'
'The ruling provides a Constitutional template, it draws boundaries, and there is this expectation that henceforth political parties will not make crude appeals to religion for electoral gains.'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances