'One thing is clear from what happened last night; both sides are being manipulated by the same party with a lot of wrong inputs.' 'I see a hand in Delhi doing the puppet act on both sides.'
'In the three years since 2014 social tyranny has become a very real problem.' 'The government has denounced this tyranny -- once in a while.'
'But its supporters in North India bash on regardless,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Shobha Warrier reports from Thiruvananthapuram where a former UN diplomat is battling a former governor for the Lok Sabha seat.
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A country as diverse as India has some of the strangest rituals and traditions. From bizarre ways to cure illnesses to an unusual matrimony to please the rain gods...the things people do here must be seen to be believed.
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
As the political battle for the future of Maharashtra's political quinquennial future nears its electoral conclusion, Shreekant Sambrani looks at the intertwining nature of national and regional interests and the place for and value of inclusiveness in electoral politics.
The DMK still wants to look elsewhere for excuses to its electoral debacle, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Fresh protests erupted on the University of Hyderabad campus on Tuesday over the alleged suicide by Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula even as members of a social outfit tried to hold a demonstration outside the residence of Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who has been accused in the suicide case.
He was the army commander who planned Operation Bluestar. As army chief he planned Operation Brasstacks which rattled the Pakistan army. General K Sundarji was brilliant, ambitious and controversial, remembers Rahul Bedi.
Here was an Indian like you and me, who reached the country's highest office without compromising on his integrity or values. Here was a politician who was not a Muslim, or Tamil, or a boatman's son -- but an Indian president, who opened his office to all Indians, says Sriram Karri.
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.
Narendra Modi's victory does not represent a victory of 'the Indian nation', but only an elite-driven polarising phenomenon. The sooner we -- and the BJP -- recognise this, the better, says Praful Bidwai.
Karnataka would have served no useful purpose by initiating a sensitive legal move in a sensational case, where its locus standi might have been confined to appealing against the high court verdict and not extend to a demand for stay of its application
More than the traditional Dravidian political rivalry that's now on display, it's boiling down to father-son one-upmanship within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Banning conversion would harm Hinduism by taking away the need for reform.'
'In 2015 I watched films in so many places. I attended several film festivals around the world -- Berlin, Tribeca (New York), Telluride, Toronto, Zurich, Mumbai, Dharamsala and Goa,' says Aseem Chhabra, author of a forthcoming book on Shashi Kapoor.
'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.'
Not just Article 370 but all such special status articles must go, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan
In this May 2014 interview with Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com, the politically conscious Karnad spoke of why he is concerned about Modi coming to power.
To elect, or re-elect a chief minister, the AIADMK needs to call only the MLAs for a meeting. But to elect a new general secretary, it would have to conduct direct elections with all registered cadres participating and voting. And that is just the beginning of its problems, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The category of crime and criminals called Maoist or Naxal or #UrbanNaxals is an illegitimate creation of right-wing propaganda media frenzy.' 'It is a fiction repugnant to the Constitution and the law of the land,' argue Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira.
Despite being set in different yugas, there are characters who appear in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Since the AICC general secretary is known to be close to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, there is every possibility that he could be speaking on behalf of the party leadership, reports Anita Katiyal.
In an age of patents and intellectual property rights, it would be improper to deny that yoga comes from the Hindu tradition, says Sankrant Sanu.
December 22 marks the 129th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the greatest Indian mathematician of our time. Just 32 when he died, Ramanujan has fascinated mathematicians, writers and filmmakers for nearly a century.
'Delhi 2015 is a warning of an intensifying nightmare in the offing.'
'He is a man whose utterances have been so virulent and communalistic.' 'That's why many people did not look at him as the party's choice for chief minister.' 'UP is the state that reports the largest number of communal incidents every year.' 'Modi may not be using the Hindutva card, but he never condemns the incidents too.'
The year 2014 has been an eventful one for India. The country got a new government and a new state, broke new frontiers in various fields and of course its share of controversies.
Congress gets into the opposition groove but still has miles to go, says Saroj Nagi.
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Ayurvedic expert Dr G G Gangadharan on how the ancient Indian medical practice needs to be propagated in the country of its origin
