Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was questioned for nearly nine hours by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday in the excise policy case, amid protests by his party as the Aam Aadmi Party chief claimed that the allegations of scam were false and the agency was acting at the Bharatiya Janata Party's behest.
Continuing with his praise of Arvind Kejriwal, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Thursday said that Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi should learn austerity and humility from the Aam Aadmi Party leader.
'They also think that if all opposition parties rally behind him, then 2024 will be Rahul versus Modi and that will be advantage BJP'
'Whatever happens in Delhi happens in India,' says Kiran Bedi.
From 26-year-old Rakhi Birla to 41-year-old Manish Sisodia, the soon-to-be Delhi Cabinet is not just going to be the youngest ever but also probably the first in which all members, including the chief minister, are debutant members of Legislative Assembly.
'There is more that is common between Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi than what might separate them. In fact, what divides them can be spelt out in just two words: Clashing ambitions.'
'We are not promising prosperity to these villagers. Instead, the focus is on self-sufficiency.'
Now that Arnab Goswami is signing off from the Times Group, his cacophony and his shrill sermons will be missed. So will be the fish market. Thank God for that because for me the fish had started to stink, says Sudhir Bisht.
'Even if the BJP does not come to power, the system has changed.'
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has taken to invest in young people from non-dynastic backgrounds to build a core team of 100-odd youths in every state who believe in the Congress party's philosophy, reports Archis Mohan.
AAP has been vociferous since its inception and has mainly raised issues pertaining to corruption. A political party must have crisp and specific standon all issues which concern the nation not just corruption or secularism; and AAP has failed to deliver on all these counts, says Aditya Shah and Aadit Kapadia.
The BJP at 43 is a work in progress, with total ideological continuity and much substantive change in political method and style, observes Shekhar Gupta.
For some, he's a bully and probable 'blackmailer' who targeted the rich and famous, especially in Bollywood, for fame, and allegedly, ransom. For others, he's finally the one brave narc who decided to do his job, no matter how powerful his quarry, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was on Thursday admitted to a naturopathy institute on the outskirts of Bengaluru for a 10-day nature cure regimen for treatment of his persistent chronic cough problem and uncontrolled sugar level.
'Brand Kejriwal-AAP have a long way to go even if they win another Delhi election...'
'It is a force nobody can ignore, not even Mr Modi, because it will keep punching above its weight,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said that the Third Front was like a "parking lot" where parties come and go and ruled out any chance of it forming a government at the Centre.
Khetan, who did not deny the resignation, said he was not involved in "active politics at the moment" and was not interested in rumours.
Several former colleagues say Kejriwal is undemocratic. But his loyalists stand stoutly behind him
The senior leader expressed shock and attacked the "manner of and intention" in removing Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the PAC
'The wonderful thing about being a journalist is that when someone tries to muzzle your work, it's a badge of honour.' 'You know you've done something right,' Priyanka Pathak-Narain, the author of Godman To Tycoon: The Untold Story Of Baba Ramdev, tells Sunil Sethi.
As Maharashtra's main political players, the Congress-nationalist Congress Party alliance and Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine, brace for the Lok Sabha and subsequent state assembly polls this year, they would have to contend with a new opponent, the Aam Aadmi Party, which has decided to take the electoral plunge in a big way.
One would not think that a Facebook status or a tweet could land you in jail, at least not in India -- the world's largest democracy. However, the reality is a lot more brutal in India, which has a shameful history of locking up its citizens for dissenting viewpoints. According to Mint, at least 50 people have been arrested through 2017 and 2018 for posts on social media. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com presents some of the most prominent cases.
The controversy over Sant Rampal and his army of followers taking the law into their hands has once again thrown the spotlight on the clout that India's godmen possess.
Mr Modi can create a small temporary team in the PMO whose only job would be to listen to businessmen's mann ki baat referring to global best practices.
What the AAP becomes eventually in New Delhi will impact whether citizens would want such a model replicated in Mumbai or opt for one from the existing system, says Neeta Kolhatkar.
'Swaraj Samvad sees itself in the role of a watchdog in Delhi,' Professor Anand Kumar tells Rediff.com.
Consolidation of influential voting blocs might hurt the chances of AAP's Kanchan Choudhary Bhattacharya in Haridwar but she will not go down without a good fight. Mayank Mishra reports
'When I read page number 50 of Transcendence, second paragraph, there he writes, "No more manoeuvres are required any more, as I am placed in my final position in eternity".' 'And within a month of that. he was no more.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party is merely replicating our agenda, which show the bankruptcy of ideas, credibility and leadership in the party, Aam Aadmi Party leader Ashutosh tells Rediff.com's Upasna Pandey.
In the final part of his interview with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com, journalist Rajdeep Sardesai says the Congress lost the election in 2011, the year of Anna Hazare.
On the occasion of her breaking the world's longest hunger strike, Rediff.com reproduces this 2011 feature on the activist and her life.
'I think the AAP is still in transition from being a movement to a political party so there is a mix of people who form the party. So there is somewhat of a overlapping and commonality of purpose.' 'Look at the way the government and party is functioning, not a single woman minister in the cabinet, or no woman member in the political affairs committee, it is all very tactical now.' 'After the 'sting' I decided to step back. I realised that my moral basis has been questioned by Kejriwal, it is truly despicable. He is around 15 years younger to me, I was aghast by his words.' AAP 'rebel' Prof Anand Kumar speaks of what went wrong with the party in the last few days in this interview with Upasna Pandey.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
Sunday's results may be a bitter pill that the Congress has to swallow -- that its future cannot be hitched to Rahul unless he can resonate with the people, feels Saroj Nagi.
'Kejriwal has taken a leaf out of Modi's campaign of 2014 and improved upon it.' 'That suit will haunt Modi till he exits politics.' 'Of all the factors that favoured Kejriwal, the biggest was the arrogance and over-confidence of the Modi-Shah led BJP.' 'What the Congress could not do in the last two decades in Gujarat, Kejriwal did it in no time in Delhi.' 'The BJP has behaved exactly like the Congress in decoding Kejriwal's politics.'