Shiv Sena is confident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi won't join hands with a "Naturally Corrupt Party". Prasanna D Zore reports
"Not a single step has been taken by this government to empower small businesses in India," says Praveen Khandelwal, national secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders and former treasurer of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi unit.
The BJP cobbles up the numbers to stake a claim to form a government in Imphal. But ruling the restive state won't be easy, says Chitra Ahanthem.
'Raj will have to do a lot more to win over the public and overcome the trust deficit. It is a lot of work and needs political patience, which can come with maturity and understanding. All of these seem to be lacking in the man.'
JNU Students' Union president Aishe Ghosh was among those questioned. Ghosh is among the 7 out of the total 9 suspects, who are from Left-leaning student organisations while two suspects are from the ABVP. The ABVP also released eight videos in support of their claims and demanded a detailed investigation.
Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan on Friday claimed the Taliban's decision to hold talks under Pakistan's Constitution has exposed the lobby that was deliberately maligning him with labels such as "Taliban Khan".
'It needed political courage on the part of the prime minister to make such an intervention at the present juncture when the hawkish opinion rules the roost in the Indian foreign-policy discourses in our media, and, unfortunately, the sane voices have largely fallen silent,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
On that day, Sheikh Abdullah, political anchor of J&K's accession with the Indian Union, was unceremoniously removed from power and put behind bars; causing a tectonic emotional breach and setting off disastrous fault lines between Srinagar and New Delhi and its effects continue to this day, says Mohammad Sayeed Malik.
The perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack, who shot dead 166 people, had confessed to details that should have been enough to hang him, but Pakistan enjoyed his anti-India rhetoric and let him spread his tentacles. A revealing excerpt from Khaled Ahmed's Pakistan's Terror Conundrum.
The future of the Make in India campaign looks bleak with a generation of ill-educated jobseekers -- and especially dark if they are cannon fodder for caste riots or put behind bars for breaking India, says Sunil Sethi.
'My wife has done everything... She has had to give up a lot,' HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar tells Sahil Makkar.
Desperate times need desperate actions, and the BJP's only option is to enforce legislation to build a Ram mandir, says Sunil Sethi.
'It is only for a particular kind of Indian. The thing is: Even some of those types of Indians do not like it,' says Aakar Patel.
Rahul attacked Modi and BJP, alleging that 'politics of divide and polarisation is radicalising people in India'.
In July, IRS officers in Mumbai held an incendiary meeting where they criticised the alleged interference in 'operational matters' by the department of revenue.
Celebrations continued for a second day on Friday after the Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee put up a stunning victory in West Bengal winning 211 of the 294 seats, bettering its 2011 tally of 184 seats. And the mood prevailed at the south Kolkata residence of Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Saugata Roy with his associates distributing sweets and samosas and smearing each other with green gulal. Amid this hullabaloo, Roy squeezed out some time to speak to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com about the victory.
'It does not look like unemployment is a priority for the government.' 'If there was one external factor which could have made an impact on low investment and low jobs, it was the Budget and it has not made any difference.' '2020 is going to be a difficult and challenging year.'
He is in a spot over the purchase of a three-acre Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation land in Pune allegedly at a low price of around Rs 3.75 crore from its original owner in the name of his wife and son-in-law. The market value of the land is reportedly Rs 40 crore.
Nigam, posted a barrage of 24 tweets to say he is quitting Twitter.
At a time when the whole world is going ga-ga over stocks and debt is too easy to borrow, do not forget gold, says Anil Rego.
5 other politically-charged fashion choices in recent times.
'Manik Sarkar may have been able to hang on if he hadn't been a follower of the CPI-M's all-time hardliner Prakash Karat,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
As 2018 draws to a close and the white noise of 24-hour news cycles and Twitter storms fade into the background, it is already clear that history will remember only a handful of those people, each of whom has taught us something about ourselves and the rapidly changing world in which we live.
'The financial sector will be hit even harder than the overall market.' 'The banking sector will eventually be rescued.' 'But it may go into a long downwards spiral before things turn around.' 'Threat or buying opportunity?' asks Devangshu Datta.
'Had Muslims been a vote bank, they wouldn't be in the condition they are now,' Asaduddin Owaisi tells Jyoti Punwani.
With the cabinet expansion being deferred repeatedly, several aspirants, especially those from Congress, had openly expressed their displeasure over the delay, piling pressure on the party to fill its quota so as to avoid any trouble ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was among six militants killed in a US drone strike on Friday in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
'India must close the missile technology gap with both China and Pakistan as early as possible, or else the credibility of India's nuclear deterrence will remain suspect,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Rai claimed that the probe agency is 'totally clueless' to substantiate the graft charges in the scheme, even as opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress termed his resignation a fallout of the ACB probe.
For many years now, India has given the Commonwealth short shrift so its support for the Commonwealth trade initiative signals a renewed interest in the body.
How he hopes to retain his fort is anyone's guess, says Nazarwala, the man who called right the 2007 and 2012 UP elections.
His songs were the anchor, the substratum, if you will, upon which life unfolded day after day, decade after decade -- across villages, towns, cities, and regions. Siva Sankar pays tribute to S P Balasubrahmanyam, the legendary singer who passed into the ages on Friday.
With humorous memes, videos and short stories, Brand Mother Dairy has been steadily inserting itself into almost every trending conversation on social media, writes Viveat Susan Pinto.
'Only the prime minister can take the initiative in reaching out to his opponents. The fact that he has been reluctant to do so, leaving it to the Arun Jaitleys and Venkaiah Naidus to hold out the olive branch, has given the Opposition the chance of pointing to his aloofness,' says Amulya Ganguli.
In Tamil Nadu, Divya Nair encounters jallikattu, a ban on colas and a water shortage.
It has been a difficult year for Singh, whose fate from the start has been closely tied to that of the Gandhi family.
Pakistan has taken too much of a chance with Pulwama - with the wrong government in India, and at the wrong time.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf walks the streets of Mahim, where Yakub Memon grew up and lived till the day before the serial blasts in 1993, on the day Yakub was hanged and discovers an undercurrent of unease and restrained anger.
From corruption to communalism, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's Rs 70 lakh Hublot watch to United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, the electoral potboiler had it all.
