Asrar Jamayee: An 80-year-old Urdu poet declared dead by the Delhi government is struggling to survive

Asrar Jamayee’s satire was once awarded by the first Indian President, Dr Rajendra Prasad. Now, even local mushairas don’t invite him.

Asrar Jamayee, 80, an eminent Urdu poet, was declared dead by the Social Welfare Department of South Delhi in 2013, depriving him of his monthly pension of Rs 1,500. Since then, he has been fighting for survival. He lives alone in a rented single room littered with Urdu books (including his newly published ones, which lie under a thick layer of dust) and worn-out shervanis.

Telangana Slips Into Agitation 2.0 As KCR Plans 'Kejriwal Act' At Delhi

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Telangana state is geared up to agitation 2.0 demanding the proper bifurcation of the state on certain long pending issues.

Two years after he secured the state of Telangana after a 13-year-long struggle, K Chandrasekhar Rao will wear the hat of a protester once again. The chief minister of Telangana now plans to do an Arvind Kejriwal by sitting on a dharna in the country's capital, to protest against the delay in bifurcation of the High court of Hyderabad.

As Polls Approach, Ugly Politics Plays Out In Punjab’s Inly Muslim-Majority Town

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

Last week, torn pages of the Quran were found at Malerkotla, which has had a long tradition of keeping the peace.

As Punjab gears up for Assembly elections next year, the politics of polarisation seems to have picked up pace.

Last Friday, pages of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, were found scattered near a cemetery in Malerkotla in Ludhiana. Violence followed. A few vehicles were set on fire by a group that was upset by having been denied a meeting with the local MLA.

The Minimum Leader: The Unravelling Of Arvind Kejriwal

By NEWSCOP | INNLIVE

Two years on, it is becoming apparent that Arvind Kejriwal is no breakaway from the typical mould of the politician as deception artist.

Arvind Kejriwal’s resume could be kept concise and hilarious: Underdog Extraordinaire. Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, is a politician with an obvious appetite for theatrics, and he deserves admiration for his knack for blurring the line between the reality of his problems with the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre and the tricks of his own house of mirrors in the capital that cast him as a superhero who champions the rights of the common man. What has helped so far, in no small measure, is his projection of himself as the ultimate victim-hero.

Weekend Tadka: How Modi Fell Into RaGa's Political Trap?

"This is a suit-boot-ki-sarkar", said one Rahul, the Congress Dynast. "This is not the Modi government", said another Rahul, a patriarch of the Bajaj Auto group. The two statements are pregnant with meaning. The Dynast's meaning was to suggest that Narendra Modi's government favours crony businessmen. Rahul Bajaj’s quip was intended to suggest that Modi was not proving to be the friend of business that he was thought to be.

All the current problems faced by Modi – the parliamentary gridlock, failure to pass key legislation, the lack of new energy in the economy, and growing business disillusionment with him - can best be explained by the wide gulf between the statements of the two Rahuls.

Satire: Srinivasan Donates CSK Stakes To AAP, Kejriwal Plans To Raise Money Through IPL Matches!

TAKE IT EASY: Ex-IPL Chief N Srinivasan has decided to donate stakes of his IPL team 'Chennai Super Kings' to the 'Aam Aadmi Party' in a desperate bid to mitigate the setback it received after Justice Lodha committee’s verdict on IPL betting was out.

Sources close to N Srinivasan said that the ICC Chairman was looking for a buyer after restrictions were imposed on his IPL team. “There couldn’t have been a better association of two beleaguered entities,” said an official related to the deal.

AAP, which is out of funds after spending 500 Cr on making TV commercial, seeks to earn revenue through IPL matches. The party plans to  rename the team as ‘Delhi Freeloaders’.

Infosys Techie Turned Politician Making 'Bet' On Startups

INNLIVE Media Team

SUCESS STORY: A former Infosys CFO-turned-politician is making a million dollar bet on Indian startups.

On December 31, 2013, Venkatraman Balakrishnan quit Infosys after a 22-year-long stint in India’s second largest information technology services company.

The next day, the chartered accountant—once Infosys’ chief financial officer, and a candidate to become the company’s CEO—made his political debut by joining the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Over the next few months, Balakrishnan—with declared assets worth some Rs190 crore ($30 million)—got to work on his campaign in the Bangalore Central constituency for the Lok Sabha polls.

Playing Dirty 'Garbage Politics': BJP, AAP, Congress Risk Making Delhi Laughing Stock For The World

Politics is dirty. But what kind of people indulge in politics of dirt? Over the past week, the proponents of Swacch Bharat tried it in Delhi, the symbols of ‘clean politics’ also raked muck on the issue; and even Rahul Gandhi stepped into the cess pool. In the end, by poking their nose in the garbage of Delhi, everybody ended up showing the ugly face of politics in India.

Commentary: 'Faced With The Good And The Bad NGOs'

The Modi's Government, undaunted, seems to be cracking down on bigger global outfits. Some, like Greenpeace and Ford Foundation, have been already been put under the scanner.

It was probably CNN, when it was owned by Ted Turner, which first gave credence and pride of place to the ‘citizen journalist’, particularly for eye-witness footage, and ‘man bites dog’ stories. Not only was this amateur footage used on international satellite TV, but the production values were jollied up as much as they could be, and seamlessly integrated into the big-tent professionalism that CNN injected.

Why RaGa's Return Will Be A 'Disastrous' For Congress?

He might doze off in Parliament in the second half of the Budget Session or roll up his kurta sleeves at the kisan rally on April 19.

Rahul Gandhi will arrive - in time to address a kisan rally scheduled for April 19. Congress faithful have mixed feelings about the return of the prodigal son. Veterans of Sonia Gandhi's old guard know that once Rahul is anointed party president, they will be sidelined. But the tension in the party isn't, as some naively believe, between Sonia and Rahul. 

OpEd: Now, Time Has Come To Write 'An Obituary' For AAP

In the aftermath of the recent developments within the Aam Aadmi Party, this opinion describes the loss of hope and feeling of dejection among many idealists, who had fondly seeded and nurtured dreams of a politics of alternatives.

There are many of us who have been to the protest spot, Jantar Mantar a number of times and love that square for allowing voices of protest against establishment and governments. We have also laid bare before scrutiny, our love for such protest places and the way State and law and order agencies attempt to ritualise dissent, and on occasions we have even tried to spontaneously protest elsewhere, for example India Gate.

'Communal Forces Dominating Political Spaces Of Modi'

The perceived communal overtones dominating the political space in the form of the saffron outfits’ ghar wapsi programme are beginning to hurt the Narendra Modi-led NDA government.

The latest India Today Group-Cicero Mood of The Nation Survey shows that the BJP would lose at least 27 Lok Sabha seats from its current tally if elections were held today.

In the opinion poll, 38 per cent of the 12,000 respondents rated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s performance as ‘good’. 

Of those who participated in the opinion poll, 22 per cent categorised it as ‘excellent’ and only 11 per cent said they were ‘unhappy’ with the first 10 months of the National Democratic Alliance government. 

The findings of the opinion poll should come as a wake-up call for the Union government as people might be satisfied overall with its performance on the counts of governance, economy and foreign affairs, but the communal tag is pulling its image down.

A direct fall-out of the government’s image taking a beating is evident in terms of seat projections for the BJP. The survey shows that the ruling party will lose 27 seats while others will gain 24.

Focus: When #PappuFans Celebrated #AAPrilFoolsDay!

What's flooding your Twitter timeline right now? What has swamped your Facebook feed at the moment? Chances are words like "back-stabbing" and "anti-party activities" are the culprits along with names of Aam Aadmi Party leaders.

The ideological conflict between Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and dissident leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, quite obviously, is social media's favourite obsession now.

How The BJP Surpassed China’s Communists Party To Become The Largest Political Party In The World?

Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now the world’s largest political organisation, or so his party claims. With 88 million registered members, the right-wing political party has at least 1.3 million more members than the Communist Party of China, which was established in 1921.

That’s a massive growth for the 35-year-old BJP, which had a little over 35 million members in November 2014. And having added more than 50 million voters in the last five months—since it launched one of the biggest membership drives—the BJP now wants to take that number to 100 million in the next few months.

Focus: The Great AAP Soap Opera: From Comrades To Foes

The Aam Aadmi Party’s bitter internal feud has played out like a daily soap. High drama, explosive stings, allegations of violence, cuss words, backroom intrigue - it’s all out there for public consumption.

The latest episode - the dramatic exit of founder members Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan from the national executive. Yadav called it a “murder of democracy” and Bhushan alleged ‘goondagardi’ by Kejriwal supporters.

But this is not the first. AAP’s ‘filmy’ history is full of tales of friends who gradually turned foes.

'Anna' Strikes Back: BJP 'Land Bill' Gives Hazare 'New Life'

After his first agitation lasted just two days and that too, only with a boost from former protege Arvind Kejriwal, anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare is now promising a three-month-long agitation against the Land Acquisition Bill from April, and his protests seem to be picking up steam.

Hazare has announced forty rallies across the country and a 'strong protest' against the contentious legislation, dismissing the Prime Minister's defence of the Land Bill in his radio address as 'misleading'.

Who's Behind Kejriwal's U-turn On Expanding Across India

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal can learn from a memorable scene in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool. In that film, Pankaj Kapoor (Abbaji) gets irriated by a politician, thrusts a paan into his mouth and menacingly tells him, “Gilori khaya karo, gulfaam, zubaan kaboo mein rehti hai.”

Chewing too much betel leaves (gilori) could be injurious to health. But there is certainly some merit in the other suggestion: a politician should think before he speaks, especially in public.

Aam Aadmi Party Scenario: Just Like Any Old ‘Aam’ Party

Over the past few years, a number of publishers have requested me to write a tell-all book on political developments. Premised on the correct belief that those in the media know far more than they actually reveal in their writings, their expectation is of a book that divulges ‘off the record’ conversations and insider information that form the basis of judgements, but whose details are inevitably left out.

 Having thought over the matter carefully, I have so far refused. The reason is not very complicated. Relationships with politicians and other public figures are built over decades and are based on absolute trust.

The AAP Internal Conflicts: Real Winner Is 'Manish Sisodia'

In less than a month, cracks of sizable magnitude have begun to appear in the Aam Aadmi Party, posing serious questions about the party’s ability to bridge the differences among the top leadership. 

As the war over turf rages within through well-calculated leaks in the media in the absence of party convenor Arvind Kejriwal, the real question is who is the commander from his side.

Focus: Rahul Gandhi’s 'Grand Plan' To 'Revamp Congress'

The Nehru-Gandhi scion has been strategising for months in preparation for his ascendance to the party president’s post. This is what he plans to do to bring Congress back into power.

It is now certain that the Reluctant Prince, shedding his hesitation, is all set to take charge of the 130-year-old Congress party very soon. The revelation caps a week of fervid chatter by the commentariat on Rahul Gandhi’s political career, where it analysed his two-week leave of absence and judged everything from his lack of dynamism to naïve sincerity, his lethargy and indifference to sudden bounce, and his transition from a tragic heir to a fleeting radical.