Why Aaditya Thackeray's decision to plunge into electoral politics is significant.
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.
'Mulayam has by design cornered the people's attention back to the party and Akhilesh.' 'People were only talking of Modi and demonetisation, but now suddenly everybody is talking of Akhilesh and the SP.' 'My personal subjective impression is that the SP is neck and neck with the BJP.'
Veteran Congress leader and seven-time Member of Parliament Jaffer Sharrief has ended his over six-decade-long association with the party.
Indian American Aditi Hardikar has been appointed to a key White House position to liaison with LGBT as well as the Asian American and Pacific Islanders communities.
He came to power with a huge mandate in 2012, but Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has now forfeited the voters' trust.
The 75-year-old Samajwadi Party patriarch, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has been publicly rebuking the 42-year-old Uttar Pradesh chief minister of who also happens to be his son. Is the public display of anger real? Or is it just a way of fooling the public? Sudhir Bisht spoke with some keen observers of politics in UP to find out what they feel about Netaji's anger.
'...a dazzling flash, and then, fizzle,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
As Bihar awaits the results in the much-awaited polls, Rediff.com takes a look at some of those leaders who won and lost.
The United Kingdom votes on June 8. A quick guide to the post terror election.
'What do you think the Congress is today?' 'Is it a political party heading for a life-and-death battle?' 'Or an NGO, just doing its thing and hoping it will improve the state of the world?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
'The similarities between the blockbusting Avengers: Endgame and Election 2019 cannot be starker. So who plays who?' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'What are the circumstances at that time? Had you thought Modi will come after Vajpayee?'
Republican Ted Cruz posted two crucial wins over front-runner Donald Trump who also triumphed in two states in Sunday's multi-state vote while in the Democratic camp Bernie Sanders clawed his way back into the presidential contest with two victories over Hillary Clinton.
No wonder Parliament has some 130 MPs out of the 545 hailing from political families. This class threaten to make the Lok Sabha, which the People's House, into a sort of Chamber of Princes which we once had before Independence, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
'If Nitish goes alone, he will be washed away.' 'If he hand holds the BJP, it will again crush him because it will be known that he has sided with the BJP because he doesn't have any other option.' 'Lalu knows Nitish coming back will be a political gain for Lalu.'
'Everything was sacrosanct when the BJP was led by Vajpayee and Advani.' 'That was a different culture. But with Modi and Amit Shah nothing is sacrosanct.'
Amit Malviya has been pilloried for allegedly threatening journalists, indulging in fake news and generally bringing a bad name to his party.
The question is no longer whether he will win 2019; it's what he will do with the new status, says Shekhar Gupta.
'The people of India have not only challenged the ruling dispensation with the constitution, they have also opened the eyes of the leadership that sits in the Opposition.'
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he regretted causing pain to people by not choosing the "right words" sometimes and uttering "wrong thing" even as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton termed the statement as a mere "well-written phrase".
We present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you'll remember about this year we'd rather forget.
Seven young students from different parts of the country had a wide-ranging discussion from bringing out Congress manifesto in Braille, setting up gender-neutral toilets to steps for removing inequalities in education system and caste discrimination in society with the Congress chief.
The elections were recently postponed.
'The voter thinks that the State is not going to impartially deliver services, provide justice, basic law and order, social insurance -- so as a voter it's very rational that I may choose a criminal who will help me navigate the State.' 'A weak State allows a criminal politician to be the person who provides that guarantee to mediate whatever problem the citizen has with the State.'
'France's challenges revolve around an uncertain economic future, multiple terrorist attacks on French soil and a European migration crisis tied to the situation in Syria and Iraq.'
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's task is to live down the hype and address the nitty-gritty, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
The processes that create a seven per cent-plus GDP growth rate without a similar growth in jobs are far from fully understood, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
US presidential aspirants Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on Friday tried to woo minority Latino and African American voters as they sparred over issues like race and their records on immigration during a Democratic debate.
Modi said he saw the election results, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, as the "foundation of the new India".
'Modi is larger-than-life, but not invincible. Yet,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'The one thing India has over these two States, whose toughness awes us, is our ability to embrace diversity with ease. 'The way ahead lies in learning from Vajpayee's method, not in Xi Jinping's,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'His selection is to honour the sentiment of the communal majoritarianism, satisfy the upper caste and continue the process of Hindutva.'
'It will be our attempt that in order to get the country out of the condition it is in because of their (the BJP) coming to power, the Congress will go to them (leaders of parties opposed to the BJP) and if there is need for support we shall do so too.'
Ajit Balakrishnan on how the Web could return to its original egalitarian goals.
If the already demoralised Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadre, beaten worse by the shocking parliamentary poll debacle in May 2014 thought that the political set-back suffered by rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, in the light of a Bangalore court ordering a jail-term for her in September was a boon for their leadership, it's not to be.
Launching a scathing attack just as electioneering ends, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused Narendra Modi of being double-faced, saying that on the one hand, he talks of Uttar Pradesh's development and then on the other, has joined hands with those who humiliate people from the state.
M D Riti recalls her first encounter with Karnataka's next chief minister.
'India's election process is smoother, more efficient, more credible, cheaper to conduct and quicker to deliver than any other large democracy, including the United States. It seems to me that the election process is getting better with each passing year and it is something all Indians can be very proud of,' says Aakar Patel.
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
