That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
Clearly, her father hopes that a successful tenure in Lahore will give Maryam the ballast to be prime minister after the next general election.
In a breakthrough that could end the political uncertainty in Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Peoples Party have agreed on a power-sharing deal to form a new coalition government after intense negotiations following a fractured poll verdict.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
NEET is a court-ordered examination, supposedly aimed at meritocracy. However, over the past years when the incumbent Narendra Modi government at the Centre began implementing it, it took on political and casteist colours, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
If the alliance is sealed, the MNS may be given one seat to contest from Mumbai, the Maharashtra capital where his cousin Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction enjoys some influence.
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday secured a record fourth straight term as her Awami League party won two-thirds of the seats in the general elections marred by sporadic violence and a boycott by the main opposition BNP and its allies.
'India need to look beyond the economic prism.' 'China had no qualms in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council last year -- not once, but thrice -- thus violating Indian sensitivities,' observes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
At many places, Kumar lost his cool and chided the protestors for "acting on behalf of political rivals".
'The Opposition will continue to be attacked through misuse of agencies, civil society will be force-marched towards extinction and India's plummeting on global indices will continue.' 'Minorities and especially Muslims will continue to have open season declared on them. Institutions will continue their decline,' predicts Aakar Patel.
'... dividing society not just on religious lines, but also creating rift in families and among brothers and sisters.'
Springing a surprise, independents backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won the lion's share of 101 seats in the National Assembly in Thursday's election.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Issues including the Rafale deal, construction of Ram Temple and Cauvery river water caused disruptions in the House.
Devaswoms are meant to manage temples, not the faithful. Why didn't they simply stick to their set of responsibilities and execute it well and efficiently?, asks Shyam G Menon.
Among the political parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) emerged as the largest party, winning 227 seats, followed by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with 160 seats.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
Women politicians bring to politics and policy a sensitivity that most of their male counterparts, at least until a generation back, lacked.
If the idea was to garner AIADMK votes with or without the three faction leaders after the party broke ties with the NDA, it may not work after all, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Thousands of student activists from the Inter University Students Federation blocked the main access road to the parliamentary complex since Thursday and carried on protests for almost 24 hours.
Gianiji had crafted his moves with the meticulous planning of a chess grandmaster. He did not know whether a checkmate was feasible, as his time was running out, but he wanted Rajiv Gandhi to smell the fear of loss. A fascinating excerpt from K C Singh's The Indian President: An Insider's Account of the Zail Singh Years.
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
It may be for the first time that any leader in any political party in Kerala had taken such a step to register their protest against the party leadership for denying poll ticket.
In 2017, a retired R&AW officer conveyed that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was keen to get monarchy restored in Nepal and suggested that I support these efforts.
Vellore is one of the two seats that the DMK alliance won by the narrowest of margins in 2019. For the DMK's vote-score to be so low in a constituency with a substantial Muslim population has not missed the BJP strategists' eyes, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Haryana Bharatiya Janata Party leader Birender Singh on Monday threatened to quit the party if does not sever ties with the Jannayak Janta Party, which he accused of indulging in rampant corruption in the state.
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
Normal life in Bihar was on Friday affected by a dawn to dusk `bandh' called by students' bodies in protest against anomalies in the format of exams conducted by the Railway Recruitment Board and police high handedness against protesting students.
India has slammed Pakistan for its decision to hold elections in Gilgit-Baltistan and said any action to alter the status of the militarily-occupied region has no legal basis.
'It is difficult to replace him because if he is replaced, it will lead to a sense of defeat among the Meiteis, rightly or wrongly, and more chaos.'
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad granted two weeks' time to the petitioners to respond to the Centre's stand on the matter.
Medical seats for under-graduates and post-graduates remaining vacant in the NEET era, together with the Centre 'freezing' the number of medical colleges and seats in (Dravidian) Tamil Nadu and the launch of the PM's 'Vishwakarma Scheme' for the nation's craftsmen, are all seen as a bid to further reverse the state's progressive socio-economic agenda of and its achievements of the past hundred-plus years, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress needs to reorganise itself at the grassroots, infuse younger blood, and have more boots on the ground. Just offering freebies is not the answer anymore. Leadership matters, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The competition for the worst or most perilous 10 years has always been between the 1960s and the 1980s, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The department of investment and public asset management is racing against time to launch the LIC IPO, which could become the largest-ever listing on the Indian bourses. This would lead to some delay in the strategic divestment of IDBI Bank.
The BJP bagged 1,989 of the 4,371 panchayat samiti seats while the Congress won 1,852 with almost all results of the four-phase local government polls being declared.
'Education played the most significant role in entrenchment of Hindutva ideology in coastal Karnataka.' 'Teachers of most of the schools, junior colleges, degree colleges and universities are active agents of Hindutva propaganda.'
The Delhi high court on Friday said it will first hear the pleas directly challenging the Centre's Agnipath scheme and then decide those concerning the recruitment processes for the armed forces under certain previous advertisements.
