Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on a two-day visit during which she is expected to discuss the fishermen's issue and rights of minority Tamils with the Lankan leadership.
'The threat of ceding space to China in Afghanistan appears to be one factor propelling our government to get a bit more active now.'
It is a question that his supporters must ask of the prime minister. It may be enjoyable for them to pass through this phase of going after other Indians. But once this has been achieved to satisfaction, then what?, questions Aakar Patel.
Voters in Sri Lanka's Tamil majority Northern Province on Saturday began voting in the first local elections in 25 years to elect a council to govern the former war zone, four years after the military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after decades of bloody civil war.
The consequences are dire as essential medical treatments, including dialysis, and medicines for cancer and anti-AIDS drugs remain out of reach for those in desperate need.
'What's happening in Gaza is another ethnic cleansing, a repeat of what happened in 1948.' 'That is why people do not want to evacuate. Either you evacuate or you die.'
'But he was very quick and did a very stylish adab.' 'Of course, I didn't expect him to hug.'
'How can such barbarity, bestiality, happen in modern India?'
India on Thursday abstained on a draft resolution in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka which was adopted.
'But unlike Bond who killed an individual, Israel is killing a nation.'
'The way discrimination against Muslims has become almost normalised is very upsetting.'
For the most battle-hardened, specialised and successful counter-insurgency army in the world, this is an unfamiliar, first-time experience of dealing with the north east's deepest complexities, observes Shekhar Gupta.
With corruption rankings, the White-Anglo-Saxon-White Caucasian countries have succeeded in discovering a replacement for the old form of imperialistically deracinating the rest of the world, argues Sudarshan Madabushi.
'Why is it that no other institutions are attacked? Why are only educational institutions run by Christians attacked?'
About one-third of the world's poor live in India but there are countries where 88 per cent of population is extremely poor.
'It was always anticipated that the return of the Taliban would embolden armed Islamists including anti-India groups like the Lashkar and Jaish.'
The United Nations Human Rights Council has accused Sri Lanka of sabotaging a UN-mandated probe into the country's nearly three decades-long brutal civil war, drawing a sharp reaction from Colombo as it dismissed the charges.
'The path to a resolution of the ethnic conflict is likely to be complicated and controversial with the majority Sinhalese community, and will become less likely if delayed.' 'It will certainly give Rajapaksa fresh political oxygen with which to revive himself and rally the opposition.'
Sri Lanka's Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Jayantha Perera on Monday allayed India's fears on increasing Chinese military presence in the island nation, as he categorically stated that his nation will never compromise on India's national security or for that matter of any other country.
Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo overdoses on sex, violence and drugs without an inkling of plot or purpose, feels Sukanya Verma.
Jaishankar also emphasised the need for ensuring that Kabul's neighbours are not "threatened by terrorism, separatism and extremism".
Retired batsman Ross Taylor has revealed he was offended by race-based remarks from team-mates and staff in New Zealand dressing rooms during his career and said the country's cricket board could do more to bring Polynesian talent into the sport.
India said on Thursday that it desired normal relations with all its neighbours, including Pakistan, and advised Islamabad to create a conducive atmosphere, including by taking "credible, verifiable and irreversible actions" to stop cross border terrorism against it and enable the two countries to engage and address issues bilaterally.
'We will raise our voice against AFSPA,' the JNUSU president said at an event.
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday warned Sri Lanka that "true reconciliation" with Tamils will take time, even as he praised the "openness" of the new government in efforts to boost democracy, human rights and reaching out to the minority community.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who made a rare visit this week to the restive Xinjiang region which borders Ladakh, met the troops and officers stationed there and praised their "outstanding contributions" to the border defence and stabilisation of the volatile province.
Sri Lanka's main Tamil party on Sunday secured a landslide win in the historic provincial council polls held after a gap of 25 years in the former Tamil Tigers-ruled northern province, an outcome expected to give limited autonomy to the Tamils after the end of decades of ethnic war.
'As soon as the violence broke out, they should have stepped in and sent a message that the state is there to stop this violence.' 'Had they done it right there, the situation would not have gone out of control.'
In a rare public admission of Pakistani links to militancy in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, the official media in Beijing said the co-founder of the Al Qaeda linked East Turkestan Islamic Movement was indoctrinated in a madarasa in that country.
India, which abstained during the vote on a strong resolution against Sri Lanka's human rights practices at the UNHRC, on Tuesday urged Colombo to fulfill its commitments on the devolution of political authority, to carry forward the process of reconciliation and address the aspirations of the Tamil community in the island nation.
The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has submitted before the Supreme Court that it is discriminatory to exclude Tamil refugees from the purview of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and prayed that the legislation be declared null and void as it is unconstitutional and "destroys the basic fabric of secularism."
Ahmed Shah Massoud's assassination, 9/11 and the defeat and ejection of the Taliban suggested a break in Afghanistan's history, but the events of August 2021 and the Taliban's return shows how deeper continuities remained in place, points out T C A Raghavan, former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan.
Representatives of several northeastern organisations on Monday rejected the committee formed by the Centre to suggest remedial measures to address their concerns.
Bhediya is an easy, entertaining watch, raves Sukanya Verma.
India on Friday launched a no-holds-barred attack on Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for his 'uncivilised' outburst against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the comments were a 'new low' even for that country.
Future conflict will involve bypassing of frontiers to strike at critical vulnerabilities directly and in the hinterland at the appropriate time, explains Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd), who served as chief of the Integrated Defence Staff and Central Army Commander.
'Under National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and now Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, India began to actively work on Pakistani internal faultlines with a possibility of the break-up of Pakistan as the only solution,' observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
I binged on various shows this year -- some for work, some for pleasure, few I couldn't spare time for, others I didn't have access to while some started out fabulously only to fizzle towards the end.
