With an eye on assembly elections scheduled in another four months in Tamil Nadu, archrivals M Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa on Thursday virtually turned their customary New Year greetings into poll messages. Karunanidhi said his government's initiatives like the new Assembly-Secretariat complex in Chennai, the five-day World Classical Tamil conference in Coimbatore, celebrations to mark the 1000th year existence of the temple at Thanjavur were the proud achievements.
The travails due to enforcement of the eligibility test was because the AIADMK regime under K Palaniswami allowed the test to be conducted, despite DMK's efforts to keep it at bay, he said
A Ganesh Nadar catches up with Jayalalithaa on her campaign trail in Tuticorin district.
Keeping their eyes on the assembly elections, the BJP has been trying to win favour with the southern regional parties, observes R Rajagopalan
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
As some BJP pollsters concede, the Modi leadership's sweeping success in elections 2019, especially across central India, owed not to Hindutva ideology, but to welfare schemes, all of them borrowed from Tamil Nadu, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
The cellphone of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader was used by operatives of banned Tamil Nadu terror outfit Al-Ummah to allegedly trigger the blast near the Bharatiya Janata Party office in Bangalore.
'Intense rivalry between the AIADMK and the DMK was standing in the way of the development of the state.'
With DMK's M K Stalin coming into his own, and the rival AIADMK too leaving no space for third parties, Tamil Nadu will remain a Dravidian stronghold for a long time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
By getting the Tamil Nadu assembly to act on his very imaginative public declaration to keep petro-chemical industries out of the Cauvery delta, which has traditionally been a DMK stronghold, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has not only set the ball rolling for the assembly elections due a year later but also sent out a strong message to the BJP government at the Centre, which took a unilateral decision to exempt petro-complexes from environmental clearance, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi, who is on his first visit to Tamil Nadu after winning the recent assembly elections in Gujarat, is also scheduled for a luncheon meeting with All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Jayalalithaa.
A man jumps from the 6th floor of Mantralaya, the Maharashtra government's administrative headquarters in Mumbai, but lands in the safety net installed in the building.
Known for his organisational skills, Union Minister and party's strongman M K Alagiri shies away from open electioneering. But he is always on the move, crisscrossing southern Tamil Nadu giving 'pep talks' to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadre
'As long as Amul was coming in with products it was not a problem because it was something value added and with a shelf life.' 'When it gets into the local market by procuring locally, it cuts into the market-share of local cooperatives.'
The chief minister may have Prime Minister Modi's backing.
The BJP's relations with some alliance partners, including its oldest ally the Shiv Sena, Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United, Akali Dal and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party of Union minister Upendra Kushwaha, have been somewhat tense, and Shah's comments are being seen as an attempt to smooth their ruffled feathers.
If the Cauvery water-sharing dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu -- dating back to 1892 between the erstwhile Madras Presidency under the British Raj and the princely Mysore state -- has exploded again into a war, the discord between Karnataka and Goa over dividing the water of the Mahadayi river simmers under the surface.
Brushing aside the demand of political parties in Tamil Nadu for a total boycott, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid arrived in Colombo on Wednesday to attend the CHOGM this week saying India remains committed to the welfare of the ethnic Tamils of Sri Lanka and that "we have to remain engaged" in "enlightened national interest".
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.
A division bench of the Madras high court on Thursday dismissed a contempt application seeking to punish former Chief Minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Edappadi K Palaniswami and his supporters for alleged non-implementation of its earlier orders.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The two notices, which have listed virtually similar wordings, say that prima facie the manifestos of the two parties 'have not substantially fulfilled the guidelines of the Commission'.
The Madras high court on Thursday pulled up the Centre over its alleged lapse in taking prompt action in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, wondering what it was doing for 14 months.
'Your strike rate is very important when it comes to seat-sharing.'
It said that Congress' strategy to pursue 'fringe and disruptive politics' in Parliament was only for political reasons and opposition to the development agenda of the BJP government, which has been rejected by the people in the four large states of Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala.
Under the deal, the PMK will be supporting the AIADMK in the bypolls expected to 21 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu, he said.
The Indian authorities have to reconfirm that Prabhakaran is dead. It may require seeking assistance from Interpol and also involve the re-opening of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, and more so, the investigations, formally or otherwise, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Counting of votes for the high stakes assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry began on Thursday morning with trends expected to be available by 11am.
Whenever they are announced, the bypolls to 20 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu will be a mini referendum on the state government's performance. It will also be a do-or-die battle for the ruling AIADMK, opposition DMK, as well as the rebel AMMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
While 67 per cent of India's population is 39 years old or younger, states are governed by chief ministers who are 70 or older.
At least 12 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) reached West Bengal on Saturday morning as the state prepares to go to elections, officials said.
Naveen Patnaik is known as an "absentee landlord" who needs bureaucrats like Pandian to run his government.
A Tamil Nadu district has created interesting ways to increase voting this assembly election.
V K Sasikala, late J Jayalalithaa's confidante would return to Tamil Nadu on February 7 from Bengaluru and a grand welcome from party cadres awaited her right from the state's border, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary T T V Dinakaran said in Madurai on Wednesday.
Attacking the previous Karunanidhi regime, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday said the people of the state have won new freedom with the end of the "tyrannical family rule". In her first Independence Day address since coming to power in a landslide victory in the April 13 assembly elections, she said there had been no freedom for the people in the last five years and they had lived in fear.
Pon Radhakrishnan is also a Union minister of state. His opponent is the richest candidate in Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Sunday spent 30 minutes with his son and Union minister MK Alagiri at his official bungalow in New Delhi.
Sasikala may be set to take over the reins of Tamil Nadu, yet she faces a period of immense turbulence.
Clad in black shirts and white dhotis, the AIADMK members gathered in large numbers at the historic Valluvar Kottam in Chennai to stage a fast agitation demanding that Udayakumar be allotted Panneerselvam's chair in the assembly.
Some 1,100 years ago, Uthiramerur had an election system similar to what India has today.
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