Ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament, former Congress ally Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday indicated its support to the UPA's 'game-changer' Food Security Bill even though it has wanted a few changes in it.
However, the tilting factor still remains: Can the rivalling 'Modi brand' of 'soft Hindutva' and 'hard-sell nationalism' garner more votes for the NDA in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The project is currently under litigation after environmental concerns were raised against the plan of linking the PalkBay and the Gulf of Mannar by creating a shipping channel through the shallow sea, says Ruchika Chitravanshi.
Using recent developments for reaching out to DMK and JD-U ensures needed thrust for the congress and its government. Aditi Phadnis reports
Sandhya Ravishankar describes the thorny relationship between the two political titans of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, both now part of the ages.
In private, AIADMK spokespersons say that the raid on Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao might be aimed at weakening the AIADMK, and demotivating the party from selecting/electing Jayalalithaa's confidante, Sasikala Natarajan, as her successor -- first as party head then possibly in the government, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With assembly elections only two years away, in 2016, the DMK may not have the luxury of time on its side. If the slow pace of reforms that the party has indulged itself in, in the past decade and more is any indicator, the committed 25 percent vote-share would either be frittered away, or lost, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The AIADMK swept the polls winning 37 of the 39 seats, leaving DMK, its rivals, and the BJP to do a serious rethinking before the assembly elections in 2016, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The controversial report of the JPC, which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G spectrum scam saying he was "misled" by the then Telecom Minister A Raja, was on Monday tabled in Lok Sabha amid pandemonium.
'Lending to Mr Mallya was the bankers' season ticket to corridors of power and glamour. Borrowing from them was like a favour Mallya did to them,' says Shekhar Gupta.
When over a hundred fishermen from Tamil Nadu were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy and their boats seized last month, fishermen in coastal Tamil Nadu went on strike. Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar visits the coastal towns of Nagapattinam and Rameswaram to discover that the fishermen do not have many choices.
