'It will be a grand alliance where they could get the Muslims, Dalits and Yadavs in one camp and pose a serious challenge to whatever the BJP might conjure up in the run-up to the 2019 election.'
Some within the BJP see Amit Shah's entry into the Rajya Sabha as the party's succession plan for 2025 when Narendra Modi turns 75.
'Local support is very important, without it the terror attack couldn't have taken place.' 'Explosives were secured, the IED was manufactured, the boy was brainwashed and converted into a suicide bomber... it takes a lot of planning and hard work.'
Assam's new Director General of Police, Khagen Sarma on Friday said that Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services intelligence and other external forces are behind United Liberation Front of Asom (anti-talks) faction leader Paresh Baruah's efforts to form a common force comprising all northeastern insurgent groups to fight Indian security forces
Gulail.com and Cobrapost.com on Friday came out with a sting operation of the alleged illegal phone tapping done on a Bangalore woman in 2009 reportedly under the instructions of former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah -- a confidant of Narendra Modi and who is now leading the Bharatiya Janata Party's charge in Uttar Pradesh -- and the state police.
With the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) planning to create disturbances to mark its decade of formation this September, police is bracing up to counter any such move and make people aware about the "futility" of the rebel movements.
Exactly a month after the Burdwan blast in which two suspected terrorists were killed, the National Investigation Agency appears to have made no substantial headway.
The National Investigation Agency said the accused persons arrested in the Burdwan blast case and their associates were members of terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Bangladesh, who were preparing IEDs for transporting them to that country for possible terror attacks.
For the first time in its three decade-old history, the country's elite counter-terror force National Security Guard has begun training its commandos in undertaking precision hostage rescue missions in jungles keeping in view emerging Naxalite tactics aimed at capturing high-value targets.
'The government is in no hurry to talk to the separatists and would like to approach the Kashmiri people directly through various other organisations.' 'Officials in charge of J&K affairs at the Centre are clear that there would be no let up in the operations against terrorists,' reveals BharatShakti.in founder Nitin A Gokhale.
'An operation such as the Mumbai attacks, which needed expert technical assessment, money and time to prepare, could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the ISI's leadership.'
'Islamic State has declared that the liberation of Islamic Xinjiang from China is an objective. Beijing may well find that Pakistan is unable to assist in any meaningful way,' says China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
'Think about how he would have handled Hyderabad, and JNU. He would have been very cross if he found two of his Cabinet ministers weighing in on the side of the ABVP.' 'And if Rohith Vemula still killed himself, he would have been the first to speak out in anguish and empathy rather than deny he was a Dalit.' 'And JNU, he would have simply said something like, 'let the boys speak, then they will grow up and join the IAS).' 'A good idea, when in crisis, is to apply the 'Vajpayee test' to your actions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Politics is not a post for retired people to enjoy.'
'Sriram Raghavan is mainstream Hindi cinema's greatest gift to us,' declares Sreehari Nair after watching the director's latest movie caper.
'These cow vigilantes would not even have touched a cow in their lives.' 'They are rowdy elements who are paid mercenaries...'
Read what the ex-chief of R&AW, A S Dulat, told our readers on Rediff Chat!
'The Left's decline is now a reality, both nationally and in West Bengal.'Behind it lie: Ideological rigidity and confusion, outdated party programmes... a socially conservative upper-caste leadership,' says Praful Bidwai.
'I am hopeful of getting all six seats from Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, either for the BJP or with our allies.' 'The same is true about Meghalaya.' 'We will have to work hard in Mizoram and in Tripura.' 'In Assam, we won seven seats. In 2019 election, we will add to this number.'
Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Al Qaeda were convinced that 26/11 attack masterminds Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur Rehman would face only "superficial" action from the Pakistani authorities and within months plans were afoot for another terror strike in India, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley said on Saturday.
'The government made a mess.' 'When there is a director, how can you have an in-charge director?' 'Then, they shifted all the 14 officers who were working on the Asthana case which has never happened in the history of the CBI.'
'His essential doctrine was only the local police can fight terror.' '"You can't fire at mobs throwing stones," he said, adding one has to think innovatively, even defensively, sometimes.' Shekhar Gupta remembers the uncoventional SuperCop.
Stepping up his offensive, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday hit out at BJP's ideological mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh saying its belief was "murdering" individuality and that thought process is now running the country in which only one man knows everything from farmers to clothes.
Outlawed outfit Students Islamic Movement of India's possible role has come under the scanner of investigators probing the terror attack outside a restaurant here that killed a woman and injured three others, as government announced a raft of measures to ramp up security, particularly in crowded areas.
'He is still compulsively an operations man. Just a whiff of a live operation, and he is back in the field, at least in his mind. That is why the immediate decision to send the NSG to Pathankot.' 'But there is a difference between classical intelligence or counter-terror operation and dealing with a larger threat to a place as sensitive and sprawling as an air force base. This is what led to confusion and mix-ups,' says Shekhar Gupta.
This is possibly the last election in Bengal where two sides are squaring off against each other. Don't expect the BJP to be a bystander five years hence, says Devanik Saha.
In all the highs and lows that India's most powerful, and only woman, prime minister faced in her life, the death of her younger son Sanjay was probably the most soul-destroying.
A former Maoist speaks to Shobha Warrier
'At Ramjas too, slogans for Kashmir's azaadi were heard. We won't let DU become JNU.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on range of issues -- from Rafale deal to Ram temple and triple talaq.
The illegal snooping row intensified on Monday with the Bharatiya Janata Party rejecting Congress demand for a probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge and the ruling party accusing Narendra Modi of heading a "fascist" set up in Gujarat under which a woman was allegedly ordered to be stalked.
Thousands of people have lost their lives and thousands more displaced in the violence in South Sudan. The United Nations mission and humanitarian agencies are under strain to protect camps and to provide internally displaced persons with water, food and other emergency relief. What flared up as a political conflict in South Sudan is now assuming an ethnic character.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir has cleverly avoided any intense global scrutiny while spreading its ideology and support base in nearly 50 countries
Dharmendra Kumar Singh explains the four major factors that contributed to Modi's win in the 2014 elections.
'Minorities should not fear a Modi sarkar... Who has given the right to kill in the name of religion? No one! You are not James Bond 007, that you will just take a shotgun and kill anybody at your whims and fancies. We are not living in a banana republic...' The inimitable Shatrughan Sinha on Narendra Modi as a dabbang action hero, what a Modi Sarkar would be like.
In this May 2014 interview with Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com, the politically conscious Karnad spoke of why he is concerned about Modi coming to power.
This time however, the poll panel did not share the overall polling percentage at its briefing.
The question really is whether the US can be persuaded to embark on a path of calibrated and stronger sanctions on Pakistan.
A lack of understanding on how to tackle the Maoist challenge is adversely affecting security operations on the ground and not the inefficiency or inability of the security forces to put pressure on the Maoists, says former Chhattisgarh top cop Vishwa Ranjan.
'Dalits are not going to vote for the BJP in 2019.'