West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shyamapada Mondal waded into controversy by calling Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee a 'eunuch' and accused her of practicing politics of appeasement. "Today you cannot understand whether Mamata Banerjee is a female or a male... I'd say she has become a 'hijra' (eunuch)," he said.
On Tuesday, police in Suri in West Bengal's Birbhum district used batons to disperse a rally where 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans were raised.
Vinay Varshney, as he predicts the end of CFL lamps in a few years, points to the ceiling of the conference room at Maruti Suzuki's factory in Gurgaon.
Tony D'Souza, who is consolidating his reputation with The Konkans, his second novel and Ashutosh Varshney, a distinguished professor of political science are among five India-origin Guggenheim fellows for 2008 in Canada and America.
Nirupama Rao, the former Indian Ambassador to the US, has been named as the 'Meera and Vikram Gandhi Fellow' with the Brown-India initiative at the Watson Institute for International Studies.
Will Sachin's record be eclipsed? The second lot of reader responses.
The JNU administration's decision to ask historian Thapar to submit her CV for assessment for her continuation as professor emerita drew sharp criticism from various quarters.
'What hurts people most is dynastic impulses and corruption under a family-ruled Congress party -- and Nehru has borne the brunt of it... I cannot be blinded by how the Nehru family has functioned but just as Gandhi can't be judged by his descendents, why should Nehru?' asks political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
Authorities asserted that lunch is served to students of any religion 'on demand' during the holy month.
'Certainly if Advani had agreed to Vajpayee in sacking Modi, then we would never have been talking of Modi today.'
'Indian politics has had three-and-a-half master narratives -- secular nationalism, Hindu nationalism, justice for lower castes and regionalism. The AAP seeks to go beyond that. Therein lies its promise and its challenge,' says Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University professor and author of book Battles Half Won, India's Improbable Democracy.
Garbh Vigyan Sanskar's logic: Have sex when the right planets are lined up; stop after you get pregnant, notes Mitali Saran.
'Modi's campaign has been strikingly devoid of anti-Muslim rhetoric. After the kutta pilla incident, it has been several months since he said something horrible about the Muslims of India. It is the result of democratic constraints. He has to make compromises... He's trying to reinvent himself. He will politically hurt himself if 2002 becomes the definition of Mr Modi again', says political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
'Most likely scenario is Modi comes back with either a much smaller majority and no majority at all and a coalition.' 'Very hard to imagine him doing better than he did last time.' 'He will then be a weaker prime minister,' the author of The Billionaire Raj tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday told the special court hearing the Aarushi case that the scene of crime was "completely dressed up" and the teenage girl's body was tampered with by dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar on the night of crime.
Nihal Sarin closes in on final Grandmaster norm
India still has to go a long way to implement reforms in various sectors.
Shekhar Gupta's anthology is a valuable addition to our understanding of the seeming muddle that is India... The experience of reading his columns is more like a chat with a friend in the afterglow of an enjoyable drink, but never frivolous, says Shreekant Sambrani.
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