The Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the GST bill to compensate states for revenue loss for five years on introduction of the uniform nationwide indirect tax regime.
'Must every believing Hindu automatically be assumed to subscribe to the Hindutva project?' asks Shashi Tharoor.
'The ideal thing that should be done in Kashmir is call for an election -- before the end of the year.'
'The BJP is not the party it was 10 years ago. It has changed. It is emerging like the Congress.' 'Sometimes, I feel the BJP has taken the Congress' space.' 'Its politics is also resembling the Congress.'
Two years is when the honeymoon surely starts to sour, so what should Prime Minister Narendra Modi focus on ahead of 2019? Devanik Saha offers some ideas.
'The frequency of 'vikas' being used in speeches and slogans has reduced noticeably. Why is the 'BJP's Chanakya' so aggressive and combative?' asks Utkarsh Mishra.
'As a member of Congress, it was important to meet with Prime Minister Modi. Promoting the India-US relationship is a priority. It is important to have a constructive dialogue with the biggest democracy in the world,' US Congressman Mike Honda tells Ritu Jha/Rediff.com
"A true nationalist must have a "sense of shame" for the crimes his government commits and accept that his country is not perfect," said the eminent historian.
'The BJP has sent out a message that its allies are at its mercy.' 'The allies cannot pressurise or bargain with the BJP any more,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The government and the opposition are heading for yet another faceoff over constitution of the selection panel for the maiden Lokpal, with the Bharatiya Janata Party opposing the prime minister's proposal to appoint senior lawyer P P Rao as its fifth member.
The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach the marginalised sections of the society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from personal but also from community point of view.
What is the road ahead for Rahul Gandhi? Shehzad Poonawalla offers a blueprint.
The 'Shatrughan Sinha of the South' plunges into politics.
'According to a powerful section of the Congress the vote was anti-Congress, anti-dynasty and pro-Modi, in that order. They say Modi won because he represented and completely played upon "Bhartiyata".' 'Sonia is being accused, privately, of protecting her son at the cost of the party's interest.' 'For the first time ever, 24 Akbar Road, the Congress headquarters, is assessing the "neeyat (intent)" of the Gandhi Parivar, which has never happened before.' A Rediff Correspondent lifts the veil off the churning within the Congress party in the wake of the party's rout in the election.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's belated attempt to project himself as a statesman and a man of reason in his interviews to ANI and TV9 is being viewed with dollops of scepticism by his critics and political opponents. Anita Katyal reports.
When it came to dealing with the media and academia, it has been a roller coaster ride for the National Democratic Alliance, observes Nitin Sethi.
'On the one hand it will appeal to pan-Hindu sentiment and on the other opposition to it could well strengthen support for the BJP among Hindu voters.'
'Embedded with the divisive regime, they administer heavy doses of the opium of religion and nationalism day in and day out,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
The recent bouts of violence by suspected Bodo militias that killed over 30 hapless 'Muslims, mostly children and women, and rendered several thousands homeless in lower Assam recently, once again offers a shocking glimpse of the horrendous game of violent communalism being played by the Congress government of Assam in furtherance of its cynical power politics for the last several years.' 'The result is, the state is a simmering communal cauldron that sporadically erupts at the slightest real or imagined provocation,' says R N Ravi.
Union Minister Salman Khurshid on Wednesday criticised Bharatiya Janata Party's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for going ahead with his political rally in Patna despite the blasts at the venue in which six people were killed, saying it was a "giveaway" and exposed his true character of not caring for anyone.
'India's nationalism has always been an exceptional and great experiment.' 'We said you don't have to give up your language, your lifestyle or your religion in order to be an Indian national.' 'Nowhere in the world could you find on such a large scale such a democratic experiment of nation building based on diversity.' 'That is the greatness of India's nationalism and we are on the verge of losing that greatness.'
Many in the Bharatiya Janata Party feel that internal democracy in the party is being stifled
While PM Narendra Modi-Amit Shah dominated the national executive, senior chief ministers and 'margdarshaks' LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi were ignored
'He depended too much on assurances given by sadhus and sants. He may not be culpable, but he was wholly responsible for December 6, 1992.' 'While Manmohan Singh came to reforms out of conviction, Rao came to reforms out of compulsion. If the compulsion had not been there, I don't know how he would have responded.'
'Amid the different versions of truth on the Ishrat case, what is certain is that Ishrat's mother Shamima Kausar, who has continued to maintain that Headley's confession was nothing but an attempt by powerful people to save themselves in the case, is unlikely to find a closure anytime soon.'
The NITI Aayog will now assimilate the views of states and then present a report to the PM.
'The casting of a popular hero Ranveer as Bhansali's Khilji sends out an erroneous and contradictory missive to the lay public; a message that tends to equate a leading light with a notorious and treacherous player of medieval history,' notes Vivek Gumaste.
Union HRD minister says women in the country are not told what to wear, whom to meet and where to go.
The resurrection of AAP has a lot of similarity with BJP's revival
With Congress hubris reduced to ashes and the BJP's advance halted -- a new political force has made its entry in the turbulent waters of Indian politics. It is a new force, with people who seem to be ready to learn and who have, at every step so far, responded by taking seriously all the criticisms that were levelled at it, says Aditya Nigam.
The various meat bans across the country are an attempt to attack civil liberties, says civil rights activist Kavita Srivastava.
Any delay in passing the coal bill may cause a crisis in the coal sector which would also affect the power sector.
'For over a decade, the United States has been shaping the contours of Hinduism. It has been doing this from the perspective of upper caste and conservative interests,' Professor Shefali Chandra tells Rediff.com's Arthur J Pais.
'Nitish is now a helpless junior ally of Hindutva.' 'He just cannot think of reining in the hoodlums raging, marauding and killing in the mohallas,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Despite holding 281 seats in the Lok Sabha, the BJP-led government has promulgated as many as six ordinances to pass legislation
Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday played down reports of a rift in the party over the issue of cabinet berths and said party MLA Vinod Kumar Binny was not upset over his non-inclusion.
The ruling party's decision to serve 'disqualification' notice to three party MLAs when polling for four more assembly by-elections are due for May 19 may have been taken to keep the flock together post-results, rather than seek to lose more than already, but it has sent out alarming signals in a state ruled till recently by an Iron Lady, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I have no problem with people from the right wing who speak with a certain integrity of position.'
'You can't go on creating division and rhetoric of hate.' 'It comes to roost. We are seeing the first glimpses of that in the state elections.'
European football's governing body UEFA called for a quick decision in the case of its suspended president Michel Platini on Thursday and said the FIFA presidential election, which he is contesting, should go ahead in February as planned.
