The unlikely and newly-discovered star on the Jharkhand campaign trail is a 39-year-old feisty army brat, who is married to the state's chief minister. Wearing only saris, always sporting sindhoor, a tikka and bangles, Jharkhand political rallies haven't seen anyone like Kalpana Murmu Soren before! She brings both lively energy and style to the podiums/stages she graces, arriving like a breath of fresh air to make fiery speeches that ignite the crowd.
'The 2024 election results will lead to much intense targeting of Modi, more intense debates, many more breakdowns in Parliament and many more movements on the streets.' 'The results have hit Modi's standing, and the politics of the Opposition parties will be sharply focused to ensure that Modi doesn't get back his charisma of being 'invincible' with help of State power.' Sheela Bhatt looks at the political situation through the prism of 2024 Lok Sabha election results.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday asserted that 'something major' will take place, after Lok Sabha results are out, in Bihar where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seemed to be 'not going along well' with ally Bharatiya Janata Party.
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
A BJP leader in Bihar on Thursday died while taking part in a 'Vidhan Sabha march' against the state's Nitish Kumar government, evoking allegations from senior party leaders that he was "killed in a brutal lathi charge".
'We used to give these boxers a hammering in the ring and now they are teaching youngsters how to defend. Come on man!' 'People like Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar were among the top boxers in the world, but instead of choosing them to train young boxers they are picking people who are yes men.'
'You need a leader whom India can identify with and I cannot think of any other leader except Sachin Pilot in the Congress party.'
There is no action against the "BJP-linked" school management but an arrested accused is shot dead in suspicious circumstances, he said, adding "we have no trust in Badlapur police".
"I do not think the idea of turning India into a 'Hindu Rashtra' is appropriate," Sen, 90, said.
He also said his equation with the Gandhi family will remain the same as it has been for the last 50 years.
Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP state unit is banking on the party's central leadership to shore up its prospects in the May 10 assembly polls as it fights anti-incumbency.
'The more educated a young person is, the higher the chances of him or her remaining unemployed.'
Who will replace Shah in the BCCI since neither he himself nor the people close to him have yet divulged his immediate plans.
The CBI, tasked by the Calcutta high court to probe the case, received local court approval to conduct a polygraph test on the accused, days after performing a psychoanalysis test on him.
Even as political pressure was building against Ranjith, actor Siddique quit as the general secretary of Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) amid voices from within his fraternity seeking his resignation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday expressed confidence that the NDA will get more than 400 seats and the BJP will win at least 370 seats in the Lok Sabha elections.
'A pro-Modi wave and anti-incumbency will be incomplete without strong candidates.'
'With passage of time, Kamal did move away from the humdrum of commercial cinema, using it only as a peg to launch a new concept or new technology, as no other actor/film-maker has done in Indian cinema.' N Sathiya Moorthy assesses the career and politics of movie legend Kamal Haasan on his 70th brthday.
24 hours before campaigning ends in Thiruvanathapuram, Archana Masih/Rediff.com discovers Shashi Tharoor and his BJP rival Rajeev Chandrasekhar are busy getting their message across to voters.
The Congress is not fielding a candidate in Mandya in order to support Darshan and open the constituency up for a direct contest between the SKP and the Janata Dal-Secular which is hoping to retain its seat.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a post on X that his 18-year-long stint in public service has come to an end.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
The rising pitch of road shows and long rallies with hectoring pitches seem to have exhausted and numbed the audiences, rather than motivating them to vote for the party, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
The Supreme Court on Thursday criticised Kolkata Police for their 'extremely disturbing' delay in registering the case of a woman doctor who was raped and killed at RG Kar Hospital, while also urging the agitating doctors to return to work amid the fourteenth day of disruptions in healthcare services in Bengal's state-run hospitals.
That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
'They have to be seen as being responsive to the employment woes and economic stagnation afflicting many young people.'
It's just not a date. It's just not about selecting a candidate. It's not about helping some candidate win. It's about expressing emotion, after ten years, that could reach out in India and beyond it, notes Sheela Bhatt.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
According to CITU, around 90% of the 1,723 workers of the Sriperumbudur plant are participating in the strike. Samsung said it is ready to talk to employees and not a third party like CITU.
'Three decades after liberalisation kicked off, my friend's son and niece -- both born well after that historic shift in economic policy -- find themselves newly off the beaten path for no fault than listening to their heart,' notes Shyam G Menon.
Shettar said he has not lost his hopes and would wait till the evening.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
Clad in a yellow kurta with a saffron gamcha around his neck, atop an open saffron coloured vehicle, he was greeted by loud chants of "Modi! Modi! Modi Zindabad! 400 Paar Is Baar" all along the roadshow's route.
Rescue officials confirmed casualties in the incident, claiming to have already recovered 5 bodies from the heap of debris where the cracker manufacturing unit once stood.
It's a different Srinagar from what Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf encountered 24 years ago. Tourists throng the Kashmir Valley post-Article 370, azaadi appears dead, and everyone says one man is responsible for this change, so what if his poster is nowhere to be seen.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
'We made a mistake. We misunderstood. Now all is well.'
The authority said in its order that it believes that the movable assets and equity shares that were attached by the ED are proceeds of crime and linked to the offence of money laundering.
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