In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar blames the media for the recent controversy over his remarks on Narendra Modi's handling of 2002 Godhra riots in an interview to The New York Times.
The film revolves around a sharp con artist who cleverly exploits our secret desire to make easy money through the most fantastic scams.
Lashing out at "rootless wonders and spineless creepers" for his party's plight, senior Congress leader Kishore Chandra Deo has said that the Congress would not have come to such a pass if Rahul Gandhi had ensured implementation of half the promises made after he became vice president.
'The BJP, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are celebrating their biggest ideological and philosophical victory in some time,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'We are certainly disappointed by our inability to win a single seat in the valley... We will analyse what led to this kind of dismal -- in terms of seats -- non-performance by the BJP.' 'I certainly don't want to attribute any religious or so-called communal reasons for it; for the simple reason, that even in Ladakh, a Buddhist majority area, we failed to win seats.' BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav, the man in charge of the party's election campaign in J&K, discusses the verdict with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
The various meat bans across the country are an attempt to attack civil liberties, says civil rights activist Kavita Srivastava.
About 3,000 internet connections, including those of the Ministry of Defence, security agencies, the Central Bureau of Intelligence and banks in Delhi, have been found to be compromised, probably for snooping from foreign locations, according to a report submitted by cyber security experts to government.
The Supreme Court has not only exposed the BJP government's intentions, it has also questioned the government's credibility, which is a serious blow, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
The only objective of the government's ordinance was to protect it's loyal ally, says BJP's Arun Jaitley
'Kofi Annan will be remembered more for his Nobel Prize and related glory rather than Rwanda and Volcker,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan with whom he worked in the UN.
India's secular democracy remains mortgaged to rabid communal politics. Quite clearly, the bloodshed by the religious communities is absolutely political. Even non-BJP political formations have their own Narendra Modis, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Modi's abject capitulation will play out badly in his core constituency.' 'The bulk of our strategic community is under the impression that India under Modi has already become a superpower.' 'They don't even want to look at the country's emaciated limbs or its asthmatic problems,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Let us see the problem for what it actually is: Illegal Immigration plain and simple, confined to the northeast with a definite communal slant that poses a national security risk and one that needs to be dealt with firmly and promptly by stringent identification (and deportation), says Vivek Gumaste.
'Since Pranab Mukherjee is the Custodian of the Constitution, he should present practical ideas to solve the problems he has been so outspokenly highlighting,' feels Sudheendra Kulkarni.
From a national point of view, inflation is the biggest threat posed by finance ministers.
'Whenever a new film of his releases, he uses politics to hype his film.' 'Her party can manage for a short period without Jayalalithaa as the chief minister but if her absence is for a long term, the AIADMK will start crumbling and disintegrating.' 'What keeps the DMK going despite its corrupt image is it is a democratic party in comparison to the AIADMK... Also, many social welfare measures in Tamil Nadu were brought in by the DMK. So they do have a place in the political scene despite corruption.' Gnani Sankaran, the well-known political analyst, discusses the fallout of Jayalalithaa's conviction on Tamil Nadu politics with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
'Kanhaiya Kumar and others of his ilk are now out on bail. But what about the NIT 'anti-nationals'?' asks Amulya Ganguli.
'The top level will be development and then sab ka saath, sab ka vikas.' 'But at the street level, the tongue will be vicious.'
The truth is that few ministries in the Modi sarkar are working on new and updated legislation of any kind.
The pass percentage of government school students of Class XII was 90.68 per cent, while 88.35 per cent students from private schools cleared the exams.
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
'Aggravated fears about the fate of Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution have reopened old wounds and laid bare the widening emotional distance between Srinagar and New Delhi,' says Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
'Let us not say that Modi has not delivered on anything; he has delivered something and in parts substantially, but he has to also deliver on a large number of his electoral promises.'
'In Modi's moral majority, words like security become problematic and a moral majority can turn devastatingly inquisitorial. It turns history into a preferred flatland of the nation State challenging cultural diversity in the name of majoritarianism expressed as patriotism. Dissent almost immediately becomes seditious,' says Shiv Visvanathan.
When Rajni Kothari pointed towards a new democratic alignment in India.
With what joyous expectations I welcomed you! You have tumbled me into a cauldron of gloomy forebodings, says B S Raghavan.
'The success or otherwise of Modi's foreign policy will largely depend on the equation he is likely to strike with Donald Trump.'
Pakistan National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz brings to New Delhi a newfound Pakistani confidence, stemming from its leverage in Afghanistan, says Ajai Shukla
The 'secularists'are more adept at the politics of intense and alarmingly exaggerated fear-mongering, as this kind of politics provides easy votes of Muslims without making them answerable for the concrete issues of poverty, unemployment, lawlessness, and of basic needs like roads, electricity, etc, which is exactly how Nitish Kumar was defeated in the elections, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Jayalalithaa's attack on BJP's PM hopeful a little too late in the coming, says N Sathiya Moorthy
Narendra Modi's mother washed utensils to make a living. Madhusudan Mistry's grandmother, who brought him up, was a vegetable vendor. Mistry's trajectory from poverty to membership of the all powerful Congress Working Committee is moving. the man who has Rahul Gandhi's ear and is all set to take on Narendra Modi in Vadodara, speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt in a fascinating interview.
Ironically, it was the members of the BJP (which the Indian press loves to dub as fascist) who resisted the assault on democracy and were jailed for 18 months. The RSS too played a stellar role in the resistance movement during the Emergency. Yet by some strange warped logic, the Indian media deems the Congress party with an established record of authoritarianism as a standard bearer of democracy while damning a true champion -- the BJP, says Vivek Gumaste
Businessmen love low import duties on their inputs and high duties on their outputs. And the Bharatiya Janata Party has a keen ear for business sentiment.
The drive against insider trading comes after SEBI last year received enhanced investigation powers from parliament, including the ability to monitor call records.
'The consolation is that in recent years, the focus at the time of the anniversary has been increasingly shifting from Indira Gandhi's assassination to the plight of the thousands of innocent Sikhs who had been killed in retaliation,' Manoj Mitta, co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
'When I started reading Tamas I instantly knew it had to be made into a film. I could relate to the tragedy in the lives of the characters.' Govind Nihalani remembers Bhisham Sahni on his centenary.
'We are witnessing a spectacle of breathtakingly creative diplomacy at work, riveted on the firm foundations of the country's strategic autonomy,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Common people expect the government to be aggressive and opt for growth related measures in the upcoming Budget.
Peter said he needed a broom to sweep his cell because, he joked, there are no vacuum cleaners in jail.
