Modi and Shah can't afford to lose any of the 24 per cent Dalit vote of 2014, says Shekhar Gupta.
New Delhi is approaching Gota with an open mind, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The muscularity of the last three years didn't bring any dividends and if anything, Chinese attitudes only hardened,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The spurt in online sales during the festival season is expected.
Sector-wise, pharmaceuticals, transport equipment and textiles will help accelerate overall export growth.
'Our government has created 10 million jobs when the Indian unemployment rate is at a 45-year high.'
The hill town has been in the grip of violence since Thursday following a clash between the Sikh residents in Shillong's Punjabi Lane area and the Khasi drivers of state-run buses.
As households age, they pile up debt, a peculiarity unique to Indians, a Financial Stability and Development Council report has found. Here are the key takeaways.
Heavy flooding has caused animals at Kaziranga and Pabitora to move to higher land, making them more vulnerable to poaching.
'Jignesh Mevani has many strengths: Youth, articulation, fearlessness, proficiency with social media, political and ideological flexibility.' 'Also focus, as in targeting the BJP as the one and only enemy for now and using that justification to align with the rest,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'We should credit Prime Minister Modi with having foresight and courage and showing leadership on climate change.'
India has an unprecedented opportunity to develop solar industry because like China, it offers scale which is critical to reducing costs and to stimulate innovation, says Shyam Saran.
Police in Pakistan have busted an illegal telephone gateway exchange in Lahore, allegedly being operated by the Taliban to make ransom calls to families of persons kidnapped by them, including the sons of former premier Yusuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer.
'The path of militant Hindutva that the BJP's national leadership chose as its main electoral plank literally dug the grave for the party in Kerala,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
'For some South Asians, it may be tempting to think "I'm not Muslim, this doesn't really affect me".' 'But please know, it affects all of us,' says Arun Venugopal, a reporter at WNYC in New York.
The Tata group is planning a big splash.
The human toll in the floods and relentless rain across the country reached almost 200 by Thursday, even as thousands in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam, Odisha, West Bengal, and elsewhere were forced out of their homes into temporary shelters.
'Neither Modi nor the BJP have lost control over the minds and votes of their original supporters due to their tremendous political ability to play upon baser communal instincts.' 'But this buoyant support will melt away if the economic scenario remains depressing.' 'That makes 2020 an interesting year to watch out for,' notes Sheela Bhatt.
T N C Rajagopalan on the new year and new worries.
The spread of Modism is in reality spread of a personality cult and not a political ideology, says Vidyut Joshi.
Economic reforms seem to be on a slow train, while good old fiscal populism is alive and flourishing.
'In the short to medium term, the Myanmar raid will impose caution on Pakistan in planning another 26/11-like adventure. As a result of this caution, even if the proxy war ebbs, it will reduce the danger of escalation to a nuclear stand-off,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The new government will have to contend with slowing economic growth, weak private investment, anaemic exports and vulnerable external imbalances, a stressed financial system, mounting fiscal pressures (including high government debt-to-GDP ratios) and an exceptionally bad employment situation,' says Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
'Every disease has traits and we have found out that actually 99 per cent of people who have got COVID-19, should recover.'
If Kejriwal wins the Delhi election, then most regional parties will copy Kejriwal's do's and don'ts of jugaad to win an election against the Modi-Shah juggernaut, reports Sheela Bhatt.
'Those who were first at the site of Gauri Lankesh's murder scene noticed that the place was still open for people to casually walk in and out.' 'No forensic evidence of value can remain in such places,' points out Aakar Patel.
'It was a 20-minute boat ride journey of about 500 metres, but it must have been a giant leap together for the two staunchly secular leaders, Modi and Macron,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The fight against COVID-19 is not a hospital fight.' 'It's a community level fight. 'If your community level measures are good, you can decrease the number of people coming to hospitals, or flatten it.'
It was apparently a night of horror in Arnia village of RS Pura sector in Jammu district, situated five kilometre from the International Border, when Pakistani troops resorted to high calibre mortar shelling on the civilian areas, leaving five dead and 34 injured.
'It is not the external world that is stopping Indians from winning medals. It is our culture.'
'The BJP had no traction in Karnataka and Siddaramaiah would have scraped through if he had not done all that he did.' 'When you pander to one community, the other community gets irritated.' 'Then, when you make fun of the cow and the treating of the cow as sacred, in your effort to belittle the Sangh Parivar and its obscurantism, you are hurting your normal voters too.' 'It is okay to make fun of the Sangh Parivar, but it is not okay to make fun of all Hindus.'
Kolkata police sergeant Guruprasad Banerjee, who acted as an escort to Nelson Mandela's convoy during his visit to Kolkata in October 1990, recalls the legendary anti-apartheid activist as one of the most down to earth international dignitaries.
India will become the largest single source of global oil demand growth after 2020, the International Energy Agency said.
'What lies at the core of Abe's stance is Japan's crisis management ability amid the increasingly tense North Korean situation,' says Rajaram Panda.
So, how does Pompeo's check list look like? In a broad sense, he is coming here 'to make sure that we have economic openness'; to ensure that 'we have to deliver'; to understand that 'we have to execute' what we promised to do; and, to 'broach some tough topics', points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Most of the extra spending in the Budget is in fact an accounting entry that shifts the cost of an interest subsidy to the agriculture Budget that was previously borne by the finance ministry
Erin Green, former head of immigration, Infosys says says only the loss of a big client could push Infosys to correct its internal corporate culture.
