'The more the news media weakens, especially at this juncture of economic ruin with lay-offs and wage cuts, the more the owners and journalists weigh their value in terms who they are close to, the more they depend on the State to bail them out of trouble, slow-fry their rival, the faster it pushes us towards institutional destruction,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
'It will be a grand alliance where they could get the Muslims, Dalits and Yadavs in one camp and pose a serious challenge to whatever the BJP might conjure up in the run-up to the 2019 election.'
Modi-Shah BJP has resurrected dangers and the enemy from the past and built a scary jingoism. It's a great diversionary tactic but history shows it never ends well, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'Outside investors don't want to get tangled up in a religious war.'
"If slogans are raised on reputed campuses for fragmenting India, resolutions are made to destroy it, and if Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru is hailed as a martyr, it is shameful and disconcerting," an appeal which has the consent of 33 individuals, including intellectuals and artistes, says.
'Trump's desecration of all that Obama represented can be seen at different levels: Personal, political, systemic and structural,' explains Ambassador B S Prakash.
Trump's visit symbolised heightened partisanship and a return to chemistry between leaders defining bilateral ties, notes Kashish Parpiani.
The man, who once lorded over Bihar, was pushed to the margins after the 2010 assembly elections.
Voicing concern over the Muzaffarnagar violence, Rashtriya Lok Dal leader and Union Minister Ajit Singh on Tuesday said it may spread to other states and become unmanageable" if not controlled by "strict action".
Prominent Muslim leader Maulana Mehmood Madani on Tuesday kicked up a controversy by asking "so-called" secular parties not to invoke Narendra Modi bogey to create fear among Muslim voters and woo them in a "negative manner".
'We want to protect our history, we want to protect our people from getting overwhelmed by the influx from Bangladesh, that is why the people of Assam are out in the streets,' says former Assam chief minister and Asom Gana Parishad leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.
Putting up a stunning show, the Janata Dal-United-led grand alliance was on Sunday well on the road to gaining a thumping majority in the Bihar assembly.
'Almost deified by enough Indians now, never mind his politics and, worse, economics,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Like 2014, 2017 was also Modi's election.' 'Every voter you met, apart from those who are BJP cadres, everybody said they would vote for Modi, not the BJP.' 'The one and only factor is the Modi juggernaut. He is the one who turned the tide.' 'The wave which he created in 2014, and to maintain it for three years, is a huge task in itself.'
73 constituencies will vote on Saturday.
In his fifth address as President, Pranab Mukherjee asked authorities and institutions of the State to adhere to the 'dignity' in discharging their duties.
'The new generation voter is hyper-nationalistic, but it isn't essentially illiberal.' 'They will find the rants of Adityanath as laughable as Irfan Habib's. They will also find the BJP's polarising approach to vote-gathering unacceptable if it fails to deliver jobs and growth,' says Shekhar Gupta.
If the words of Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative Abdul Karim Tunda are to be believed, then Bharatiya Janata Party's assessment of Kerala, the God's own country, turning into a nursery for terrorism may well be true.
'Charging that some main political parties are trying to "dangerously" disturb the communal harmony in Uttar Pradesh ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday warned such forces of stringent action.
Can we ask the judges a simple question: You write judgments all the time to protect the judiciary from others. Will you write one on how to save the judiciary from the judges, too, asks Shekhar Gupta.
'Arguments about politics and religion do not end in name calling and abuse when they happen face to face.' 'In person we are more balanced because we are aware we are being observed.'
Nitish Kumar has lost his credibility. He is now only a weak ally of the BJP. And he may no longer have a shot at a national role.
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
Narendra Modi has a once in a lifetime chance to change and take the RSS-BJP-VHP to a new level. Varanasi is the right place to turn the page on saffron history. By surrendering to the spirit of mystical Varanasi, Modi and his party can change the trajectory of their political journey.
Stepping up its campaign against Narendra Modi, the Congress on Tuesday released video clips of alleged "hate speeches" of several Bharatiya Janata Party, Sangh Parivar and Shiv Sena leaders and demanded their arrest for "trading in the politics of poison" by committing the "sin" of "stoking communal fire".
'The country has moved beyond the likes of Yogi Adityanath and his medieval thinking. The results of the by-elections are early warning signals by impatient Indians. It's up to the BJP to learn its lesson or face the consequences,' says Ashutosh.
Indian authorities failed to "prevent many incidents of religious violence and contributed to tensions through polarising speeches", Amnesty International said.
The foundations of the army's own peculiar secularism are potentially being destabilised
The 65-year-old Stalin's elevation comes about three weeks after the death of his father and party president M Karunanidhi.
'Here's a list of the things we should be reading more about in the media,' says Mitali Saran.
In UP, the BJP focused carefully on the sub-caste divisions within the Dalits and also gave a large number of tickets to SC candidates from sub-castes.
While other parliamentarians were locked into heated debates over the Gujarat Dalits' protests, Rahul could be seen taking a power nap.
A recent academic paper on probability theory shows how beliefs are influenced by interpretations of data rather than the data itself, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday said it will "unequivocally" oppose the Communal Violence Bill when it comes up for discussion and passage in Parliament as it is a "threat" to communal harmony and an "attack" on the federal structure.
He questioned why only migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will be given citizenship under the amended law and not the Sri Lankan Tamils.
The idle talk at street corners, cafes and public places since May 23 is that the winds of change are blowing across Bengal.
'The Indian Right can afford to be rigid; but as liberals, our position has to be one of constant evolution, or else death awaits us,' argues Sreehari Nair.
The saffron party's IT cell had realised the power of WhatsApp early in the day and wielded it to devastating effect in the Bengal elections.
Mayawati is now gearing up for a fresh start for the 2019 general election. Unconfirmed reports from the BSP camp suggest she has already reached out to arch-rival Akhilesh Yadav, reports Sahil Makkar.
The Aligarh Muslim University Teachers' Association on Thursday urged political parties "not to play politics over the dead bodies" of the victims of the communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar.
