Sheela Bhatt, arguably India's finest political journalist, has covered Indian politics for 40 years. You can e-mail the author at sheelakb@rediffmail.com
As the Rajya Sabha passed the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill 2014 on Thursday, giving birth to India's 29th state, Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt takes final stock of how it was accomplished.
There is nobody like Jaipal Reddy in Congress party. He is slotted to be the first Congress chief minister of Telangana if and when the Congress gets hold of the reins of power. Ten minutes after the Lok Sabha passed the Bill Reddy spoke exclusively to rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt in the corridors of Parliament.
Sheela Bhatt lists ten quick takeaways from the passage of the Telangana bill in the Lok Sabha.
Sheela Bhatt recounts the tension, suspense and disruptions during P Chidambaram's interim budget in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
On the basis of many conversations with stakeholders on the Telangana issue, Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt presents an FAQ to help understand the politics of posturing and realpolitik on the ground to win seats. The questions are many and the answers are not straight
'The feeling in Telangana is that without her a separate state cannot be created... All the MPs and MLAs from Seema-Andhra have a business background. Their interest is to save their business,' Congress MP K Raj Gopal Reddy, who played a key role in Thursday's turbulent events, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
A Congress MP reveals to Sheela Bhatt the Congress plan to protect the Speaker and home minister and muscle through the tabling of the Telangana bill in Parliament.
It is time to pack up, sir! Please resign and save some honour of the Lok Sabha, an anguished Sheela Bhatt reports from the Lok Sabha press gallery after watching the shameful goings on over the tabling of the Telangana Bill.
NSA Menon's wisdom says that the idea to be superpower is not really desirable, it is better to be different. Sheela Bhatt reports.
Arun Jaitley and Janardan Dwivedi have rewritten the rules of politics in the Age of the Internet and its young and restless user base, reports Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
'At a time like this when the country's politics is set to change, Sonia Gandhi's speech didn't reflect her take on the change for the aam aadmi'. 'Once again, it was clear that Congress has lost the narrative of the aam aadmi, notes Sheela Bhatt.
But the ways of the Congress high command are never so simple. It behaves as a State by itself, reports Sheela Bhatt from New Delhi's Talkatora stadium after witnessing how the clamour was kept up to name Rahul Gandhi as the Congress PM candidate.
The highest court in the land will have to find a mechanism under which in future, if sexual harassment allegations are made against a judge, he/she will not go in the manner of Justice Ganguly. Hopefully, there will be some kind of system and guidelines to be followed by the accused and the victim, says Sheela Bhatt.
India tried to work out a legal solution, but that has not been possible. The final outcome thus is not the best one, but the optimal solution to a sub-optimal case, reports Sheela Bhatt.
Ela Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grand-daughter and a peace activist on her PBD award
'It is my job to resolve the issue, and we are looking at all options,' Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid tells Sheela Bhatt.
'Under Narendra Modi's leadership, we will be able to regain our rightful place in the community of nations,' veteran diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, who joined the BJP on January 2, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
The prime minister was aggressive during his interaction with the media, but no one came away enlightened on issues of governance of this complex country after hearing him for 75 minutes, says Sheela Bhatt, who attended the press conference on Friday, January 3.
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