Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
'Rahul Gandhi never gets firsthand information. He does not know what is good or bad going on in the party.'
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.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin said on Thursday Rohit Sharma "doesn't need to be taught to score hundreds".
'Somebody strong is playing a game behind the violence in Manipur.' 'It is a pre-planned attack on churches, Christian organisations and Christians.'
Unable to get a favourable response from the police personnel, the crowd manhandled them and pelted them with stones, the officer said. The protesters also uprooted the barricades that were put up around the containment zones and vandalised a police control room, he said. As the agitators burnt tyres in the area, some portions of the bamboo barricades caught fire. At least a dozen policemen and a journalist covering the incident suffered injuries in the attack. All of them were hospitalised.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
By comparing I.N.D.IA. with banned terror outfits, Modi has exhibited the kind of nervousness never ever associated with him even at the height of the Gujarat riots, and certainly since his prime ministerial days, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Protestors continued to target railway properties in Bihar and West Bengal on Saturday to vent their ire against the Agnipath defence recruitment scheme disrupting train services in the eastern region for the fourth day in a row, while demonstrations were held on roads in Odisha and Jharkhand.
The State Election Commission on Friday informed the Calcutta high court that it has requisitioned 822 companies of central forces for the July 8 panchayat polls in West Bengal.
The ministry of home affairs has suspended the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence of prominent public think-tank Centre for Policy Research (CPR) over violation of laws, officials said on Thursday.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's 'rashtrapatni' remark snowballed into a major political row on Thursday with the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing the opposition party of insulting President Droupadi Murmu and demanding that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi should apologise to the nation.
The 67-year-old hasn't only received a clear-cut mandate for an unprecedented fourth term but also done it on his own. From distributing tickets to planning party campaigns to chalking out strategies for the present and the future, the chief minister had played a stellar role throughout, and emerged successful in his endeavour. Bikash Mohapatra reports
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium in Sundargarh district will be packed to the rafters during the FIH Men's Hockey World Cup.
'He felt that he had no place in the BJP and he was wrong.'
At the end of the day, Stalin expressing solidarity with an arrested colleague is one thing, especially if he too felt that the minister had been wronged, but for him to retain the person in office sets a bad precedent, which would not go unnoticed by voters, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The government is doing away with crucial laws such as the Forest Conservation Act and the Environment Protection Act which had helped safeguard our forests.' 'The President has to show that she will stand in favour of tribal rights.'
Sources said Modi also called up various leaders, including Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Dravida Munnetra Kazagham's M K Stalin and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal.
Poor governance and mediocre short-sighted politics are destroying the paradise that Goa was as its environment, water table, culture and way of life is drastically threatened by tourism and migration, points out Ramesh Menon.
Mother and son refuse to go away despite indications blowing in the wind that their leadership is ringing the death knell of the party, observes Ramesh Menon.
'They have to be seen as being responsive to the employment woes and economic stagnation afflicting many young people.'
To help the country emerge as a true welfare State, political parties must put the country's interests first before strategising to win elections and short-term goals, argues Ramesh Menon.
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
One India is doing great against the coronavirus, lauding the gains of the lockdown and thanking the government, and the other lacks commitment, says Sumit Bhattacharya.
Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit won't be afraid to tangle with the toughest of them.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
Rediff.com's data journalists have broken down 2011 Census data into a constituency-wise listing.
In Bihar, where a bandh had been called, a railway station and a police vehicle were torched, an ambulance attacked and security personnel injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of the agitation, while protesters vandalised Ludhiana railway station in Punjab and blocked roads and rail tracks in West Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said he had directed the state Advocate General to approach the high court and request it to allow the annual procession. The HC had on Saturday stayed the procession in the light of coronavirus pandemic in Ahmedabad.
'The government needs to think if a draconian, outdated and colonial law is needed in a democratic, multi religious, diverse country governed by a democratic government.'
'That's the beauty of Naveen.' 'His intermittent support to the NDA and Modi confuses BJP workers in Odisha.' 'It gives an impression that Naveen has a tacit understanding with the NDA and that the BJP will not really challenge him wholeheartedly.'
According to the ministry's website, more than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities.
'When a criminal assumes a new identity he think everybody knows them by that name only.' 'Criminals forget that the police are always hunting for them to put them in jail.'
By sacrificing an important component of the right to free speech, we have strengthened the hands of the fundamentalists, the bigots and the publicity-seeking goondas. And of the hate-filled political establishment, points out Vir Sanghvi.
Veteran doctor and educationist from Karnataka Belle Monappa Hegde and archaeology legend B B Lal were also given the Padma Vibhushan awards.
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