'The upper caste elite's belief that they are casteless is a belief that is available only to the upper castes. Because all the lower castes are reminded by society every day what their caste is.'
'The first and most basic responsibility of any government is to protect its people from external threats and internal harm.' 'Budget 2025-2026 has to focus on meeting this responsibility,' asserts R Jagannathan.
A freebie once granted can hardly be discontinued. All that can happen is to substitute it with a bigger freebie, notes A K Bhattacharya.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
Prasad hit out at the Opposition, alleging that it starts getting upset the moment it hears "Kumbh" or "Sanatan".
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The RJD is a family centric party and its top leadership's main concern is only to promote the family.'
Bihar MP Pappu Yadav said he could 'finish off within 24 hours' the network of Lawrence Bishnoi who is suspected to be behind the assassination of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddiqui.
A petition was filed before a court in Bihar on Monday against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and his son Udayanidhi Stalin over the latter's controversial remarks against Sanatan Dharma.
He died at AIIMS in New Delhi at 9.45 pm, hospital sources said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday assured his government will continue the Ladki Bahin Yojana and fulfil Mahayuti's pre-poll promise of hiking the monthly stipend under the scheme to Rs 2,100 from Rs 1,500 now to eligible women.
With some variations, all regional political formations, whether in power presently or out of it, share some common features: Tight family control of the political apparatus, key members in elected or appointed positions, obvious wealth but not quite known sources of income, and family factionalism, sometimes open and bitter, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was stranded in Jharkhand's Deoghar airport for nearly two hours on Friday after his special Indian Air Force aircraft developed a snag, flew back to Delhi in another plane, officials said.
Union minister Chirag Paswan, who joined politics after a failed Bollywood debut, has no plans to make a comeback in films and also jokes that he is such a 'bad actor' that even his Lok Sabha colleague and first co-star, Kangana Ranaut, will not agree to share the screen space with him again.
The BJP-ed National Democratic Alliance on Wednesday launched an all-out attack on the Bihar CM.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and party's candidate from Kalkaji, Ramesh Bidhuri, has yet again courted controversy by allegedly saying that after victory in the Delhi assembly polls next month, he will develop smooth roads in the constituency like Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi's 'cheeks'.
'Kerala will lose 6 seats, Tamil Nadu 9 seats, Telangana and Karnataka 2 seats each, Andhra Pradesh 5 seats.'
Rajiv Kumar, the 25th chief election commissioner of India, has demitted office after a nearly three-year tenure marked by both electoral successes and allegations of bias from opposition parties. Kumar oversaw the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls, among other major elections. During his tenure, he implemented reforms across various aspects of the Election Commission's functioning, including structural, technological, capacity development, communication, international cooperation, and administration. However, he faced criticism from opposition parties and activists on several issues, including the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines, alleged fudging of voter data, and being "lenient" on the ruling BJP. While the Commission responded to the allegations, Kumar often defended himself and the poll authority through poetry. In his farewell address, Kumar expressed concerns about the timing of petitions raising doubts over poll processes and the impact of freebie promises on the fiscal health of the state. He also criticized the practice of showing early trends on counting day by news channels, calling it "nonsense". Kumar's tenure was marked by numerous controversies, with opposition parties and activists alleging bias and irregularities. While the Election Commission defended its actions, the allegations cast a shadow over his time in office.
The delegation also interacted with the workers and told them not to believe in rumours and fake videos.
Just eight months after its good showing in the Lok Sabha polls, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) seems to be running out of steam with internal bickering and conflicting ambitions resulting in diminishing electoral returns that have once again put the Bharatiya Janata Party in the driver's seat in national politics.
Bihar expert Dr Shaibal Gupta tells Sheela Bhatt why the upcoming assembly election is a benchmark in the state.
Police personnel removed him and his supporters from the protest site as they were holding the demonstration near a restricted area, and thus it was "illegal", a senior officer said.
"People ask me why I am now criticising Nitish Kumar, having worked with him in the past. He was a different man back then. His conscience had not been put up for sale," said Kishor, who had managed the JD-U president's election campaign in 2015 and formally joined the party two years later.
'If I win, my victory will shatter the belief that caste is all that matters in Bihar.'
BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra in a grand ceremony at Azad Maidan in Mumbai.
A bench of Justices MR Shah and JB Pardiwala allowed the petitioner to approach the Patna high court and directed it to decide the petition expeditiously.
This Bhumihar leader has always been party supremo Kumar's strength, as this caste in Bihar is known to have wide political influence despite its small size.
The move came even as deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, while speaking in the state assembly earlier in the day, sought to go by the version of the Tamil Nadu DGP who has rubbished reports of attacks on Hindi-speaking people in that state.
Thackeray had on Monday claimed his bag was inspected by the election authorities when he arrived in Maharashtra's Yavatmal to campaign for the November 20 assembly elections.
Nitish Kumar has again proven that he is a master of the art of changing governments.
Today, a friendship forged by common ideals behind prison walls has become a transactional understanding, notes Aditi Phadnis.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Log kehte hai desh to humne Modi ko diya hua hai, par pradesh nahi diya hai (we have given Modi the mandate to run the nation, not the state).'
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
'To attribute motives to the individual election commissioner or the Election Commission as a group is very unfair.'
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor has begun a fast unto death in Patna, demanding the cancellation of a recent examination held by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC). Kishor's hunger strike comes after he gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the Nitish Kumar government to act on the demand, raised by aggrieved candidates who allege the exam was rigged. The administration has declared the hunger strike illegal as it is not the designated site for protests.
Kartik Kumar, a Rashtriya Janata Dal MLC, who became the state's law minister in the new Nitish Kumar government, resigned hours after being moved to a lesser significant Sugarcane Department on Wednesday night.
There is nothing of the level of Yes Minister, House Of Cards, Madam Secretary or Veep but there are at least 10 Hindi series and an OTT-released film or two, to whet the viewer's appetite for power-mongering, corruption and intrigue.
Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party on Wednesday named former vice chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Krishna Singh, as its candidate for the bypoll to Tarari assembly seat in Bihar.
