Burhanuddin Rabbani, chairman of the High Peace Council and former President of Afghanistan who met Prime minister Manmohan Singh over lunch in New Delhi on Thursday and later had delegation level talks, has expressed desire to perform Friday prayers at the historic Jama Masjid.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said, "Today or in recent times there was no alert in the city. We were not having any information that such strike was possible. There was no specific or general information of the possibility of serial blasts. In that sense we were not prepared, but we will help the victims in the best possible way and we will finish investigating it as soon a possible."
Apoorva Mehta, a diamond merchant, saw the aftermath of the blast at Opera House in South Mumbai on Wednesday evening. This is his account
Sheela Bhatt traces the fascinating life journey of India's new Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi.
What will stand Shukla in good stead as minister for parliamentary affairs will be his ability to communicate across party lines and get along with most political parties. Thanks to his affable nature, Shukla has friends in the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Nationalist Congress Party and many other regional parties
There is discontent among senior Congress leaders of the Uttar Pradesh over local leaders being kept away from Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's ambitious padytra that started from Bhatta village on Tuesday.
As Union Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad is busy in solving the Telangana crisis, India's health service is deteriorating more and more. With Azad's ministry not initiating any new reforms for urban or rural health care in the last few years, the country's poor are facing hard times.
Sitharaman's nomination is a surprise because since long many RS vacancies from Gujarat are filled by non-Gujaratis like Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu. A senior Congress leader from Gujarat told rediff.com, "Considering that Narendra Modi is one of the strongest chief ministers that Gujarat has ever seen, the frequent nomination of non-Gujaratis to the Rajya Sabha shows that even in the BJP the party high command of New Delhi dominates in certain issues."
In an exclusive interview to rediff.com, Pillai, who is retiring on Thursday after 39 years of service, said, "At the moment they are scattered, they are very few. I would say, if we talk about so-called armed people, there will be fewer than 100 Hindu radicals in a country of our size. It's not the major problem. It's more out of retaliation for what happened."
Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai, who is retiring on Thursday after 39 years of service, told rediff.com in an exclusive interview, that, "No bugging took place" in the office of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Bhadrakumar feels that the "despite the dust and heat in domestic politics", the government has done remarkably well in the foreign policy sphere and signs of "new thinking" have appeared. "Which is why the new foreign secretary will prove to be a great asset to the government," he said.
India and Pakistan met again to decrease the huge trust deficit. There was no breakthrough as expected, but, it was not a bad news because both sides are talking, and talking a lot, says Sheela Bhatt, while reporting from Islamabad.
Since Pakistan is in the middle of an intense regional and internal issue, the Rao-Bashir talks are not the "major attraction" in Islamabad, reports Sheela Bhatt from the Pakistani capital
In a seemingly arbitrary and unilateral move, Pakistan has divided the Foreign Secretary-level talks in three sessions. This not normally done, since a bilateral dialogue is supposed to be a highly diplomatic and sensitive event.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao will arrive in Islamabad at 10 am on Thursday and she will have her first meeting with her Pakistan counterpart Salman Bashir later that evening. The two full delegations will then have two sessions on Friday.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), on Monday, did not name Lt Col Prasad Srikant Purohit as one of the main conspirators in the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case. Purohit was earlier being considered as one of the main accused in the case, but NIA's revelation has brought in a new twist in the tale.
Arvind Kejriwal, member of the panel drafting the Lokpal bill, responds to criticism that civic society is trying to usurp democracy and also explains the need for stronger Lokpal bill to tackle corruption.
"The Baba was hiding in a saree of his female devotees when we arrested him at 4.15 am." said G K Plillai, home secretary while talking to rediff.com. He said Baba is on his way to Hardwar in police custody, and he is calm and cooperating.
Hours after being bundled out of New Delhi, Baba Ramdev targeted Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the United Progressive Alliance government, alleging that his peaceful agitation was treated with unprecedented "barbarism" and vowed to continue his 'satyagraha' against corruption
Ramdev, who is on a fast against corruption at the Ramlila gounds in the capital, tried to evade arrest and jumped from the 15-feet-high stage. He was gheraoed by women devotees but police was well-prepared to take him out of the ground. He was taken to an unknown destination on the outskirts of New Delhi.
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