'The handling of the pandemic, under this totally constitutional and legal three-level dictatorship, has begun to show its downside,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
Many in party believe that Advani will be left out as the group of veterans supporting him will not stick together for long.
The bill is unlikely to have a smooth passage in the committee with the Congress party making it clear that "there is no compromise on the land bill."
The United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and NATO have expressed concern on the new law and warned of retaliatory measures.
With a substantially weakened Left Front and the Congress, political observers say the anti-Trinamool vote will go to the BJP.
The insurance Bill seeks to increase the cap on shareholding of foreign investors
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
The 2020 assembly polls marked the coming of age of a politician who valiantly went down fighting an army of battle-hardened veterans.
In an embarrassment to the United Progressive Alliance, voices of dissent emerged from within the Congress over the government's decision to bring an ordinance on convicted lawmakers with Union Minister Milind Deora today apprehending that the move "can endanger already eroding public faith in democracy".
The defence minister also called the bickering against the deal as "disservice" to the armed forces, asserting that urgent requirement of the Indian Air Force was the main reason for sealing it.
Sardar Udham sets a great standard which, Utkarsh Mishra believes, would be emulated by other film-makers who want to make movies of this genre.
The session of Rajya Sabha came to an end on Friday after passing 12 bills and wasting 19 hours due to disruptions over various issues like imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand and AgustaWestland helicopter deal controversy.
'Ours is a diverse culture and we ought to respect each other's customs. People must not be coerced into exhibiting their patriotism in one particular way'
Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla has rejected the contention that Muslims are feeling insecure under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime and said the community has felt alienated since Independence because of the policies of successive Congress governments.
He has been removed from the high-profile post on the charges of corruption and dereliction of duty making him the first chief in the history of the agency to face such action.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is meeting state finance ministers on Thursday to garner support for the Constitution Amendment Bill for a goods & services tax (GST), is likely to immediately dole out about Rs 13,000 crore (Rs 130 billion) in Central Sales Tax (CST) compensation to states.
Opposition does not stall legislative agenda; Upper House passes two bills.
"The solution to terror is peace, development and progress and not unemployment, hatred and fear," he said.
In an era when the misguided youth of today are trying to build political careers by subscribing to divisive ideologies, they need to look to independent thinking icons such as Acharya Kripalani, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Uncertainty looms over the Insurance Bill as the Congress looks unlikely to support it in the current session of Parliament which is what the Modi government is looking at as a 'gift' to United States President Barrack Obama who comes to India in January. Renu Mittal/Rediff.com reports
'Benares has always encouraged healthy debate where disagreement and dissent was never frowned upon. Today, the people are faced with a situation where a political opponent is not being allowed to give election speeches and is being physically attacked.' 'We are going to hand over power to a person who has a reputation of being dictatorial, who does not brook dissent and is known to be vindictive to his opponents,' author Kashinath Singh tells Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Wednesday lauded his arch political rival -- Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa -- for her decision to release the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
'I am as Bengali as they come in my cultural and personal orientation and I think probably all the BJP candidates who are contesting are pretty non-vegetarian in their food and as Bengali in their cultural orientation.'
The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday approved the biggest tax reform since Independence.
'We are in the presence of a truly great politician,' says Aakar Patel.
There is growing alarm at the inexorable rise of China, both of its military prowess and its aggressive bullying of other countries plus its subjugation of whole portions of its own population.
'When he has been retired against his will, Advani appears to have found the merits of tolerance.' 'It took his one-time pupil to teach the old man his own lesson,' says Aakar Patel.
'What is there to worry about, he has asked, when there is so much freedom in the country?' 'Freedom can never be adequate, as Kher seems to think.' 'Its presence should be so pervasive that all citizens will feel secure and expect justice to be done if anything untoward happens,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
'I would rather have an HRD minister who concentrates on her job rather than bicker on Twitter.'
Amid growing demands for his resignation, Kumar told the MHRD officials that efforts were being made to facilitate semester registration for 'willing' students.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A day after the arrest of an MP of her party in connection with the Saradah scam, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launched a blistering attack against the Modi government, accusing it of "selective vendetta" against her and the party and dared the Centre to impose President's rule and arrest her.
TMC MP Professor Sugata Bose spoke eloquently on the topic of nationalism vs the freedom to dissent, whilst presenting a balanced view on the need to protect constitutional freedoms.
The first priority for the new Tibetan administration in Dharamsala should be to look at Tibetan recruitment in the PLA, suggests Claude Arpi.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday made a veiled attack on Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal, telling them "neither populism nor individualism" is an alternative way of governance and expressed confidence that people will entrust responsibility to a "hand" that works for equity.
An adverse judgement could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant.
A major slugfest erupted on Thursday over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Chandan Mitra's demand for stripping Nobel laureate Amartya Sen of the Bharat Ratna award and the economist offering to return it if Atal Bihari Vajpayee asks him to do so.
'In the hands of a majoritarian government, with utter contempt for the cultural plurality and diversity of our great nation, the pipe dream of making Hindi the sole official language takes on nightmarish proportions.'
'Wisdom demands Modi moves to restore the critical institutions of the State and dial back on the cult building around his persona,' say Sonali Ranade and Shealja Sharma.
