BJP President Amit Shah -- arguably the second most powerful politician in the nation -- granted a rare television interview to the Network 18 group of news channels. Rediff.com's Rajesh Alva checks out what the BJP boss said in this word cloud assessment of the interview.
In a tweet, the party said Ram Temple was not on the agenda of Shah during his one-day trip to Hyderabad.
'It is not that he has not committed any mistakes; he has.' 'But people were willing to forgive you if you were honest.'
The note ban is Modi's make-or-break gambit for 2019. Opposition leaders see a vulnerability and won't gift pre-eminence to the Congress, says Shekhar Gupta.
'After a longish time being on the defensive on the Muslim issue, Mamata found in the Centre's surgical strike just the kind of battle in which she specialises -- hand-to-hand combat.' 'Having routed the once formidable Marxists by her trademark, no-holds-barred belligerence, she is now ready to employ the same tactics against the BJP,' predicts Amulya Ganguli.
He, however, stressed that the incidents cannot be justified and pitched for tough action against the perpetrators.
If Donald Trump moves into the White House and his family continues to receive any benefit from the company, during or even after his presidency, almost every foreign policy decision he makes will raise serious conflicts of interest and ethical quagmires, says Newsweek.
He also lashed out at the Congress for its opposition to the GST and for dubbing it as 'Gabbar Singh Tax'.
Smartly blending its development agenda with Hindutva politics, the BJP has not lost assembly elections in the state since 1995.
Several officers in the intelligence agencies want the role of the National Investigation Agency clearly defined to avoid lack of cooperation between the Centre and states.
'This is possibly a long drawn battle and if the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party are together in this long battle, a new political picture will emerge in the country.' 'In this battle if we have to sacrifice or give up anything, we are ready.' 'We have to remain cautious against the BJP's attempts to break our unity.' 'We want this alliance to stay.'
'In the name of pluralism-secularism, the kind of politics that was pursued revealed to many that it was basically a favour to Muslim conservatism and communalism -- a politics of minority-ism, rather than of secularism.' 'This is how significant sections of Hindus have been made to loathe the very idea of Indian secularism by now,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'We have done majoritarianism through other means.' 'The Citizenship Amendment Act, read together with the National Register of Citizens, will prove what I mean,' notes Aakar Patel.
'This is a historic juncture when the US is in great need of an alliance with India to strengthen its hands in the fierce struggle with China in the Asian theatre,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Setting up the Darabhanga module was perhaps the easiest job the Indian Mujahideen ever pulled off. With politics, appeasement and a safe hiding ground on offer, the agencies are finding this terror module the toughest one to crack.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier called for consensus in passing the bill.
The government's decision to stop surge pricing by app-based taxi companies Uber and Ola ignores the basic principles of economics to appease a vocal section of the vote bank.
Today, hour-long, high-pitched 'debates' at prime time, replete with inflammatory visuals and captions, using half-truths, insinuations and lies, pour venom against Muslims and seek to divide Hindus and Muslims, notes Jyoti Punwani.
Any city that imposes a ban on food of any kind to appease the sensibility of a particular religion has lost any right to be called cosmopolitan and progressive, feels Tanmaya Nanada
Gilgit Baltistan's large frontage with Kashmir and Ladakh across Kargil and the Siachen Glacier gives Pakistan and China the perceived scope for conduct of collusive operations against India and wrest control of the major course of the Indus and Shyok, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
The DMK has performed well in the general election and will get more seats than its rival, the AIADMK, in the by-elections. But this victory won' help them, reports A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com.
The BJP president came down heavily on the Opposition saying a shocking change has happened in the country's politics with those against the prime minister resorting to lies and speaking it loudly all the time.
The Tamil Nadu Bishops Council's decision to support the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Congress alliance in the upcoming elections will vitiate the political atmosphere in the state, reports R Ramasubramanian.
Rajan said that central banks should not ignore global responsibilities.
'When Sachin Tendulkar bats, no one in India cares if he is from Mumbai or if he is a Hindu or a Brahmin or whatever.' 'We just want him to win it for India.' 'The same is with Modi and the people who voted across caste and regional lines for him.' We want him to win it for India,' says Madhu A K.
The Congress president offered prayers at the Churva Hanuman Mandir on the Lucknow-Rae Bareli road hours after landing in the state capital where enthusiastic party workers greeted him with garlands.
The party president also said that India's self-confidence, pride and scale of ambition have grown manifold in three years.
The Prithviraj Chavan government wants to retain its strongholds and ensure there is negligible anti-incumbency. That many of its decisions can run into legal problems is not an immediate worry, says Neeta Kolhatkar.
India looks less equal to China than 5 years ago, the strategic alliance with the US is hobbled by trade, and Pakistan is looking anything but chastened by Balakot. What has gone wrong? asks Shekhar Gupta.
'We had never imagined that the prime minister could use such language to win votes.' 'I was under the impression that the prime minister is a very knowledgeable man, but I was amazed to find that he doesn't know that India's Constitution.'
Narendra Modi's Jaipur rally on Tuesday courted controversy over a purported direction by the Bharatiya Janata Party -- asking Muslims to come dressed in skull caps and burqas -- as critics questioned the motive behind the "dress code".
'Is Rahul turning the Congress' covert soft-Hindutva support into overt support now?' 'And if so, following in the BJP's footsteps, is the Congress going to abandon Indian Muslims and Muslim causes altogether?' asks Dr Najid Hussain whose father-in-law former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed during the Gujarat riots.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh interacts with readers on Rediff Chat as he discusses the period that changed India's history, forever.
He said those who were insulting India's tradition and culture in the name of secularism and appeasement are feeling threatened after he took office.
An Uttar Pradesh government panel on Sunday accused a Bharatiya Janata Party MP of inciting Saharanpur riots, besides blaming laxity by local officials, sparking a war of words among parties with BJP dismissing the report as "politically motivated" and an attempt by ruling Samajwadi Party to hide its "failures".
Trinamool leaders have claimed the NRC process and subsequent verification is vote bank politics. Other critics call it as modified ethnic cleansing. But putting poll rhetoric aside, the issue dates back to a time when many of these leaders had no political relevance.
'If Myanmar falls to China, let it.' 'Sooner or later the rulers of the country will have to call New Delhi.'
If only Aamir Khan had resisted spoon-feeding his audience...
'In its history, the RSS has never seen success as it is seeing now. And it wants to extend their base.'
The BJP knows the CAA, combined with a fresh nationwide NRC process, is an idea that's dead on arrival. Where it lives on is as a divisive, polarising instrument as its rivals have to take a position against it and thereby be exposed to the charge of 'Muslim appeasement' again, points out Shekhar Gupta.
