'I won't be surprised if a third alternative to Badal and the Congress is swept to power in Punjab in 2022.'
English Premier League matches have continued behind closed doors during the second lockdown announced on November 1. Supporters have not been allowed into sporting venues since the first lockdown was announced in March, barring a few exceptions.
India and Indians can ignore Pakistan, but that cannot be said of other nations in the neighbourhood, where New Delhi's 'Neighbourhood First' policy constantly reverberates. Four of the eight SAARC member-nations are Muslim -- Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The rulers decide the nation's India or anti-India policy in the first two, and street-opinion contributes to the same in the latter two, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The chief minister still has time to repair the damage but he will have to act all-round, both at the government and party levels, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu had begun seeing Governor Ravi's decisions and actions as a part of the state BJP's non-stop criticism of its government and directed from Delhi, a view strengthened by the governor's decision to return the NEET exemption bill, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Hindutva social media continues to present the DMK especially as anti-god, anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin. The strategy did not work in the past, it has not worked in the present, and would not work in the future, as a massive vote-getter, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) scheduled to meet Tuesday, intra-party consultations in Jammu and Kashmir continued for a second day Monday to discuss the Centre's invitation for an all-party meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 24.
'...if elections were to be held today.' 'The problem is Akhilesh is not very aggressive.' 'Had he started his campaign aggressively six months ago, the picture in UP would have been very different.'
'At least half the population in UP has been infected.'
'I will try and make my panchayat a model one in Bihar.'
The view is that the attention on the national team is fleeting, incidental and dependent on the results they produce.
Two government school teachers, including a woman, were shot dead by terrorists in Eidgah area of Srinagar amid increasing attacks on civilians in Jammu and Kashmir, police said.
Modi seems to have an innate faith in his capabilities to handle the myriad challenges confronting the nation and would rather manage the affairs of the nation as a CEO would of a large industrial-business empire, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Opposing a dialogue with Pakistan till it stops 'exporting' terror into Jammu and Kashmir, a Bharatiya Janata Party delegation led by Jammu and Kashmir president Ravinder Raina at an all-party meet in New Delhi on Thursday said those seeking engagement with the neighbouring country should meet the victims of violence to understand their pain.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that international travel should be made easier through mutual recognition of vaccine certificates, amid several countries adopting different sets of rules to allow foreigners to enter their territory in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
'The Mumbai-Pune Olympics will be help shift the country's gaze to a region that denotes a new formula for sports, enterprise, and nation building,' argues Shashank Mani Tripathi.
Experts believe that under-reporting is likely to cause an underestimation of the spread of the disease.
'Sinha's skills at resolving contradictions will be required to smoothen the functioning of the bureaucracy which has been so fractious that it tripped up even a seasoned bureaucrat like his immediate predecessor, G C Murmu,' notes avid Devadas.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan was elected its Parliamentary party leader, paving the way for his successive stint as chief minister of Kerala.
Revenge he will exact from a party he had led with great aplomb until the Gandhi siblings stepped in and, in order to show who was the boss, flung him aside, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'This is against the Constitution and we will oppose it tooth and nail.'
Behind the movement are shock-workers functioning quietly to ensure that a seemingly spontaneous, apolitical, grassroots mobilisation sustains itself without dribbling into chaos or violence. Sai Manish lists some of them.
Concerns over economic slowdown, muted earnings, crisis in the auto industry and global trade issues have been weighing on investor sentiment, experts said.
'Every family in UP has been deeply affected in this second wave.' 'It has only been denial, denial, and denial by the incumbent CM.'
Likening the situation in the country to a "social emergency", Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday made it clear that the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 cannot be lifted in one go on April 14, asserting that the priority of his government is to "save each and every life".
The Padma Bhushan was conferred on 17 personalities including N Chandrasekharan, chairman of Tata Sons, Krishna and Suchita Ella of Bharat Biotech, Cyrus Poonawalla, Satya Nadella, chairman of Microsoft, Sunder Pichai, chairman of Google.
With the unanticipated floods across Tamil Nadu catching the unprepared administration unawares, Stalin finds that some of the early positives that had rubbed on his initiatives have been lost, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Vice President Hamid Ansari's wife Salma says she has a "problem" with the Women's Reservation Bill and feels that it will not be of much help unless awareness is created among women at the grassroot level.
'The Congress has indeed become overly dependent on the RJD.' 'A few Congress leaders have successfully convinced the national leadership about the benefits of maintaining ties with the RJD.'
PV Sindhu while addressing the newly-appointed Assistant Directors of the Sports Authority of India through an online session, stressed on the importance of parents, coaches, administrators working as a team to build up a champion.
"If they (some leaders) persist (with G-23) that means there is a vested interest for a few of them to work against the Congress party which we don't subscribe to and rather oppose it," the former Union minister said.
The 41-year-old 'young gun' travelled the length and breadth of the state to strengthen the party at the grassroots level and ensure its comeback.
APCC president Ripun Bora said following discussions with various parties, it has been decided that the Congress will join hands with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist and the Anchalik Gana Morcha.
Anwar, an AICC general secretary, came out with a flurry of tweets calling for 'urgent and deep introspection' over the debacle of the party, the second largest constituent of the opposition coalition, which contested as many as 70 seats but returned with a tally of just 19.
Gadgil and the report prepared by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by him are back in news after over two dozen people lost their lives in landslides and flash floods in the past few days in the hilly regions of Western Ghats in central Kerala districts of Kottayam and Idukki.
'The Tamils in military occupied areas are being denied the Right to Livelihood and Right to Life. How can India allow the Sri Lankan government to forget that there are over 80,000 war widows? Many of them are maimed, living in inhuman conditions and unable to earn a living. What concerns Tamils in Sri Lanka concerns the Tamils in India,' says Dr Gabriele Dietrich, a grassroot activist and a naturalised Indian citizen.
The second part of BJP president Amit Shah's interview to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com, to mark the completion of one year of the Narendra Modi government.
Paswan also asserted that he has been working on his 'Bihar first, Bihari first' agenda for a long time and had informed the BJP leadership about his differences with the Kumar-led government well in advance.
'Kumaraswamy is not officially the leader of the opposition. For three years and eight months of Yediyurappa's government, Siddarmaiah will officially be the leader of the opposition'