Prem Panicker News Today

The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJPs ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.

Many in India have accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of hate speech over his comments on the Muslim community during election campaigning.

In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.

While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.

On balance, RG contesting from Raebareli instead of Amethi isnt the masterstroke the partys adherents are touting it to be, but neither is it the blunder the BJP and its tame media is framing it as, points out Prem Panicker.

This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesnt work against the backdrop of Chinas successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.

Sudhir Chaudhary offers commentary on India-Pak match. What happened next won't surprise you

Rishabh Pant batted brilliantly against the Dimuth Karunaratne-led Sri Lanka National Cricket Team, but he fell 4 runs short of a century.

The shortlist for the 2021 JCB Prize for Literature features three works by first time authors and two translated from Malayalam

The five members of the JCB Prize for Literature jury weigh in.