The Tamil film industry is known as Kollywood -- a reference to Kodambakkam, the area in Chennai where studios were once located and stars lived. The real name of Kodambakkam, however, is Kodalambakkam (Kodal + pakkam)). Kodal is the name of a flower that grew in these parts, as recorded in...
Not many are aware of a dramatic shift in the stand of the DMK regarding conduct of bypolls due in Tamil Nadu. DMK president M K Stalin’s statement in this regard has come as a surprise. W When the Tiruvarur bypoll, scheduled for January 28, was put off by the Election Commission, there was...
The Election Commission was once respected as a constitutional, neutral body, with at least some pretence to be fair and apolitical. However, its actions relating to Tamil Nadu continue to raise eyebrows. Right from the time the EC took its time to hold the RK Nagar bypoll, and later announcing...
The PMK’s endorsement of the Governor’s address to the State Assembly on January 2 (which is actually a text prepared by the cabinet of the AIADMK government, in effect CM Edappadi Palaniswami’s speech) has sent signals of a renewal of ties between the two parties, fondly watched from the...
While everyone in Tamil Nadu is looking forward to the verdict in the Tiruvarur by-election on January 31, the result may not reflect the real strengths of the major parties in Tamil Nadu, for various reasons. For long, bypolls have seen massive misuse of official machinery and vulgar,...
A beleaguered AIADMK, which originally wanted to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls with only a few minor allies, and not align with the BJP, has succumbed to the pressure mounted by the saffron party and agreed to an alliance for the LS elections. The AIADMK wanted to pursue the Jayalalithaa...
The defection of Senthil Balaji from the TTV Dinakaran camp to the DMK has come as a shock to the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu as this is the first case of a member of the AIADMK family to join the DMK in recent times. The refrain of the AIADMK ever since the party split into two or three groups...
The 2014 DMK strategy of going it alone, jettisoning the Congress, its ally from 2004, proved disastrous for the Dravidian party as it drew a blank while its rival, the AIADMK walked away with 37 of the 39 Lok sabha seats in Tamil Nadu. On December 11, DMK president M K Stalin went in for a...
Congress 3, BJP 0. This amazing scorecard of the elections to five States on December 11 has opened up the fight for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on a totally new frontier, with the Congress delivering a death-blow in the Hindu, Hindi heartland of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh....
The results of the elections to three States – MP, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh – may have brought the Congress back to power and at the forefront of the struggle to dislodge the BJP from power at the Centre, but an analysis of the voting trends shows that the Congress needs to tie up with the...
