The BJP has many ruthless leaders with super-sharp political minds. But none has all this and Yogi's charisma and personal ambition, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'Whoever thought that building toilets and providing free rations to the poorest of poor Indians would give Modi a halo other political leaders would envy?' asks Sheela Bhatt.
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress overcame the might of the BJP and is all set to be CM for a third term.
If you're planning to visit Bali this year, you're on the right track; the recent TripAdvisor survey has listed it as a hot favourite vacation destination among Indian travellers.
Earlier, two women devotees could not proceed to the shrine after protesters forced them to return. Protesters pelted police with stones and the latter hit right back with vengeance wielding batons with telling effect, leaving many fallen and writhing in pain on the road.
Claiming that the BJP's government's works in the three holy cities are only follow-ups of her government's initiatives, Mayawati went on to promise, in what is being seen as a subtle shift towards soft Hindutva ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, to complete all those work on time.
Dividing people in the name of religion, engineering riots and committing atrocities on Dalits is not Hindutva but to unite one human being with another is, he said in a veiled attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party while replying to a question at a summit organised by news channel Times Now.
UP accounted for 14.7 per cent of all registered crimes against women in 2019. The state also recorded the highest number of cases against Dalit women.
Factionalism between OP Panneerselvam and Edappadi Palaniswami, the dominance of the BJP, the ruling DMK having a strong face in the form of CM Stalin, 'community and region-based politics', corruption charges against former ministers, and lack of a proper ideology are the major challenges the party is facing in the state.
'Tamil Nadu is a paradox. We have more places of Hindu worship per square kilometres than any other place in the world. 'We break more coconuts for religious reasons everyday than any other place in the world.' 'At the same time, we also have a very strong Periyar-infused movement of rationalism.'
'The locals want a permanent solution to the perennial Mandir-Masjid issue. They have realised political parties will lose relevance if a temple is built.'
Addressing a press conference, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and the party's chief whip in the Upper House Jairam Ramesh alleged that the government is throttling the voice of the Opposition leaders to prevent them from raising issues of public importance.
The 79-year-old widely respected and popular leader steered the Congress in 2017 to a landslide victory in the 117-member assembly to occupy the chief minister's post for the second time.
'When I applied for the job of santhi, I applied as a person who was eligible.' 'When I joined the temple at the age of 21, it was because I got the 4th rank in the list.' 'Now, everybody is talking only about my caste. I am above all that; it doesn't matter to me and to the people with whom I am associated with.'
Action has been taken against 8,275 posts including 4,563 posts on Sunday, it said, adding these had been posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
On his arrival, Xi will be welcomed by traditional peformances including 'tappu' folk drum art display at the airport by about 500 artistes.
A fun excerpt from Diptakirti Chaudhuri's Bollygeek: The Crazy Trivia Guide to Bollywood.
How did you mark this Republic Day?
Gaurav Salunkhe tells us how he lost 26 kg by doing yoga and adopting a healthy lifestyle.
'These villages have never seen a communal dispute, let alone communal violence.' 'Are attempts to create a communal divide acceptable to the MP administration?'
'This is fake. Tyagi was made to sign on a blank paper of the register for media entry and later the names of Rahul Gandhi and others were added in the register,' Congress said.
Mani Ratnam is experimenting with a real-life historical in Ponniyin Selvan, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
AAP will have to learn to be patient as such electoral changes do not happen in a hurry, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Raju's grandfather had commissioned a similar sahasra nama mala for Lord Balaji 50 years ago. Raju now wanted to offer a new garland.
While Ayodhya resembled a city under seige earlier during the day, the scene was no different elsewhere in the state with police and central forces keeping an eye over the security situation and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath personally monitoring it from a hi-tech control room in the state capital.
"I have suddenly become the talk of the town," Alok Nath laughs.
The going is not going to be easy for the DMK and its allies in Elections 2024. Despite the seats sweepstake in the 2021 assembly polls, the vote-share difference of 5.6% (DMK's 45.38% versus AIADMK-BJP's 39.72%) is not insurmountable on a bad day, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Hasty, ill-conceived steps show how isolated Mamata Banerjee had been from the national political trend. A fascinating excerpt from Sugato Hazra's Losing The Plot: Political Isolation Of West Bengal.
'Many Indians are not voting mostly on the basis of issues like the economy and their own well-being as measured by data provided by the government.' 'They seem to be as concerned and perhaps more concerned about other things, especially those that have to do with the harassment of India's minorities,' asserts Aakar Patel.
Accompanied by police personnel, the members of Chennai-based women empowerment outfit 'Manithi' could barely move 100 metres through the traditional forest path towards the temple when hundreds of devotees rushed down to the valley to chase them away.
For the second day in a row, the number of active COVID-19 cases remained below 9 lakh.
'Tamil Nadu is a state of temples, it's a holy land. People don't seem to realise that.'
'You could not look like Ranveer Singh and act like Kapil Dev, so performing like Kapil Dev was double the challenge.'
The court then asked Prasaran if question of this nature about birth of a religious figure has ever arisen in any court.
Trupti Desai's fight earned women the right to enter the inner sanctums of the Shani Shingnapur Temple, the Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple and the Haji Ali Dargah. Her next target is Sabarimala in Kerala. Aditi Phadnis reports.
Addressing the party's national executive, Nadda also reached out to Sikhs, who are in majority in poll-bound Punjab, by listing a number of measures the Modi government has taken for the community, including expediting action against 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurudwaras and keeping langars outside the review of the Goods and Services Tax.
There is nothing to suggest that the DMK stands to gain from the AIADMK split nor is there anything indicative of an extraordinary advantage for the BJP, independently or in the company of the AIADMK, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
From Sri Lanka's most popular political family to its most despised -- going by the voices on the streets calling for the Rajapaksas' ouster -- what went wrong for the clan? Veteran Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy offers an insight.
Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is all set to take Punjab's close business as well as people-to-people relations with Canada to the next level, with a one-to-one meeting with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Amritsar on Wednesday, said an official spokesperson.
Behind this never-say-die attitude of the BJP is probably the calculation of the Roman emperors that if bread is scarce, give the people circus, observes Amulya Ganguli.
