Over two dozen Muslims have been elected to the Lok Sabha. This shows that all is not lost for India's Muslims, suggests Mohammad Sajjad.
'Extravagant new promises can buy him time, but far from solving the problem, they compound the risk.' 'His main alternative is to stress not aspirations, but resentments.' 'He has already de-emphasised aspirational appeals: Nothing has been heard for over two years of the coming of achhe din,' points out James Manor.
'The lessons learnt from the triple disaster have put Japan's energy future On the right path,' notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
The Modi-Shah definition of secularism is, India is a confident, resurgent Hindu, and therefore secular, country.
'But you cannot encroach upon the spaces that belong to the public.' 'For this new Parliament building, we envisage a minimum of 400 trucks, the huge long trailer trucks will be coming in day in and day out right into the heart of the national capital.' 'It will completely destroy Delhi's peace.' 'The beautiful sylvan surroundings of the quiet, beautiful, New Delhi is going to be destroyed for all time to come.'
In less than two months since the announcement in March, the state has mobilised an armada of small and medium enterprises keen on making components for large equipment manufacturers.
'The BJP should realise that a very large number of people -- from the 'perfumed liberals' to the 'illiterate' masses of Bihar -- is trying to tell them that this is not the 'development' they wanted.' 'Stop telling people what to eat, what to wear, what to read, who to love and how not to show dissent.'
The truce, even if it is not permanence peace, will come under stress and test during the pending polls to rural local bodies in nine revenue districts and urban polls across the state, including those for 16 municipal corporations, starting with Chennai, the oldest and largest, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi, Left parties and CMs of various states congratulated Kovind.
Banerjee along with other regional leaders are likely to play an important role in any future government in New Delhi, so it is in India's interest that regional leaders like herself realise the importance of progressive economics and good governance, says Tridivesh Singh Maini.
The jobless armies of youthful India are getting angrier and desperate, warns Shekhar Gupta.
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
'Nehru's hegemonic politics has been responsible for many ills, which undoubtedly includes Kashmir'
Gandhi said there's a lot of space for cooperation between the United States and India in the creation of jobs and in the education sector.
Are Indian citizens mindful of their responsibility?
'I say Modi was India's last chance.' 'Because the kind of work this government has done -- I'm talking about physical delivery -- is fantastic, like no time in our history.'
'Whether or not Chandrashekhar Azad succeeds or fails electorally, he has already made democratic politics more accountable to Dalits.'
The spread of Modism is in reality spread of a personality cult and not a political ideology, says Vidyut Joshi.
'We have to make doing business in India easier.'
'Modi should not feel shy of proclaiming as the meaning of secularism regard for all religions in proportion to their numbers in tune with the spirit of democracy and adopting it as State policy,' says B S Raghavan.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
'... For the India-US relationship to continue its positive trajectory, it will require India to adapt to a different approach.' Nisha Desai Biswal -- who as the Obama administration's point person for South Asia was in the inner circle of all the Obama-Modi Summits -- tells Rediff.com's Monali Sarkar why she is hopeful that India and the US are on an irreversible forward course.
'There is a communication gap between the Modi government and the allies. During the last one year, the NDA has met only once and that was two hours before the land bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha.' 'When Vajpayee was prime minister if any NDA chief minister asked for time , he was given it the next day. Modi is not doing it.' 'If there is tension on the streets, if there is insecurity amongst the minorities, then Make in India will remain a pipe dream.'
The new government has to make conscious efforts to rebuild social equality and bring the people together.
The 'secularists'are more adept at the politics of intense and alarmingly exaggerated fear-mongering, as this kind of politics provides easy votes of Muslims without making them answerable for the concrete issues of poverty, unemployment, lawlessness, and of basic needs like roads, electricity, etc, which is exactly how Nitish Kumar was defeated in the elections, says Mohammad Sajjad.
The public-private partnership model is a compulsion, says the minister.
As electoral sails shift in the dynamic political winds of West Bengal, two factors may still change the electoral equations are how the BJP fares this time and how Muslims are going to vote. Mayank Mishra reports.
'Modi is likely to make more announcements to win or retain popularity, and put himself at the centre of things even more than now,' says T N Ninan.
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Modi government has taken some interesting policy decisions in the 100 days since the time he met President Pranab Mukherjee to present his claim as Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy, says Tanmaya Nanda.
When Rajni Kothari pointed towards a new democratic alignment in India.
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We present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's full speech as he addressed the country on the occasion of 66th Independence Day, from Red Fort, Delhi.
The new ordinance on land acquisition will allow land grabbers to deprive millions, destroy agriculture, horticulture, rivers, forests, tree cover and mangroves to extract minerals as well as ground water, without replenishment at a pace that will not leave anything for the next generation, warns activist Medha Patkar.
Whose political stock is likely to rise and which leader is most likely to make an impact in the coming year?
The 2015 World Bank group's Doing Business index ranked India at 142, down from 140, which it was the year before.
'Big countries do not agree on every set of issues.' 'Look, one of the differences in the relationship is that when we do not agree, we are sitting down and talking to each other.'
Why Dalit leaders cross over to the BJP
In Delhi, the poor are pitted against the middle class, with the former led by Arvind Kejriwal and the latter by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'Anti-incumbency, especially in Maharashtra; the BJP's success in creating a new social coalition; and the sheer force of the party's campaign which overwhelmed its opponents,' argues Praful Bidwai, brought the BJP victory in Haryana and Maharashtra, not the Modi effect.
A K Bhattacharya digs into the yet-to-be-public report on ways to curb black money and finds out that Modi's next moves could include action on dabba trading, hawala, and education.
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