Vijayakanth's DMDK may play a key role as Tamil Nadu's political parties scramble for allies to capture the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats.
For the government to meet its GST roll-out deadline of April 1, 2017, the states will have to ratify the Bill before Parliament's winter session, starting November.
Dealing with the Sirisena government in Sri Lanka, says G Ganapathy Subramaniam, is a lot easier for India than engaging with the Rajapaksa regime.
'He can say justice has not been done in accordance with the free will of the MLAs without a secret ballot and also by the issuing of a whip.' 'He can ask for a fresh show of strength.'
After an unsavoury courtroom battle, his party won to secure for him the final resting place at the Chennai landmark
The India Test spinner had one wicket to show in 21 overs during Day 1 of the Ranji Trophy Group B match against Madhya Pradesh.
The massive protest has been called by the All India Government Nurses Federation and the Delhi Nurses Federation seeking redressal of issues related to pay and allowances.
No one at this point no one in the state is talking about a clean sweep with high victory margins that the AIADMK front won in the 2011 assembly elections. The 'Modi factor', as against a 'Modi wave', has ensured as much, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK has Stalin and Stalin alone as the key campaigner. The rest of them all, including half-sister Kanimozhi, are tied down to their own constituencies while those like party treasurer and former minister S Duraimurugan, to those of their children's constituencies.
The deadlock over finalising alliances has had a deleterious effect on the candidates of every party. The delay in alliance conclusion has also sent out confusing signals to the grass-roots who are unsure who will be their party candidate, or which party within an alliance will be allotted a particular constituency, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ruling party has indicated willingness to discuss opposition-sponsored motions on 'intolerance'; Jaitley has also shown willingness to accommodate concerns on GST
'It is very hard to get the police to file a report against someone from an upper caste.' 'Things are so bad that sometimes we have to sit on a dharna with the body of a Dalit victim to get the police to file a complaint.'
With the Apollo Hospitals chairman saying that she has recovered, the party can go back to business as usual.
As political rivals clamour to retain their pan-Tamil credentials, the BJP may use the 'nationalist' card to even the odds in its favour, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Unpredictable polling in Tamil Nadu, and criminal cases stacked against Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be two key factors to be taken into consideration when the government is formed at the Centre, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Considering that all sides to the game feel being targeted by the BJP-ruled Centre through taxmen and their ED/CBI counterparts, both factions may not rule out the possibility of patching up after a time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The fact remains that in the present-day Tamil Nadu, GenX and GenY voters, born and/or growing up after the end of 'Kamaraj rule' in the '60s and 'MGR rule', respectively, constitute an absolute majority of the electorate. If they still vote for a Rajini or Kamal, in preference to the established 'Dravidian voters', it is despite the MGR imagery, not because of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
There are many collateral advantages of taking the tough decision.
After Bihar elections, Rahul Gandhi's go-it-alone strategy seems to have taken a back seat.
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
'Can the Aam Aadmi Party challenge the BJP? Someday perhaps. But to set him up as a national alternative just now smacks of the very sin that Arvind Kejriwal admits brought him down in 2014 -- arrogance.'
It maybe time for the Centre to take a closer look at Chief Minister Jayalalitha's innovative' solution to a long-pending problem, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A round-up of Ranji matches played on Monday
'No, that is not an abbreviation for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha,' says T V R Shenoy, 'but for J Jayalalithaa-Mamata Banerjee-Mayawati-Mulayam Singh Yadav... If the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, and other regional forces do extremely well, we could be heading for a repetion of the 9th Lok Sabha (1989 to 1991) and the 11th Lok Sabha (1996 to 1998), each of which saw multiple prime ministers and neither of which lasted even half of its five-year term.'
Will the 2016 assembly election be Stalin's to lead the DMK in?
Tamil Nadu has around 30 per cent or more of 'swing voters', and it is this segment that will swing the pre-poll alliance decision, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Now that Tamil Nadu's tallest politician is no more, it remains to be seen how new political re-alignments could shape up, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With Tamil Nadu's economy getting increasingly debt-ridden with each passing budget, any concession to the Centre on the tax front, the state government has argued, would only help forgotten 'minor parties' to start hoping of a revival, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Today, with the 'Cauvery row' in full flow, the DMK has managed to wrest the 'pan-Tamil initiative' for the Dravidian polity as a whole. What more, the DMK has also stolen much of the 'Tamil thunder' that had belonged to peripheral pan-Tamil groups over the Jallikattu protests in January 2017, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Suicide rates among Indian farmers were a chilling 47 per cent higher than they were for the rest of the population in 2011. In some of the states worst hit by the agrarian crisis, they were well over 100 per cent higher. In Maharashtra, farmers were killing themselves at a rate that was 162 per cent higher than that for any other Indians excluding farmers. A farmer in this state is two-and-a-half times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else in the country, other than farmers,' says P Sainath.
The year 2015 was a mixed bag for the Grand Old party --with the performance in Bihar being a consolation while the the National Herald case came back to haunt its leadership.
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
The BJP's hobnobbing with M K Alagiri and ally Vaiko's controversial demands has the potential to rock the BJP's boat in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Vasanthakumar, who started his career as a salesman, today owns a retail empire.
Inscrutable have been the ways of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. She is a political strategist and tactician rolled into one that her unpredictable ways have won the day for her - mostly, says N Sathiya Moorthy
If the already demoralised Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadre, beaten worse by the shocking parliamentary poll debacle in May 2014 thought that the political set-back suffered by rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, in the light of a Bangalore court ordering a jail-term for her in September was a boon for their leadership, it's not to be.
Parekh said divestment can unlock huge funds.
Aadhaar-related schemes and the Aadhaar Act exist on the assumption that Right to Privacy is not a Fundamental Right.
Does Pranab Mukherjee want to be 'PM' by office, not just by initials? The very prospect, with memories of the Narasimha Rao years scarred into their memories, scares the Nehru-Gandhis, says T V R Shenoy.
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