'As he has no executive track record, so far, he is all talk and hence essentially a braggart and a bigot.' 'That he is described as the 'Trump of the tropics' should give a shorthand summary to what he stands for on issues in general,' points out Ambassador B S Prakash, India's former envoy to Brazil.
Even as political parties in TN have decided not to field a candidate against CM Jayalalithaa in the assembly by-election, the BJP's ambivalence has shown up once again.
Indian govt must find solution to ever increasing LPG subsidy. Govt must cap LPG subsidy.
The Karnataka government is divided over filing an appeal in the Supreme Court against the acquittal of former Tamil Nadu chief minister. N Sathiya Moorthy analyses the possibilities
With a middle class still so small and no apparent leaps in productivity on the farm or in manufacturing on the horizon, India faces its own age of diminished expectations.
The new land Acquisition Bill has many implications.
According to convention, Lieutenant General Praveen Bakshi should be named as General Dalbir Singh Suhag's successor as army chief
Sanjeev Nayyar suggests 16 measures by which we can tackle our unrelenting and untrustworthy neighbour.
It seems the Congress just does not have the energy and vitality to break through even in the states where it has a ground presence and the wind of anti-incumbency on its back, says Aakar Patel.
To do so, the government will have to tackle a number of broad development challenges successfully, says Shankar Acharya
The Bharatiya Janata Party regime will have to make good on this election slogan to restore state-owned banks to health, says Rajiv Lall.
In a blow to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa, the Karnataka high court on Tuesday rejected her bail plea in the disproportionate assets case, saying there was no ground to grant her the relief.
'The government's principal aim should be to reduce the volume of cash transactions.' 'That would bring more of the Indian economy within the purview of taxation.' 'The current downturn in economic activity due to a lack of adequate cash is likely to be limited to a year,'
'It will be interesting to see how Dr Patel handles gadflies with the maturity of egregiously petulant three year olds.' 'That Dr Patel does not, in so far as we can tell, cause society matrons to gush like hormonal teenagers can only be a good thing for him.' 'Look where their febrile imaginations and breathless prose took his predecessor.'
The year threw up quite a few shockers, some rather rude one. Below are Rediff.com's 12 picks that made us sit back and think, 'Did that really happen?'
'They are completely corrupt and have introduced a mafia culture which has seen one family control the entire resources of the state.'
The presence of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was not the only reason why Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa stayed away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Alas, in this scheme there is nothing to stop the black money flows of the future.' 'On the contrary Modi has sown the seeds of more, through the issue of Rs 2,000 notes.' 'But have you heard one politician decrying this aspect of the scheme?' 'They must be secretly rejoicing that while Modi is taking away their past, he has not shut the door on their future,' says banker S Muralidharan.
'Flush with funds, lending became a cash management exercise.' 'Road projects, power generation plants, airports etc were financed left and right with apparently no regard for the projects' ability to repay,' explains S Muralidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
There it lay, a photograph on the desk under a stapler, and later a stamp pad, forgotten, done with, like its subject, a Mumbai Metro One employee who vanished overnight.
The Maoist-infested state needs a visionary leader and Hemant Soren is definitely not one, opines Aditi Phadnis
Of the 300 operational malls in the country, just 5-7 per cent, or about 20 malls, are doing well, suggest analysts reports.
"The poor will not suffer disproportionately due to bouts of sharp inflation, and the middle class will not see its savings eroded," Raghuram Rajan said.
To elect, or re-elect a chief minister, the AIADMK needs to call only the MLAs for a meeting. But to elect a new general secretary, it would have to conduct direct elections with all registered cadres participating and voting. And that is just the beginning of its problems, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa could not "satisfactorily account" for immovable properties and pecuniary resources of the value of Rs 53.6 crore when she was the Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, the Special Court that sentenced her to four years in jail has held.
Modi government needs to focus more.
'The BJP can kill two birds with one stone by wresting back control of the message; and the steps are fairly obvious. Once the media is neutral, there is a level playing field,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
Even retail investors are talking about investing in start-ups.
Harsh Sethi, consulting editor of Seminar magazine, is an analyst who is always lucid and sharp in his commentaries on human rights and development and issues related to politics or nation building. In a rare interview to rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt he spoke on the broader issues related to Congress party's endorsement to a separate Telangana state.
'Compared to other social groups, managing the Muslim constituency has always been easier for the secularists.' 'Just some symbolic measures and window-dressing would keep the Muslim flock together.' 'Having been betrayed by all the supposedly 'secular' political parties, Muslims should turn into citizens without any ascriptive identity marks,'says Mohammad Sajjad.
Do Modi's foreign visits actually serve India or they nothing more than expensive tools for domestic positioning and image-building, asks Shehzad Poonawalla.
'If Indian armed forces entered Pakistan and succeeded in inflicting major damage on the Pakistani army and occupied territory in the Pakistani heartland, there is reason to think the Pakistani military would use some nuclear weapons against the incoming Indian forces to compel India to stop.'
While even the Opposition doesn't believe that Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is personally involved in the solar scam, the Congress leaders reputation has been tainted. And while he tells Indulekha Aravind that it is only a conspiracy, it may have a bearing on the coming general elections
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