The Thiruparankundram hill near Madurai in Tamil Nadu is becoming yet another laboratory for the Hindutva forces to test their communal politics, though it would turn out to be an uphill task for them.

Bihar demographics are in favour of those political formations that are courting the vote of the youths. And it is their and their families' votes that will decide which way the scales will tilt as 65 percent of the families in the state have one of their members working outside the state. Bihar's demographic advantage is much better than the country’s with the nation's to last till 2040, while the state’s till 2050. Remittances by migrants' make up 50 percent of their families’ annual income and 28 percent of the village economy. Remittances sent by the migrants to their families averaged about 50,000 per year.

For the first time, Bihar is seeing the largest number of Muslim candidates in the fray. Prashant Kishor of Jan Suraaj has nominated 34 Muslim candidates, RJD 10 and JDU four. In the second phase of polling, there are several Muslim-dominated constituencies.

The heat has turned on Indian American leaders of the Donald Trump's Republican party who earlier promoted the white Christian nationalism in US. Trump's MAGA supporters are targeting them, calling them useful idiots who are discarded the moment they become a political liability.

Amit Shah at an election meeting promised to the youths that the NDA would start a new era of industrialisation after it came back to power. The NDA in its manifesto has promised a factory in each district. Even the NDA candidate, muscleman Anant, at present jailed in the Dularchand murder case, told a reporter that if elected he would request the new government to open a good school and a hospital in Mokama where he was fighting from.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar says that the largest polling percentage led by women voters shows that that there is a wave in favour of the NDA alliance. But on the ground, there is no feel of any wave.

Mamdani is just 34 years old. He defied both establishments--Democrats and US President Donald Trump. He started his campaign just six months ago with padyatra and social media outreach. Mamdani brought morality in politics centre stage. His agenda was class-neutral with free public transport and universal child care.

This epoch-making triumph by the women is going to be a generational shift in the dynamics of women’s cricket and usher in a new era--something what the 1983 World Cup win did to men’s cricket.

Pinarayi Vijayan and his Left Democratic Front Government in Kerala had consistently opposed the PMSHRI (Prime Minister’s Schools for Rising India) scheme launched by the Central Government in 2022. They had called it a ‘danger to the nation’ and a ‘Trojan Horse’ to introduce the National Education Policy (NEP).

Modi have been cornering the major chunk of the votes both in Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections harping on the 'Jungle Raj', pandering to the Bihari pride promising utopias to them. At a different election meeting in Patna, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that Bihar will soon become a developed state.

The temple has been thrown into the eye of a storm over the missing gold used for gold-plating (cladding) of the idols of the ‘dwarpalika’ (gatekeepers) on either side of the sanctum sanctorum.

Making claims to mosques which were allegedly built up over existing Hindu religious structure has been integral part of the Hindutva philosophy. As Hindutva is a political ideology aimed at making India a de facto Hindu Rashtra, the Babri Masjid- Janmabhoomi Bhumi and issue and the other issues subsequent to it have purely been political issues.

Through SIR, delimitation and one nation one election (ONOE), BJP wants to be a hegemon, said Yogendra Yadav, president of Swaraj India. After it failed to get a mandate for its desired changes in the architecture of the constitution in 2024, BJP now wants to carry out its agenda from the back door through the three exercises, he stated.

Ayyappa devotees’ popular pilgrimage centre Sabarimala is in the news again these days. It is over the controversy over organising a Global Ayyappa Sangamam by the Kerala government in association with the Travancore Devasom Board on September 20 at Pamba. Pamba is the base camp from where the Ayyappa devotees start the five-km trek to the temple.

The cancellation of the four-day function of the West Bengal Urdu Academy on the ground of invitation to lyricist Javed Akhtar once again lends credence to the allegation that political parties across the ideological divides practice secularism to the extent it does not hurt their support base.

What is needed to clean politics is not a new law but filtering down criminals while deciding to nominate candidates to fight elections by the political parties. .

The chief minister on Monday (18 August) announced at a press conference at the state secretariat a monetary benefit scheme of Rs 5,000 per month for those who have fled from their work places to home from different BJP-ruled states following the police actions. They will continue to get the benefit for one year till they get a new job.

Following public outcry, the Kerala Government set up the Justice Hema Committee, headed by retired Kerala High Court judge K. Hema, in July 2017 to investigate the issues faced by women in the Malayalam film industry, especially allegations of sexual violence and gender inequality.

The prime minister announced setting up of a high-powered demographic mission to deal with the challenge of demographic change due to infiltration.

Now, BJP has jumped into the fray with former minister Anurag Thakur demanding resignation of Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Priyanka Gandhi and TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, accusing irregularities in the voters' list in each constituency-- Amethi, Kanauj, Wayanad, and Diamond Harbour-- from where they were elected.

Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday fired another salvo at the election commission over declaration of as many as 22 lakh alive voters as dead and about 36 lakh voters as shifted out in the draft electoral rolls prepared and released after completion of the first phase of Special Intensive Revision in Bihar.

The touchstone for a vehicle to be competent to drive on the road should be emission levels, not age. Nowhere in the world has age as a basis for retiring vehicles been successful.

BJD spokesperson Amar Patnaik accused that the total votes counted in a parliamentary constituency differed significantly from the votes recorded in the Assembly constituencies falling under the Lok Sabha constituency.

India is yet to share with public how many aircraft it lost in the operation which was launched Post Pahalgam terrorist attack. It said just that losses are part and parcel of any war.

The commission asked Rahul Gandhi to apologise to the nation or file claims and objections against specific voters in an affidavit as per the Registration of Electoral Rules.

Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday dropped what he has been claiming his atom bomb, accusing the commission of inflating the voters' lists in one of the seven Assembly constituencies in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in collusion with the BJP to ensure the party's victory.

Court should not interfere in every political debate in the name of defamation. Let politicians decide rules for the debate among them by themselves.

What happened suddenly that the vice-president had to take this decision? Though he had cited his health as the reason for submitting his resignation letter but the chain of events before his announcement of quitting suggests something else.

Two days after release of the inquiry report on the Ahmedabad air crash, the DGCA on Monday ordered inspection of fuel control switch locking mechanism, which was found transitioned in the AI 171 aircraft whose crash claimed more than 250 lives, in certain Boeing planes operated by airlines.

Kolkata is once again shamed. Just a year after the brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital shook the city

Indian athletes have been shamed as the world’s largest dope cheats. According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), India has the maximum 3.2 % of Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) among 100 tested athletes which is the highest in the world.

Snatching the voting rights of the poor by default by the Election of India while doing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters' list has become a major concern not only among the opposition parties but in the media as well.

The timing, necessity, feasibility and the short period in which the Election Commission of India wants to wrap up the Special Intensive Revision (SIR of the voters' list in Bihar) has created doubts among the opposition parties in particular and people in general in the state.

The cloud of silence over how many war planes India lost in the initial stages of the Operation Sindoor now must end as the talk on it refuses to die down.

Can Trump stop Iran from going nuclear? This question is agitating the minds of world leaders as well as the US as they want to ensure that Israel remains the only country in the West Asia in possession of nuclear weapons.

Who prevented Indo-Pak skirmishes from escalating into a full- scale war? Trump or Modi?