In the coming days, there would be loud calls for a greater role for Priyanka Vadra who, party leaders think, has a greater voter connect and appeal than her brother who has been pushed into the forefront by their mother.
'Criticism that Amnesty is interested in those in favour of independence for Kashmir is unfounded.'
The White House said it has 'a large body' of evidence indicating that the Assad regime was responsible for the April 7 chemical attack in Duma.
'The BJP should avoid escalating every local issue and minor provocation into a national crisis and claiming a 'holier than thou' monopoly on patriotism.' 'And the Opposition should avoid paying the government back in the same coin by crying wolf about intolerance at the slightest provocation.'
Trump denied the allegations and said he would sue the NYT if it reported them.
Rediff.com takes a look at some cases from the recent past where the courts awarded the capital punishment for horrific crimes that fall under the rarest of rare category.
Sharad Yadav, President of the Janata Dal (United), is one of the architects of the proposed merger of six political parties who trace their roots to the erstwhile Janata Dal. Yadav tells Archis Mohan how the grand alliance with Left parties and even the Congress is the need of the hour.
The Nobel Prize for Malala may have caused deep divisions across the globe and disturbed the peace, while the award to OPCW, though not without critics, may have served the cause of peace by eliminating a weapon of mass destruction from the face of the earth, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The Sino-Pakistan relationship remains fundamentally asymmetrical: Pakistan wants more out of its ties with China than China is willing to offer. Today, when Pakistan's domestic problems are gargantuan, China would be very cautious in involving itself even more, says Harsh V Pant.
A tussle between the Delhi government and the Lt Governor has left bureaucrats vulnerable to sudden transfers.
'Independence Day has been India's annual general meeting. For the most part, it has been a forgettable experience of ritual observances. Not so this year... Mr Modi instead presented what I call a moral balance sheet of India,' says Shreekant Sambrani.
The party has tried to downplay its vice-president's sudden move, saying he is the leader and will come back soon to play a pro-active role in party affairs
Now that Tamil Nadu's tallest politician is no more, it remains to be seen how new political re-alignments could shape up, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress party's only hope now lies in its desperate wish that an unstable conglomerate of non-BJP, non-Congress parties comes to power with its support and collapses within a couple of years by which time the party hopes to salvage whatever it can from the debris of 10 years of the UPA's incumbency, says Saroj Nagi.
'The parallels between 1914 and 2014 are striking. The crumbling of American and Russian hegemony, the rise of powerful terrorist groups, ferment in the Middle East and the rise of China... These closely mirror the world of 1914,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Sonia is trying to become a politician again. Will she succeed?'
'Chetan Bhagat is not great literature. Is that like you write third rate books and people can't do much better than to read those third rate books. Is it really an achievement?'
Indian intelligence agencies have often claimed that left-wing extremists are trying to make inroads in the militancy-hit regions of north-east to foment further unrest. But Jaideep Saikia, noted terrorism and conflict analyst, claims, "People who speak of Maoism taking roots in the north-east have not read history".
I am not a quitter. I was with the United Nations for 29 years. I don't know whether I will have 29 years in politics, but I don't intend to end with just 5 years, Dr Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Shobha Warrier
'I like the thought that I am competing successfully with writers much younger than me,' says Ruskin Bond.
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