If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
'We have Hindu values, Hindu customs, Hindu philosophy, Hindu way of looking at all religions as acceptable.' 'These are all great assets of India.'
'They are happy for the Hindu community as Ram Lalla is consecrated in Ayodhya.'
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday said Hindu migrants from Bangladesh must be accommodated in the country and detention camps would be done away with once his party comes to power.
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
Lal Salaam is not a movie A Ganesh Nadar would recommend.
What he has said is shocking and shameful, former Union minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said, noting that the son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has repeated his remarks.
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.
'We are very close to become a theocratic State where Hinduism is the official religion of the government.'
There was a clear polarisation of Christian and (especially) Muslim votes in favour of the UDF. This caused enough misgivings to start a consolidation of Hindu votes behind the LDF, says T V R Shenoy.
They all seem to forget that the Music Academy is as much an independent institution as T M Krishna is an individual musician. In drawing those red lines for the Academy management, they do not even seem to recognise that they too have crossed a red line themselves, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If someone is trying to do a vote bank politics under the garb of the CAB then it is not in the interest of the country'
'Till today, the RSS only speaks of Hindu Rashtra but never explains what it means. It cannot, because it would be unacceptable to even a majority of Hindus, forget the Indian Muslims and Christians,' says Aakar Patel.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud posted the matter for resumed hearing on April 9.
Sukanta Majumdar, the state BJP president, said, "Amit Shah has set a target of 35 seats. We will achieve that".
"Which foreign powers may be interested in taking advantage of unrest and instability in Manipur? Does the geopolitics of south east Asia also have a role in these events," he asked.
The Opposition's stand on the Ayodhya consecration is puzzling. Their only objection seems to be that the BJP has hijacked a religious event for political benefit. In saying this, the Opposition is either being naive or hypocritical, argues Jyoti Punwani.
With declared assets worth over Rs 600 crore, Chennur Congress candidate G Vivekananda is the richest politician contesting in the November 30 assembly polls, followed by P Srinivas Reddy from the same party with over Rs 460 crore.
'Laluji is like my father and I am like his son.'
'The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think.' 'That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.'
Springing a surprise, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday picked Mohan Yadav, a leader of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and a three-time MLA, as the next chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, state party president VD Sharma said.
In a setback for the ruling Left front in Kerala, the high court in Kochi on Monday set aside the election of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's A Raja from the Devikulam assembly seat in Idukki district.
More than 10 speakers made their case during the no-confidence vote, the first faced by the Narendra Modi government. Here's a selection of the best speeches.
'If PM has some concrete information against gau rakshaks then he must disclose it, otherwise we will take legal action against him.'
In the Interim Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a high power committee would be set up to consider the challenges arising from 'fast population grown and demographic changes.' 'But who wants data? It pays to feed people's fears, insecurities and apprehensions. If such fears don't exist, they must be created,' her husband Parakala Prabhakar says in this fascinating excerpt from his book, The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis.
A fierce competition among parties to offer freebies and guarantees, a scramble for tribal, OBC, women votes and a touch of Hindutva -- all have combined to make the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls a high-stakes battle with main rivals BJP and the Congress pulling out all the stops to gain power.
'Some of his ministers have performed abysmally, and Bommai has faced an unwanted campaign of religious polarisation imposed by national BJP leaders.'
In the recent past, Adityanath and the RSS seem to have come closer. The warmth is more on the part of the RSS. And even now, not all requests from the RSS are accommodated by the UP government, points out Aditi Phadnis.
In nearly 100 seats, the BJP stands almost no chance of winning. In 200 seats, it is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress where the BJP has an upper hand. In 243 seats, the BJP is pitted against regional parties and it is not going to be easy. That is why 400 seats may end up as a pipe dream, states Ramesh Menon, author of Modi Demystified: The Making of a Prime Minister.
Demanding Salman Khurshid's removal from the Union cabinet, BJP leader Arun Jaitley said that he was shocked at the law minister's blatant defiance of a constitutional body. Sharat Pradhan reports
She said she wanted to prevent repetition of such an allegation against her party and "expose the bluff" of BJP as she was sure that the party would again try to hold her responsible for its poor performance in the UP assembly polls.
Will a caste census make tens of millions desert Mr Modi?, asks Shekhar Gupta.
'Rahul Gandhi never gets firsthand information. He does not know what is good or bad going on in the party.'
Two people were injured and as many Sikh men were detained when two separate brawls broke out between Khalistani activists and pro-India demonstrators in Melbourne during the so-called 'Punjab independence referendum', the police said on Monday.
Permissive communalism, as represented by the Sachar Committee report, cannot become the basis to counter the threat of majoritarianism, says D L Sheth.
'Who has given them the right to decide that I am not a Hindu like them'
He asked Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Home Minister Araga Jnanendra to show the 'guts,' shown by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath there.
Sources in the AAP claimed that the chief minister was 'extremely displeased' with Gautam.
The ruling party sharply countered the comment, saying the Congress had "demeaned and defamed" Hindus of India.
