Will Namo make an exception for Barack and Michelle and have a nimbu-paani at the White House?
Uttam Ghosh offers his unique take on the prime minister's birthday.
Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com and A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com boarded the Himsagar Express that runs between Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and Jammu Tawi in Jammu and Kashmir. Check out the scenes they witnessed...
Rediff.com's Uttam Ghosh unravels the secret weapon which helped India get the better of hosts England in the ODI series.
Uttam's Take: KCR's Telangana household survey
The RSS uses its resentment against mosques and loudspeakers to stoke anti-Muslim feelings among other Hindus, whenever it can, be it during riots, or before elections, says Jyoti Punwani.
For it's not the Sena alone that indulges in hooliganism. 'Thokshahi', as the Sena proudly calls it, is the hallmark of the party and of its offshoots. But other parties haven't exactly been models of good behaviour. Not just Maharashtra, ministers and MLAs slapping officials everywhere in the country is not unheard of, says Jyoti Punwani.
Dhananjay Desai has been allowed to spread his poison to young men in Maharashtra and Goa over the last five years, by a 'secular' Congress-NCP government. The 23 cases pending against him have not stopped him. He and his supporters must have thought they were immune when they lynched a bearded Muslim at night. Neither Desai nor his followers, nor the police, nor their 'secular' political masters, must have expected the nationwide furore that followed, says Jyoti Punwani.
'What of Modi? They are willing to take their chances. Maharashtra's Muslims recall how the Congress scared them with the Bal Thackeray bogey for decades, yet, when it came to using all the might of the State to protect them from Shiv Sena goons, be it in 1970, 1984 or 1992-1993, it did nothing. For them, the Congress's secularism is a cruel joke.' 'This argument that we ('seculars') must vote for the 'winning secular candidate' has one more implication: Those who are against Hindutva must forever be stuck with the same corrupt, cynical and tired old parties, who are not even secular,' says Jyoti Punwani.
'People respect Sharad Pawar and his contribution, but now it is Ajit Pawar who is associated with Baramati. And he has done nothing for it,' retired IPS officer and AAP candidate Suresh Khopade tells Jyoti Punwani.
Following Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's promise to extend sops given in her state tp all over India if she becomes prime minister, Rediff.com's Uttam Ghosh offers his perspective.
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
On December 17, heavily-armed pirates stormed a German oil tanker SP Brussels belonging to the Medallion Marine company. They went on to loot the ship and took hostage five Indian sailors.
A young Indian from Tembhali, hoping to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and give him a gift, is sent away by security personnel.
347688003622 is the Unique ID number of Raju Makkan Madi of Tembhali village, one of the first recepients of the government's most ambitious schemes. The long wait for the UID cards is over for 33-year old Raju Makkan Madi, a labourer who earns Rs 75 a day.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived at Tembhali village in Maharashtra's Nandurbar district at 12 past noon on Wednesday. He was accompanied by Congress president and National Advisory Committe chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Uttam's Take on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir
Uttam's take on the political situation in Delhi
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