Azad said the government uses north-east 'only for political purposes' and not to provide succour to flood-affected people.
Swaraj Samvad has moved on to be a nationwide agenda, says group convenor Professor Anand Kumar.
Whatever Mr Modi's other shortcomings be, his consistent efforts to motivate have created an aura of positivity, hopefully stable. He has also shown that he is not averse to taking decisions with possibly negative implications for him, says Shreekant Sambrani.
'The worst affected is the electricity supply. A huge number of poles, some 6,000 to 8,000 poles have been damaged completely. That will take a lot of time for restoration.'
Glimpses of Republic Day celebrations across the country.
'I am quite optimistic that sooner or later, my wishful thinking would turn into a reality.' The only hitch is that the INC president's own career ambitions may be hurt if the Congress merges with the BJP,' says Sudhir Bisht.
The apex court agreed to hear on October 26 the petition by Verma challenging the government's decision. He has said in the petition that the CBI should be kept independent of the Department of Personnel and Training, which has jurisdiction over the probe agency, since it seriously hinders the CBI's independent functioning.
Forget about interim Budgets, one cannot easily recall even a full Budget of any government in recent times having rolled out benefits of this order to such a large number of people, says A K Bhattacharya.
Delivering his concluding address to the party's National Executive, which saw its president Amit Shah raising concerns over "migration" of Hindus from a communally-sensitive western Uttar Pradesh town, Modi made no reference to the controversial issues and instead asked leaders to use power for the benefit of society.
President Pranab Mukherjee's wife Suvra Mukherjee, who has been ailing for some time, passed away on Tuesday. She was 74.
'In all likelihood, the Congress will fall short in Gujarat.' 'The Modi-Amit A Shah duo will hold on to the state for the BJP,' predicts Sudhir Bisht.
This time however, the poll panel did not share the overall polling percentage at its briefing.
'Why should the people of Odisha divert water from the Mahanadhi when 13 out of 32 districts are chronically drought prone?' 'Water is a state subject. Can you really nationalise rivers for which you need drastic amendments in the Constitution?'
Given Modi's penchant for springing a surprise, the BJP nominee for next President could be anyone. The only thing certain is that it will be an RSS person, reports R Rajagopalan.
As Modi completes a year in office, his cuts in federal welfare spending on the poorest of India's 1.25 bn people are coming in for sharp criticism.
Assam minister Dr Himanta Bishwa Sarma who on Monday quit from the Tarun Gogoi cabinet said that he had been forced to take the step after the Congress leadership had repeatedly ignored the representations made by the rebel MLAs about the 'inefficient' handling of affairs by the chief minister.
Hectic parleys and backroom manoeuvring continued among Board of Control for Cricket in India bigwigs but there was still no breakthrough in the leadership logjam to find a consensus candidate for the President's post left vacant by the demise of Jagmohan Dalmiya.
'This is the first time a majority ruling government is nominating a Dalit for President.' 'So, the moral credibility definitely will go with the BJP, particularly Narendra Modi.'
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi, Left parties and CMs of various states congratulated Kovind.
Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday virtually backed the non-governmental organisation Greenpeace in the backdrop of an Intelligence Bureau report warning that the NGO is a threat to the country's economic growth.
"The Army has been deployed without informing the state government. This is unprecedented and a very serious matter," she claimed.
'The current BJP leadership believes the party's expansion across India, and thus their own survival at the top, depends on injecting communal tension into areas where it has so far been largely controlled,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
Railway Budget will be presented on February 26.
The Bill seeks to create a welfare fund for farmers at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led from the front a campaign to woo farmers and downtrodden sections of the society.
Accusing the Modi government of interfering in states ruled by non-BJP parties by creating "artificial crisis" there, the Janata Dal-United on Monday appealed to regional parties such as the Trinamool Congress, the Biju Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party to "join hands" to counter the "dirty designs".
The much-awaited schedule for the Lok Sabha polls will be announced by the Election Commission on Wednesday.
Rajan Committee has evoked divergent reactions from the states.
The biggest winner was Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan who ran her ship with self-confidence and aplomb.
The party is finding increasing acceptability in the 18-35 years age group with Rahul Gandhi adding a million followers in the past 2 months and Facebook and Twitter also seeing similar spikes.
'The Congress in 2017 stands for nothing positive, not even secularism.'
Recent investigations into the telecom spectrum and coal scams have made bureaucrats very wary of taking decisions.
'Unless we change and we see a change in the direction we are taking, times can only get worse.'
'To identify with the common man, Modi had to look like one.' 'The disastrous suit with his name written on it never made its reappearance.' 'Frequent dress changes during the day, which led Arvind Kejriwal to calculate that Modi spent crores on his attire ever year, too stopped.' 'Instead, a newer Modi emerged: Humble and eager to serve.' Narendra Modi has cleverly repositioned himself as a man of the masses in the past three years, says Aditi Phadnis.
The Karnataka government on Wednesday launched its ambitious initiative to supply 30 kg of rice at Rs 1 to nearly one crore poor families across the state that would entail an outgo of Rs 4,200 crore a year.
In New Delhi, Trinamool Congress MPs took out a protest march towards the PM's residence but were taken into police custody en route.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Indonesia is not even counted as a next-door neighbour of India, though the southern-most tip of India is less than a hundred miles away from the northern-most tip of Indonesia. Bringing Indonesia back in the mainstream of the Indian strategic calculus is a step long overdue, says Dr Rahul Mishra.
'It is the regional parties and their leaders who are the ones we have to watch.'
'If Lalu puts the agenda of his son's career ahead of the coalition's interest, this coalition will fare very badly.' 'Lalu will ultimately want that his son becomes deputy chief minister but if he's prepared to wait for some time, nothing bad will happen for the coalition,' Professor Prabhat Ghosh, Director, Asian Development Research Institute, tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com
'She really doesn't care if she is called heartless.' 'For her, the job needs to be done. That's all that matters.'
