'If one is looking for evidence of his talents as a mass leader, it has been on display since he announced demonetisation on November 8.' 'Let us look at it and appreciate it, because we are in the presence of a true master,' says Aakar Patel.
A combination of demonetisation, a poorly and hurriedly implemented GST, and more recently the "botched up" lockdown of the economy to control the spread of Covid has brought the economy to its knees.
In terms of viewership, the IPL even outperformed some of the pay-per-view matches of the Premier League in Britain.
The pandemic is set to become even more challenging, with migrant workers returning home, relaxations in lockdown rules, and the approaching monsoon. However, states are looking at community participation to ramp up testing and home treatment of patients
'Those who were not co-operating are co-operating now.' 'Now, our facilities are fit, our doctors are fit and we have a better protocol of how to do isolation, how to do the collection.'
As President Biden moves ahead with a new 'strategic concept' for China and Russia, the going is bound to get rough for the US and its G7 partners, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Giriraj Singh has told the central leadership that he is being made a target by some BJP leaders and some JD-U in a conspiracy to defeat him in the polls.'
There will be a huge market for healthcare professionals, data and security experts and digital marketers, says Navneet Singh, founder, Avsar HR Services.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that the Centre would soon take pragmatic steps to effectively manage the country's borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh to check the movement of militants and arms.
RustOrange co-founders Samik Sarkar, Shashank Agnihotri and Kuvalaya Singh share their story and learnings.
No masks, no sanitisers, and many rules of COVID-19 are not in place and every human activity, including marriages and public gatherings continue, thanks to strict standard operating procedure that bars easy entry of people to the island in the Arabian sea.
'A lot of young people, especially women, usually go on in their career path thinking to just put their head down and work hard, and the opportunities will come to them.' 'The only reason I became CEO of Vimeo was because I was pushing to create an opportunity to take the company into a different direction.'
There is a vocal constituency of educated, well-to-do, articulate Indian elites who would rather go with the idea that too much democracy is a liability. That India needs a spell of benevolent dictatorship. Of course, they have never lived under one, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The Assam-Mizoram violence is an outcome of BJP trying too hard to 'integrate' distinct northeastern states, explains Shekhar Gupta.
'Premature lifting of the lockdown will spread the disease from asymptomatics, and those undetected, to the whole community, ushering in prolonged misery, preventable and avoidable deaths, famine and social unrest,' warns Dr Debashish Danda.
Taking note of India's 'growing influence' in global affairs, the United States has said the country will be a net provider of security in the Indian Ocean and beyond with the growth of its military capabilities.
'All parties and the government acknowledge that there we are in trouble and there is more trouble ahead,' observes Aakar Patel.
'Sounds familiar? Barring inflation, much else looks, sounds, and feels more than a bit like 1974.' 'A phenomenally popular leader, with a party of unquestioning followers, a broken Opposition, a nationalist high and an economy in free fall, crippling joblessness,' recalls Shekhar Gupta.
England batsman Jos Buttler has vowed not to curb his attacking instincts after earning a "surprise" recall to the Test team for the opening test against Pakistan starting at Lord's on Thursday.
'The current budgetary practice of shifting expenditures off-balance sheet in order to be seen to be meeting fiscal targets should be discontinued; additional fiscal stimulus would be imprudent; individual income tax rates should not be cut; GST rates should not be raised now,' advise Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman.
Pakistani authorities have arrested two militants and a Syrian national in Lahore for their alleged role in recruiting people to the Islamic State terror group.
Bengal, where the electoral discourse has mostly steered clear of divisive agenda, has been drawn into the vortex with the TMC and the BJP accusing each other of fanning communal sentiments ahead of elections.
Reform of education and urban management, and priority for growth in the Gangetic belt are the key, says Nitin Desai.
Monetising online readership, a deeper focus on content and getting revenue from the reader are ways to make the business future-proof, observes Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
'While we may aspire to be a democratic if smaller version of China, we may only manage to become a larger, more accomplished Indonesia,' says T N Ninan.
Manoj Sinha's greatest asset is his capacity to get on with everyone regardless of political affiliation, notes Aditi Phadnis.
'As of now, this one move seems to have precariously altered the balance of forces on the volatile ground, between separatists and the mainstream. 'The landscape today presents a fearsome picture of the future of mainstream politics in Kashmir. 'Conversely, the separatist ideology looks to have got an unearned boost,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs
'These three commodities have been chosen very well.' 'It is up to the state governments and central government to see how it is implemented.' 'The government has to do some hand-holding.'
The health ministry said that 86 per cent of the total active cases were recorded in 10 states of the country.
Some believe the shift to mobile-based transactions will be seamless considering that the urban tele-density is 148%. In rural areas, it is touching 51%. But smartphone penetration in India is a mere 12%. Growth of mobile money has been extremely slow: It is currently 1%.
The pandemic has forced us to reflect and re-evaluate our old habits and perceptions, says Anamika Sengupta.
Vice President Hamid Ansari said that there is no shift in India's foreign policy and asserted that it is participation that matters as it is "not a conference of Prime Ministers".
While the new COVID cases and total active cases are going up, the administration is focusing on testing, contact tracing and treatment.
The UNICEF said an estimated 2.4 million children have been affected by the recent floods in the country.
Here's a quick compilation of items that could be impacted by the Budget, thereby affecting our personal finances. But do keep in mind that not all of these could happen, or happen in the magnitude that they are expected to.
Finding itself trapped in a cul de sac, all things considered, a negotiated climbdown at this juncture seems the only sensible course available for the Centre, suggests Virendra Kapoor.
What the UK is getting out of the Serum Institute is what India is losing. And the responsibility of the Indian State ought to have been to dictate where Serum Institute's vaccine doses should go, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A number of industrial countries are now resorting to populism and this has its own set of political implications.
Regardless of how the stalemate ends, the government needs to learn that regardless of its parliamentary strength it cannot take people for granted. A little bit of humility would do it a lot of good, recommends Virendra Kapoor.
This is a national leadership gone so wrong that India's most powerful prime minister in four decades has personally taken charge of medical oxygen shortages, observes Shekhar Gupta.
