Prasad alleged there was pressure for extraneous considerations and 'bribe' for not finalising the Rafale deal during the UPA rule.
Ordnance Factory Board officials say upgrading the 39-calibre FH-77 into the 45-calibre Dhanush has increased the gun's range from 27 to 38 kilometres, using enhanced range ammunition.
In all the time he has spent in bank and ATM queues, these are the 10 arguments that were being thrown at him constantly by those supporting the demonetisation, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Jignesh Mevani has many strengths: Youth, articulation, fearlessness, proficiency with social media, political and ideological flexibility.' 'Also focus, as in targeting the BJP as the one and only enemy for now and using that justification to align with the rest,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Dubbing the next election a choice between governance and development on one side and chaos on the other, the prime minister cited the example of Karnataka, where the Congress-Janata Dal(Secular) alliance 'stole the mandate' to form government with 'development taking a back seat'.
Currently women are allowed in a number of select areas including in medical, legal, educational, signals and engineering wings of the army.
'It is palpably prejudiced and totally at variance with public and historical opinion.' 'As a result, he cannot be taken seriously in other matters as well because of his penchant for playing safe,' says Amulya Ganguli.
If Ramdev weren't a Baba, but a mere salesman, what would he make of a medicine or a herb named Putrajeevak Beej.
Delhi's air is a desperate problem, but some of the solutions have been too desperate and unthinking.
For successive governments the Election Commission remains a 'holy cow', where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Politicians have continued taking people for granted and managed to stay above the law, says T N Ninan
Narendra Modi promised to be A B de Villiers but has batted like a Geoff Boycott, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan
'They know it can embarrass them, as this surely isn't 1962.' 'They also know the moment they fire the first shot, all insecure powers in their front-yard, Australia to Japan and all the way westwards to India, will be brought together overnight, not something the deputy superpower wants,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Downplaying the allegations made by the Congress and former French President Francois Hollande's statement that the Indian government played a role in finalising Reliance Defence as Dassault Aviation's offset partner, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that some statements are made to create controversy and these do not have credibility. In an exclusive interview to ANI, Jaitley added that circumstances and fact prove these statements wrong.
T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan on what's so fascinating about politics that books by journalists about it sell so well.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday said with slew of graft cases surfacing during the UPA government, corruption has taken the shape of a "small scale industry", and the upcoming Lok Sabha polls will be a fight between morality and immorality.
The AgustaWestland issue was fiercely debated in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday with members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress blaming each other.
Accurate and sustained firepower against Pakistan during the Kargil War helped Indian soldiers to reduce the enemy to rubble.
Nirmala Sitharaman has a God given opportunity to orchestrate a transformation in India's defence capabilities. One hopes she has her own counsel and does not overly let the PMO run her ship, says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
Gandhi had on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of "hiding behind the blood of soldiers".
'It is time someone told BJP leaders that they were not elected to remind people of Congress corruption. The people of India voted for Narendra Modi and the BJP because they believed that he and his party were clean, unlike the Congress-led government,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Accused No 1 announced that there had been a change in the circumstances of her health condition. She produced a thick 19-page document, written in her neat, very feminine handwriting, detailing her condition, its symptoms and the consequences it could have on her health and well-being.
'She has to get the funds, cut through bureaucratic flab, speed up modernisation, ensure planned acquisitions stick to timelines, make organisational changes and ensure the military is capable of performing the task that it is given,' says Brigadier S K Chatterjee (retd).
A man of perseverance and great survivor, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had an astute political sense honed by decades of experience in Kashmir politics that has stood him in good stead in crafting a delicate alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party to return as chief minister for the second time.
'In the last one year, it looks like there were bad things that didn't take place, and there were good things that didn't take place,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
The Congress party's campaign for resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in Parliament on Wednesday came to a naught as the minister made a spirited defence.
If Wednesday was any indication, the rest of the Parliament session will see the two sides scoring brownie points against each other, and the Gandhis can expect more enemy fire directed at them, says Rashme Sehgal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's hot saffronite swami is yoga teacher Ramdev.
India is observing the sixteenth anniversary of the Kargil War this week.
'Even if the anti-Modi 'Mahagatbandhan' gets a majority there is simply no way that Nitish Kumar can ensure even a stable government, leave alone a good -- clean, development-oriented -- government,' argues T V R Shenoy.
Though Indians were no strangers to scams, spectrum loss was beyond their wildest imagination.
Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com decodes why Modi has decided to retain her in the Union Cabinet despite this controversy and their many internal differences.
'Modi and Shah know their politics. That is why the alarmed switch to reservations, and raising the threat from 'vote bank' politics,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Governments must give companies a hearing before blacklisting them.
'It is the government's most important duty to ensure that when war breaks out, the armed forces are absolutely ready to face the adversary -- well equipped, well trained and in high spirits,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'One won't find a lawyer in any court in the country willing to believe that a talented lawyer like Bansuri Swaraj would appear in a case for free, that too in a metropolis like Delhi.' These and other Sheela Bhatt takeways from the August 12 proceedings in the Lok Sabha.
'Judging by the conduct of two governors of Kerala and one governor from Kerala, Congressmen treated Raj Bhavan as a transition point before taking a flight back into active politics.'
'Modi's victory is his own victory. Now what he has done thereafter, it seems to me, leads us to believe that he was a bit too prolific with his promises.' 'One achievement of Modi's I will praise is that he has put the fear of God among his ministers and officials.' 'Indira Gandhi's sentiment of controlling everything, centralising power in to her hands is the quality that persists in Modi' Veteran journalist Inder Malhotra casts his experienced gaze on one year of the Modi Sarkar.
'How can middlemen disappear as long as our political parties are sucking in massive amounts of black money?' 'There is an old political art well practised in New Delhi -- people create artificial problems and then solve it for you to earn your gratitude for a lifetime.'
India still has to go a long way to implement reforms in various sectors.
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