An interesting multi-cornered contest is on the cards for the urban local body elections in Tamil Nadu scheduled for February 19 with opposition parties, which were with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam till a few days ago, set to take on the ruling DMK banking on their respective party's own strength.
Here are some of the famous faces queued up to get ink mark on their fingers.
A controversy erupted on Tuesday after the opposition parties tagged a video of DMK leader A Raja purportedly showing him making remarks that India has never been a nation, but a subcontinent with diverse practices and cultures, prompting strong response from the BJP which described the comments as a call for 'balkanisation' of the the country and demanded for his arrest.
After Rahul's Bharat Jodo Yatra began criss-crossing the Hindi heartland, BJP leaders have revived their attacks on 'dynasty politics' and 'family rule' in the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'My friend scored higher than me in the 12th exam, but he could not clear NEET because his parents could not pay the fees for private coaching.'
Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey, on Wednesday, said that the national men's team will travel to Pakistan for qualifiers in case it fails to directly qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Targeting the Congress, the PM said those who ruled Madhya Pradesh for a long time did nothing else other than corruption and crime.
Gandhi said he has "received tremendous love and affection from people of Tamil Nadu and it is my duty to stand with people of Tamil Nadu and protect their history, their culture and their language."
Haasan, addressing office bearers in Chennai, said he has been invited by Rahul Gandhi to participate in the Yatra.
Glimpses of Pongal being celebrated in Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai on Sunday, January 15, 2023.
'There were many experts around me,' A Ganesh Nadar discovers at the India-Pakistan hockey game. 'One of them was explaining to his neighbour, that fellow is a good dragger and flicker, that fellow is a penalty corner specialist, that fellow is a penalty specialist, that fellow is a very good defender, etc, freely dispensing with his expert knowledge.'
'We walked into the well of the House because we had no choice.' 'They were not listening to us. They were throttling democracy.'
According to DMK, the voters are already consolidated on ideological lines, hence the impact of anti-incumbency, whether against the BJP Centre or the DMK state may not be too much, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP has nothing to lose after a point. For the DMK it is a difficult choice, as it would not want to give too much of space to a 'national party' lest the 'Dravidian duel' of the past decades should be lost forever, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is not much of an issue just now, but it could become one if the idea of caste census captures socio-political imagination, going beyond electoral tags and identities, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Heavy rains continued to pound Chennai and nearby districts on Monday under the impact of a cyclonic storm, which is likely to cross the coast in Andhra Pradesh on December 5.
A girl who appeared for NEET and aspired to pursue medical education died by suicide at a village in Ariyalur District, the second such death within two days in Tamil Nadu, with the incident seeing a repeat of the main opposition AIADMK hitting out at the DMK regime, while chief minister M K Stalin on Tuesday vowed to continue the legal fight to remove the test.
'The people of Tamil Nadu in particular Chennai know about the double standards of the BJP. Nothing will work for them here.'
The hashtag was trending on Twitter on Monday following Ravi's face-off with the state government in the Assembly where Stalin, also president of the ruling DMK piloted a resolution against the Governor's deviation from his customary address to the Legislature and retain the draft prepared by his government.
Justice N Seshasayee said in his order on September 15 that the court is conscious of 'the very vociferous, and at time noisy debates on pro and anti Sanatan Dharma' and the court could not help pondering over with genuine concern for what is going around.
Ithu Kathirvelan Kadhal starring Udhayanidhi and Nayanthara is a simple love story with a good mix of romance, comedy and sentiment.
MK Stalin's ruling AIDMK rival does not thankfully face such problems as he did, but its problems could be worse if saner counsel does not prevail between now and the assembly polls, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
Vanakkam Chennai is a sweet love story with some great music and good performances.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
NEET is a court-ordered examination, supposedly aimed at meritocracy. However, over the past years when the incumbent Narendra Modi government at the Centre began implementing it, it took on political and casteist colours, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Hours before he was to appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for a third time, a 19-year old youth belonging to a village near Salem died by suicide on Sunday, fearing the outcome of the test he was to take.
The BJP continuing to look at the Dravidian polity through the religious prism has not worked in Tamil Nadu whereas it has yielded political and electoral results across much of the rest of the country, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bharti accused the media of distorting her statement, attributing it to the BJP's agenda.
With the assembly polls only two years away, in 2026, any demoralising defeat in 2024, would challenge not only the party's continued relevance but also EPS's leadership, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
A look at the top tweets from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
Despite the intriguing plot, Tamiluku En Ondrai Aluthavum has none of the edge-of-your-seat moments that would have made it exciting, writes S Saraswathi.
Will Vijay will go the most successful MGR/Jayalalithaa way, or that of Vijayakanth, Seeman or Kamalahaasan, or will he end up as another Rajinikanth who cries wolf at the last minute and quits the scene even before it all had really begun, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'They have been imposing Hindi on Tamil Nadu,' says DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai.
Medical seats for under-graduates and post-graduates remaining vacant in the NEET era, together with the Centre 'freezing' the number of medical colleges and seats in (Dravidian) Tamil Nadu and the launch of the PM's 'Vishwakarma Scheme' for the nation's craftsmen, are all seen as a bid to further reverse the state's progressive socio-economic agenda of and its achievements of the past hundred-plus years, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
A look at the top tweets from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
Will Annamalai's attacks on the DMK revert the anti-BJP feeling in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
With DMK's M K Stalin coming into his own, and the rival AIADMK too leaving no space for third parties, Tamil Nadu will remain a Dravidian stronghold for a long time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
We saw the big hits of Tamil cinema. Now it's time to look at the flops.
