In Rajya Sabha, the Opposition and the government clashed over technicalities of the passage of an anti-graft amendment bill with the latter insisting that it should be adopted without debate.
Amma will wait for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'honeymoon' with the voter to fade away before deciding on the issues that are of real concern to the state and others that may need a considered and balanced solution, say N Sathiya Moorthy and M Kasinathan
How has the Indian State, in principle and practice, given shape to the essential ingredients of the secular principle and composite culture?
Till date, 107 elections to states and three parliamentary polls have been smoothly conducted using the EVMs.
'If the Nairs split between Shashi Tharoor and the BJP candidate, O Rajagopal and the Nadars combine with the Leftists and the Christians to vote for the CPI candidate, Bennet Abraham, what would happen to Tharoor. It is presumed that the voters do not cast their votes, they vote their castes,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan
'And Indians are loving it,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Analysts say the Sun Network's fundamentals may be sound but the troubles faced by Maran have caused a lot of volatility.
To elect, or re-elect a chief minister, the AIADMK needs to call only the MLAs for a meeting. But to elect a new general secretary, it would have to conduct direct elections with all registered cadres participating and voting. And that is just the beginning of its problems, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The collector king Sayajirao Gaekwad III, who lived a century ago, put together a fantastic world of Indian and European art for his subjects.
PIO finds similarities between WannaCry code and other tools created by Lazarus Group in the past.
From President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit to Rahul and Varun Gandhi, at least 50 parliamentary constituencies will be contested by 'sons and daughters' of politicians of various parties during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
'Whenever a new film of his releases, he uses politics to hype his film.' 'Her party can manage for a short period without Jayalalithaa as the chief minister but if her absence is for a long term, the AIADMK will start crumbling and disintegrating.' 'What keeps the DMK going despite its corrupt image is it is a democratic party in comparison to the AIADMK... Also, many social welfare measures in Tamil Nadu were brought in by the DMK. So they do have a place in the political scene despite corruption.' Gnani Sankaran, the well-known political analyst, discusses the fallout of Jayalalithaa's conviction on Tamil Nadu politics with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
With all its ups and downs, 2015 is now concluding. And the New Year will bring new expectations to all of us. So tell us your expectations from 2016:
On the first anniversary of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, Sangh Parivar affiliates say they are annoyed with the ruling dispensation but can't live without it either
Attacking the note ban move, Yechury said the PM's assertion that it will impact terror funding has not yielded any result.
Rajeev Srinivasan on the disastrous after-effects of a made-up spying incident
Despite all the controversies, the IPL's brand value hasn't diminished. Instead, says Harish Kotian/Rediff.com, the IPL made the BCCI richer by over Rs 3 billion!
'Do you know there is a 500 page report prepared by an inquiry committee headed by myself? When I placed the report in Parliament, have you heard any single Opposition leader give a notice for discussion? Why are they not demanding a discussion in Parliament on the report? They could have established that there was a scam. Today, a Parliament Committee report is as good as a Parliament report and this report says the 2G scam is no scam. Our government is suffering because of the media hype on these scams,' Congress MP P C Chacko tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
'I've answered all those people who are tweeting nonsense about Varnika Kundu and trying to shame her.' 'Shame her for what? For being a young girl at a party with friends? For enjoying herself?' 'I think it is ridiculous for somebody to say that she should not be out at night.' 'Why should a girl not step out at night?' 'What does that mean?' 'Does it mean that something happens to the boys at night and they change into monsters?' 'If so, then the problem lies with the boys, not with the girls.' 'Please keep your sons at home at night.' 'Why are you telling girls where to go and what to do?'
In Tamil Nadu, the alternative to one Dravidian party has been another, and for one actor-politician CM, there is another. Their initial popularity may owe to their filmi charisma, but their continued acceptance owed to their government's policies and programmes targeting the poor and the needy in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'It was almost as though there was widespread relief that the defence bureaucracy, and the minister, could find someone willing to shoulder the blame for everything that had gone wrong with the services under Antony's charge -- the poor preparedness of the forces, slow acquisitions caused by indecision, cancellation of contracts and whimsical blacklisting of defence contractors over the tiniest suspicion that they may have paid speed money or kickbacks.'
Rajeev Srinivasan tells how he came very close to being another number in the 'disappeareds' during the Emergency.
The UPA Government is trying to push through the second wave of airport privatisation before the elections and the controversial elements of this process threaten to harm the sector.
'What if Modi becomes the fascist the leftists paints him as? What if he does suspend the Constitution and declares himself the ruler, with support from the army? What exactly will you do, Mr Leftie?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
Want to know about some weird stuff happening in your backyard? Read on...
The Bharatiya Janata Party chose not to raise any protests when their demand to raise Robert Vadra's suspect land deals was not considered by Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari. Anita Katyal reports.
By region, Thiruvananthapuram leads with 247 defaulters, followed by Kolkata with 173 and Bhubaneswar with 115
'The book has immense value because it reveals the inner workings of the think-tank which appears to provide facts and insights to Modi, though he himself takes the final decisions and articulates them in his characteristic rhetorical style,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'I can tell you, Mr Chairman, from personal experience that there is nothing sadder than witnessing a close one, a loved one with mental illness at close quarters.' 'I have lived with a victim of mental illness. Like many in that condition, very often such people are in a state of denial.'
For his 60th birthday in December, which he called his third 20th birthday, Mallya flew in Enrique Iglesias to perform at his villa overlooking the beach in Goa.
India's nuclear establishment is continuing its march of folly at the expense of safety in the false belief that atomic power is the energy of the future. It's not. Nuclear power is in relentless global decline, says Praful Bidwai.
Now that Tamil Nadu's tallest politician is no more, it remains to be seen how new political re-alignments could shape up, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rajeev Srinivasan on how Indians are satisfied with illusions, not reality.
BJP President Amit Shah -- arguably the second most powerful politician in the nation -- granted a rare television interview to the Network 18 group of news channels. Rediff.com's Rajesh Alva checks out what the BJP boss said in this word cloud assessment of the interview.
It is rare for communal riots to spread to rural areas. The UP riot is the first time after the September 1969 Gujarat riots that a rural area have been affected. Electoral politics which divide society in majority/minority, going on since the early 1990s, is a major contributing factor to this heightened tension between communities, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale in the first of a two part series.
'There were tears in my eyes when I parted with my medals. I thought was it for this moment did I become a soldier?' In 2008, Captain H Balakrishnan (retd) of the Indian Navy returned all his medals to the President of India to protest the government's failure to implement the One Rank One Pension scheme.
I am not a quitter. I was with the United Nations for 29 years. I don't know whether I will have 29 years in politics, but I don't intend to end with just 5 years, Dr Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Shobha Warrier
Inscrutable have been the ways of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. She is a political strategist and tactician rolled into one that her unpredictable ways have won the day for her - mostly, says N Sathiya Moorthy
