For the AIADMK's cadres, it is much more than an election symbol, they believe the party's electoral chances rest on owning it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'As his close associate Som Pal told me, "Mandal was never V P Singh's brainchild. It was a Janata Party commitment he inherited".' 'He would have done it anyway at some point, but the specific timing of his decision was dictated entirely by political exigency -- his government was threatened.' 'It also turned out to be a game changer in Indian politics.'
Maldives Supreme Court has ordered the suspension of the run-off presidential re-vote scheduled for Sunday, a day after former president Mohammed Nasheed led the first round but failed to clinch an outright majority.
Disruption is totally unacceptable in Parliamentary system, the President said.
In a huge embarrassment for the Left Front, a Commission of Inquiry into the police firing on a Youth Congress movement in 1993 killing 13 persons on Monday said that it was worse than the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
The fear that Mamata might snatch the mantle of Opposition leadership which the Gandhis firmly believe to be theirs by birthright seems to have persuaded Sonia and Rahul to give up their hoity-toity ways, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The BJP says an 'assassin' is very different from a terrorist.
The 90-minute meeting is being seen as an attempt at reconciliation between Shivpal, a Cabinet minister, and Akhilesh after intervention of the latter's father Mulayam.
SP-Congress alliance is likely to consolidate Muslim vote in their favour.
The development comes a day after the world body de-listed the Archery Association of India for violating the constitution by unanimously electing two parallel bodies in Chandigarh and New Delhi.
With Lok Sabha poll results just a week away, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said it did not believe in 'political untouchability' and was open to support from any party.
A memorandum, signed by the chief ministers or finance ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Karnataka, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab, said the terms were disruptive and a cause for concern.
New Jersey state Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula may have triumphed over his opponents in a Democratic Party debate last week, but his campaign for a House of Representatives seat is caught in a controversy. Arthur J Pais reports
1980-batch IPS officer Sulkan Singh, who was DG-Training, will replace Ahmed, a 1984-batch IPS officer, who has been shifted as the DG of Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary, a senior home department official said.
The Gujarat high court on Friday stayed the implementation of a law that makes voting compulsory in the civic body elections in the state.
Self-proclaimed heir of Rani Rashmoni, lottery baron join businessmen in the list of MP-aspirants with assets worth over Rs 100 cr, reports Abhineet Kumar.
He wrote a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi who immediately accepted his resignation and relieved him of his charge as party General Secretary.
Will Indian democracy benefit from the potential that Shashi Tharoor stores in his mind, spirit and intellect? Or will it be the saga of another leader who promised much but delivered too little, asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
A divided party -- not the quashing of the Adarsh report -- will spell doom for the Congress in Maharashtra, argues Neeta Kolhatkar.
One of the urgent tasks ahead for the new government should be to improve public trust in the executive.
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Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag will be the next Army Chief succeeding Gen Bikram Singh as the government on Tuesday appointed him to the top post, ignoring protests from Bharatiya Janata Party.
Hot on the heels of stiff opposition from its allies, the Centre on Monday decided to drop its move to name a judge to head the commission set up to probe the snooping of a young woman by Gujarat police allegedly at the behest of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
When Modi's name was called out by the Secretary General for taking oath, Members from the ruling National Democratic Alliance thumped the desk greeting the Prime Minister with slogans such as 'Modi Modi' and 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'.
'I am just making a creative film. It has nothing to do with propaganda.'
Modi: Journey of a Common Man is blatant propaganda, feels Utkarsh Mishra.
"My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency," Trump said.
In the midst of a raging row over the conversions in Agra by Hindutva outfits, the Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Friday favoured a strong law to stop forcible conversions.
Higher education policy may be at the core of the Tamil Nadu assembly polls next May, with a potential to break the ties between the ruling AIADMK in the state and the BJP counterpart at the national level, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
In the video, the former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo is seen holding a glass and drinking from it, while reportedly watching TV.
The great Indian election is over and now the wait for the results is shrinking with every passing moment. Though exit polls hint at a cakewalk for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his National Democratic Alliance, there are some battles which will be keenly observed on the result day.
The caste census has already become a hot-button issue. Unless settled earlier, it will echo loudly in the coming assembly elections and eventually in the 2024 parliamentary poll, notes Virendra Kapoor.
Alleging that the BJP-led Centre was pursuing 'vendetta politics', West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to the Union government to withdraw its order recalling Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay and allow the senior bureaucrat to work for people amid the COVID-19 crisis.
As of now, there is nothing to suggest that the 'Michaelpatti episode' has the potential to polarise Dravidian Tamil Nadu on religious lines, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Is the demoralised party trying to open its account as an Opposition party?
He claimed the word item is used in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, but the Bharatiya Janata Party tried to "mislead" by making it an issue to divert peoples attention while sensing defeat in the November 3 state bypolls.
The man, who identified himself as 'Rambhakt Gopal', was subsequently overpowered by police and detained. The gunman went live on Facebook before the brandishing the gun.
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The revived factionalism in the AIADMK, if not curbed now, has the potential to split the party vertically, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Supreme Court found enough grounds to order a CBI probe into 1,528 extra-judicial killings in Manipur between 2000 and 2012.
