The mandate which the people of Northeast have given is in itself is a very big change, Modi said.
Any move of the present government to appease the Marathas may boomerang. Eknath Shinde is a worried man with the agitation not having an easy solution, notes Ramesh Menon.
Khalistani separatist Lakhbir Singh alias 'Rode', a designated terrorist under the Indian law, has died recently in Pakistan, where he had taken refuge after his uncle Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was killed in 1984 during an army action, officials said on Tuesday.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
The Congress had released 'Farmers Declaration', 'SC, ST Declaration' and 'Youth Declaration', comprising its promises to the Telangana voters in the assembly polls scheduled to be held in a couple of months.
'Somehow, Rahul Gandhi is not able to connect with the youth of the country.' 'While Modiji is 72, Rahul is only 52.' 'But the popularity of the prime minister among the young population is a lot more than Rahul's.'
"I am now a free citizen of India like you. I am no longer the DGP. So, no service rules apply to me anymore. Thousands of people are coming from Buxar, Begusarai, Jehanabad, Aurangabad and other districts. I will take a decision after talking to them. Contesting elections is not illegal," he told journalists.
'...a dazzling flash, and then, fizzle,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
The People's Democratic Party and the National Conference -- the two Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners in Jammu and Kashmir -- will be taking on each other on the three Lok Sabha seats in the valley.
While the country is gripped by Ram Mandir frenzy, Danish Husain -- without shouting from the rooftops -- silently staged his opinion with this play on one of India's best-known poets, observes Neeta Kolhatkar.
While the responses of the candidates were predictable, depending on which side they belonged to, an interesting point slipped through when Rahul Shewale cited the Dharavi Redevelopment Project as a scheme that would add to Mumbai's importance. No big infrastructural project in Mumbai, he said, could be successful without the Centre's nod.
'It's a matter of great pride that no student of Army Goodwill Schools has ever joined terrorism.'
In an address at an election rally in this southern-most part of Mizoram bordering Myanmar, Singh said violence is no solution to any problem and the two communities in Manipur must talk to each other to improve the situation in the troubled state.
Commenting on the seat sharing in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said in Ballia that a decision will be made as soon as Surya Uttarayan occurs.
The action came a day after party vice president Rahul Gandhi condemned the public slaughter of the animal.
An FIR was lodged at Town Police Station of Jehanabad on Sunday under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act by Additional Sub Inspector S S Singh. The motorcycle, whose owner was absconding, was seized, he said.
India's beloved President -- there has been no other who has influenced the nation as much -- never stepped back from inspiring people to be the very best that they could be.
Irani said the show of strength by the Congress is aimed at putting pressure on the probe agency, and asserted that nobody is above the law "even Rahul Gandhi".
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
'This is a watershed election in Indian politics.' 'For the first time, we are moving away from identity politics to aspirational politics.'
'Congress leaders who are making strategy for the Congress to win elections have not even won a class monitor elections.' 'When you have not contested school monitor elections, what will you know about the ground reality?'
We need to make sensible choices that are in the long-term interest of Indian cricket -- and the game itself, suggests Indrajit Gupta.
Raking up the border issue, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said every individual in Ladakh knows that China has "taken away our land" and claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion that not an inch of land was taken away was "absolutely false".
The opposition alliance that will take on the ruling National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and an 11-member committee will be set up for coordination, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced after a meeting of the parties in Bengaluru.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav had thrown barbs at the prime minister over his having no family.
Antony, along with his wife Elizabeth, reached Chandy's residence in Thiruvananthapuram to bid adieu to his trusted lieutenant during trying times of their decades-long political career.
KPCC president and MP, Sudhakaran said that unofficially discussions have begun on who should be the candidate and officially it would start a couple of days later.
Pro-BJP forces, unable to tolerate Udhayanidhi's stance against oppressive principles, have spread a false narrative, alleging he called for the genocide of people with Sanatan thoughts, Stalin said in a statement and wondered why Prime Minister Narendra Modi would also join those targeting the Tamil Nadu minister.
Trains were set afire and blocked, and public vehicles attacked as protests over 'Agnipath' swept across several places in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu on Thursday amid partisan political voices in favour and against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.
'This is what happens to a party when it gets trapped in the vicious circle of nepotism and dynastic politics'
'This whole story is going to become extremely murky and that discovering who is an agent of the Indian government is not necessarily a simple matter.' 'And that if Trudeau was to name (the person) who he thinks is the connection with the Indian government, that the Indian government will be sure to have some deniability and will be able to say he had nothing to do with us.'
'The BJP has started a war-like situation against farmers and the Jat community.'
Priyanka Gandhi was earlier actively involved in key decision making in the party along with her mother and brother, including the selection of new chief ministers for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh recently.
What is most troubling is that not a single party that is part of INDIA has talked about any kind of reform and economic sense, argues R Jagannathan.
'I have never seen a common man tapping a chief minister on the shoulder and giving him his petition, like needing money for a child admitted in a hospital.'
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Opposition parties on Thursday alleged that an "undeclared Emergency" has been imposed in the country in the light of restrictions and detention of thousands for defying prohibitory orders to deal with the mounting protests against the new citizenship law in multiple cities. Rejecting the charge, the Centre and the Bharatiya Janata Party said no government can tolerate violence and alleged that the opposition parties were fuelling the protests for vote bank politics.
The Archies is an evergreen thought passed on from generation to generation. But Sukanya Verma wishes it had some of the comic's tee-hee humour and hyuk hyuk too.
He also sought to know if Modi, during his recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, asked the latter about the 2017 Doklam standoff.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
