'With the deaths of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, the BJP and Congress thought that they had a chance.' 'They have conceded that power is with the Dravidian parties.'
Southern Railway however clarified that the issue was the result of a particular user selecting Hindi as the preferred language while registering in the IRCTC website. 'Language is an option in e-ticketing,' a Southern Railway release said.
If Muslims face trouble I will be the first person to raise voice for them, says the Tamil superstar.
Natarajan was admitted to the hospital on Saturday with severe chest infection and was put on ventilator support.
Nothing would suit the BJP better than to let Rajinikanth be the chief minister and pretend to abide by his spiritual path while quietly consolidating its vote bank, observes Amulya Ganguli.
'Tamil Nadu will never allow the Centre's three-language policy'
'Even if the (central) government does not involve in any such efforts, some officers here and there and Hindi fanatics are employing themselves to the maximum level possible to impose the language,' Karunanidhi wrote in party mouthpiece Murasoli
'If you impose Hindi, not just Tamil Nadu, no southern state will accept that. Many states in northern parts will also not accept that'
India was an 'excellent feast' and that such imposition would lead to 'nausea', he said.
Flowing from an inadequate understanding of Tamil history and politics is an urban elitist mindset that does not seem to be able to touch and feel the real angst of the larger Tamil-speaking masses, cutting across the social and economic status of the individual, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The mass Jallikattu protests on Chennai's Marina beach showed no sign of dying out on Friday, even after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam promised that a draft ordinance aimed at ensuring the conduct of the traditional bull-taming sport has been submitted to the home ministry.
"I myself come from a non-Hindi state of Gujarat. If some people want to do politics, it is their choice," Shah told reporters in New Delhi.
M Karunanidhi was a masterful practitioner of modern-day politics, wielding considerable influence beyond his own state, in the corridors of power in New Delhi, for a long time and sewing up alliances with both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
After Shah said Hindi is the most spoken language which can unite the nation as a common language, Tamil Nadu parties rallied against it.
'The BJP is so keen to use this opportunity to make its foray in a state where it hardly exists, says Amulya Ganguli, that it has silenced the vociferous animal rights activist in its ranks -- Maneka Gandhi.'
Twitter users flooded the social network with messages against the move, making #StopHindiImposition and #TNAgainstHindiImposition the top trends on platform.
The Ice House police station, near Marina beach, is up in flames. The protestors I met the other day would certainly not have done any such thing. Hoodlums and thugs appear to have infiltrated their ranks, determined to provoke trouble.
Opposing invitation to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for Narendra Modi's swearing-in as the prime minister, Bharatiya Janata Party ally Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Saturday announced a black flag demonstration against the head of the island republic in Delhi on May 26.
'To them, the day may not be far off when the state BJP starts claiming and propagating that Modi is next only to AIADMK's late boss Jayalalithaa,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Tamil Nadu's youth bulge will soon be 70 per cent of the population, many of them smartphone-toting millennials looking for gains more tangible than what screen gods can give,' says Sunil Sethi.
Is Stalin positioning himself as a central figure in the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party, anti-Narendra Modi formation?
The party is looking at Amit Shah's visit to Tamil Nadu and the PM's to Sri Lanka to boost its expansions efforts in the state for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, reports Archis Mohan.
'Nobody is telling you not to speak or learn your mother tongue. But making other languages an emotional issue is wrong.'
Modi could tap into the urban discontent and present a larger picture to first time voters and mid-career professionals.
DMK blamed the Centre and state government for 'not taking appropriate, timely steps' to ensure conduct of the event and announced a state-wide stir.
At 47 protests a day, the state has become the most restive in the country and investors are becoming increasingly wary
''The Congress has forgotten how to mobilise people on political issues,' says Aakar Patel.
'Some people make the majoritarian argument that a lot of Indians speak Hindi.' 'But where exactly? Is that not relevant?'
With one year left for assembly elections in Karnataka, the last big bastion of the Congress, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has found an emotive issue to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party as the latter prepares the ground for a fight to grab power. Raghu Krishnan and Nikita Puri report.
Protesters demanded a permanent solution for holding the sport and raised slogans that an ordinance was only a temporary measure.
In the absence of the over-arching 'Jaya charisma', EPS has to convince the AIADMK's traditional constituencies, including those in his western districts, that his leadership would stand up against the BJP-led Centre even in a post-poll scenario, a la Jayalalithaa, and would not yield as much as party founder MGR had done, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A Ganesh Nadar watches the fourth day of protests dawn on Chennai's Marina beach.
Protests demanding Jallikattu swelled on the streets of Tamil Nadu after agitators rejected statements by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and the state braced for a shutdown on Friday.
'Having learnt her lesson in popular democracy, Jaya would become more populist than the DMK and more so than the imagery that mentor MGR had created in the Tamil voter's mind, both as an individual and as an elected ruler.'
'The bull does not want to go in front of the crowd, so they put chillies on his private parts etc to make him enter the game arena.'
DMK Working President MK Stalin is worried about divisions in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam after the death of Jayalalithaa and keen that it should not affect the functioning of the administration.
BJP's Member of Parliament Tarun Vijay on why he chose to demand national status for Tamil
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