'Those who are upset by the current government's hard position against agitating Kashmiris should know it is exactly as hard as the position of previous governments.' 'Congress also killed as many, and actually more, but it spoke softly.' 'The BJP uses harsher words, but that is the only real difference,' says Aakar Patel.
However, independent economists are not as gung-ho as the finance ministry over the likelihood of deficit target being met this time around, says Indivjal Dhasmana.
Manish Sisodia's elevation as Delhi CM would set Arvind Kejriwal free to take up a significant role in national politics, or he could return to activism, says Sudhir Bisht.
Based on the GDP numbers and the remarkable stability of the taka Bangladesh's Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, is a better manager than our 'economist prime minister',' says TVR Shenoy.
Though there is a full-throated clamour in the Congress that party vice-president Rahul Gandhi be formally named as its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Nehru-Gandhi scion is personally not convinced that his projection will yield electoral dividends.
The road for the Opposition is full of 'ifs' and 'buts', reports Sunil Gatade.
As Bihar decides its fate on Sunday, political leaders from across the spectrum weighed in.
Rahul feels collective decisions taken with his mother and sister helped the party in the December assembly elections. Hence, he wants to follow the same strategy for the Lok Sabha election, too.
The imapsse continues over issues like bank scams and special status demand for Andhra Pradesh.
Hundreds of students and teachers of Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia on Tuesday hit the streets with a call to "save" the varsities from the "onslaught" of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and "curbing" of dissent.
'The feeling in Telangana is that without her a separate state cannot be created... All the MPs and MLAs from Seema-Andhra have a business background. Their interest is to save their business,' Congress MP K Raj Gopal Reddy, who played a key role in Thursday's turbulent events, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Union ministers, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and various other top leaders have condoled Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's demise and paid glowing tributes to her.
A total of 89 seats -- out of 182 -- spanning the Saurashtra and south Gujarat regions, are up for grabs in the first phase with 977 candidates in the fray, including Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
Rajeev Srinivasan on whom the Congress might put forth as its leader in 2014.
'Why don't they suggest artificial intelligence training for SC/STs?' 'Why can't they be trained in computer programming?'
Prakash Bhandari chalks the journey of Lalit Modi from his troubled adolescent days to his mid-life crisis, from his grand success at the India Premier League to his dramatic exit from it
The man who led this journey is 50-year-old Kalanithi Maran, chairman and managing director of the Sun Group.
'Modi's idea of India is to make it less liberal, less tolerant and a less accommodative of diversity.' 'We are headed, if Modi continues, to become an ill liberal democracy.' 'Modi is not Vajpayee. Vajpayee was fundamentally decent, tolerant and fair. He played by the rules of the game. Modi is a different story.'
Opposition parties ask the government to listen to the concern of the intellectuals returning awards.
'The AIADMK has no Number Two, frankly it does not even have a Number Hundred and Two. There is the Numero Uno, and there is everybody else -- a point that was made very clear when Jayalalithaa made her ministers take the oath of office in unison on May 23. What, after all, was the point of having them do so individually when they lack individuality?'
'The UPA was the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The NDA is the gang that can't stop shooting. They (the Modi government) are shooting at anybody, everybody, all directions, shooting themselves in the foot.'
'Some TV channels are wrongly reporting that the Honourable CM is no more. It is totally baseless and false,' the hospital says.
It is an open secret that Manmohan Singh is not a popular figure in the Congress, but Sonia's presence, support and strategy are proving a blessing for the good doctor. When P V Narasimha Rao ran into rough times, Sonia remained indifferent and the Congress had left him to the wolves, says Rasheed Kidwai, author of books on Sonia Gandhi and the Congress party.
'Both reflect prejudice and short-sightedness peculiar to Mr Modi's way of thinking.'
'The media today is completely free from the government-induced fear factor.' 'It is only scared of the public backlash and its TRP ratings,' say Sudhir Bisht.
'I felt like a used and discarded rag.' 'The pro-dialogue constituency has shrunk in the valley.' Academician and author Dr Radha Kumar was among the three interlocutors which the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government appointed on Kashmir in October 2010, speaks of how the panel report was never acted upon.
'Now you have a full clampdown and a huge security blanket. How long are you going to maintain that? The moment you lift it, all that suppressed protest and anger will come out.'
'While I am personally pained at the raids on Dr Roy's home, I want to ask five questions of those crying themselves hoarse over the attack on the "freedom of the press",' says Sudhir Bisht.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
How Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar find themselves in a huge controversy.
'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.
A glance back at some of the important ups and down Indian Inc faced in 2018.
Modi has the ideas for a new, hopeful India, and an idiom in which to sell optimism to voters. But he doesn't yet have the team for it, and soon enough, questions will begin to be asked by an impatient, non-ideological, I-don't-owe-anybody-anything generation of Indian voters, says Shekar Gupta.
The AIADMK swept the polls winning 37 of the 39 seats, leaving DMK, its rivals, and the BJP to do a serious rethinking before the assembly elections in 2016, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Popular Telugu film star Pavan Kalyan launched his Jana Sena party with a 'call to the nation' to 'wipe out' the Congress party on Friday.
'There is simply no evidence of any new or clear policy direction in internal security, and mounting evidence of policy incoherence.' 'Worse, the promise of giving the common man -- and, more importantly, woman -- a greater sense of security has been utterly belied. Indeed, with an escalation of communal posturing and rhetoric, there is a broader sense of uncertainty,' says Ajai Sahni.
Eminent business journalist and author Tamal Bandyopadhyay discussed Budget with rediff.com readers on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had more than adequately made clear that the government would be allocating Rs 14,000 crore through Budget, the Financial Services Secretary said.
Tamil Nadu has time and again proved that it needs a decisive leader even if corrupt, rather than an indecisive leader, however good-hearted, good-natured and honest he may be, writes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Modi government believes the industrialist, the capitalist, has to pay for the assets of the government which belong to the people of India.'
