Kumar reportedly accused the financier of charging exorbitant interest on some loans obtained by him, and harassing him over the same.
According to the Chief Minister, Pallikal will receive a government 'high cash incentive' of Rs 60 lakh for winning two silver medals, while Chinnappa and Ghosal will get Rs 30 lakh each for their respective single silver medals.
Bala, 36, was arrested in Chennai on Sunday on a complaint by District Collector Sandeep Nanduri, who was also caricatured in the cartoon, along with the city police chief.
As India launched the world's largest vaccination drive against the coronavirus pandemic, showing the light at the end of a 10-month tunnel that upended millions of lives and livelihoods, here are some of the quotes from politicians across parties and other people who took the jab:
Putting up a spirited performance in the assembly by-polls despite its Lok Sabha debacle, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu has won nine of the 22 segments where elections were held in two phases in April and May.
Bala was arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by Tiruneveli District Collector Sandeep Nanduri, who was also caricatured in the cartoon along with the city police chief, police said.
Meanwhile, water will be released from Chembarambakkam lake, one of the key drinking water sources to Chennai, since it was nearing capacity, the government said.
AIADMK-Amma led by Palaniswami accused the O Panneerselvam faction of "refusing" to come for talks.
His call logs, WhatsApp messages and SMSes are also being examined, police said.
There will be 2,364 counting halls as compared to 1,002 halls in 2016 in 822 assemble constituencies, a more than 200 percent increase, in view of the COVID guidelines, according to the Election Commission which had drawn flak from the courts over the conduct of polls during the pandemic.
The DMK feels its genuine gestures have had no bearing on the governor's politico-administrative conduct, which is 'more political and politicised than administrative and Constitutional', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Radhika Ramaseshan reports on why the Karnataka chief minister risked crossing swords with his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and its ideological wellspring, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The state is following surveillance, containment, increasing testing facilities, and ensuring essentials at people's doorstep, among other strategies, reports T E Narasimhan.
It looked as if the BJP was hoping to use Rajinikanth to press their seat-bargain with the AIADMK. Now with the Rajini bait gone, the question now is not how much the BJP would settle for, but how much the AIADMK would be ready to offer, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
An adverse judgement could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant.
Key Dinakaran aide and legislator P Vetrivel said they would meet the governor at 10 am on Tuesday.
Former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam has urged All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLAs to vote against the vote of confidence sought by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, stating they should not aid a "family rule" and supporting the motion would amount to betraying late party chief Jayalalithaa and people who voted for party.
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.
Stalin disapproved of the act of some his party legislators sitting in the chair of Speaker P Dhanapal in the assembly.
Good intentions and elaborate roadmaps apart, there is an urgent need for the Tamil Nadu chief minister to come up with branded schemes like MGR's meal scheme, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the presidential elections over, the time has come for Prime Minister Modi to show Tamil Nadu that the state's interests are safe under him, says R Rajagopalan.
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rajini-Kamal duo cannot do harm to the AIADMK-led alliance in the state electorally, Jayakumar said.
AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam is said to be upset at his son Raveendranath Kumar, a Lok Sabha MP, being denied a ministerial chance for a second time in a row, beginning with the formation of Modi 2.0 in 2019, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Scorching heat and delayed monsoon have crippled Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu with an acute water crisis.
The cyclone lay about 720 km east northeast of Chennai over the Bay on Monday and it is very likely to move west southwestwards and intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm by Tuesday.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The apex court, in a plethora of verdicts, has given varying judicial opinions on Speakers' powers ranging from refusing to intervene in the matter to assuming the role of the Speaker itself and going to the extent of disqualifying lawmakers under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.
Top BJP leaders, including its president Amit Shah, reached out to their allies as well as other parties with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar expressing confidence that the government will get support from 'new' parties.
The going is not going to be easy for the DMK and its allies in Elections 2024. Despite the seats sweepstake in the 2021 assembly polls, the vote-share difference of 5.6% (DMK's 45.38% versus AIADMK-BJP's 39.72%) is not insurmountable on a bad day, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Pon Radhakrishnan also stated that Naxals, Maoists and Muslim extremists may have intruded into some of the media houses too.
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Chennai to a grand welcome on Friday, a visit that comes soon after the recent episode of turbulence in bilateral ties over India's decision to withdraw Jammu and Kashmir's special status and reorganise the state into two union territories.
They were speaking at a function to mark the release of 'Defying the Paradigm,' a coffee table book on Srinivasan's 50-year journey with India Cements.
Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar journeys through villages and towns, districts and cities for a reality check.
The ceremony will be held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The proposed lockdown, sans present relaxations, will be implemented from June 19 to 30 and on two Sundays (June 21 and 28) there shall be a full scale shutdown without any relaxations.
Though EPS has sworn peace for now, or so it seems, his camp is said to be considering the possibility of calling an early meeting of the party's general council, to get a mandate in his favour before things went out of control. Ground-level indications are that OPS had lost his limited base, which alone had forced him to patch up with the other, reportedly at the instance of the BJP ally at the Centre, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Expelled AIADMK leader V K Sasikala on Monday returned to Tamil Nadu to a grand reception, days after completing her four-year jail term in Bengaluru in a corruption case, amid indications of a confrontation with the ruling party which she once controlled.
Sidelined AIADMK leader TTV Dinakaran sought to play down party's decision.
Taking up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister E K Palaniswami, in a letter, said the state government was "extremely" concerned over such incidents
