The two leaders are meeting at the French president's summer residence to discuss a long list of burning issues including the coronavirus pandemic, post-election unrest in Belarus and growing tensions with Turkey.
New Union minister L Murugan's declaration of Kongu Nadu as his native place, instead of Tamil Nadu, may be part of a grand BJP strategy to create new states out of existing ones, particularly those that have anti-BJP governments, mulls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Lord Krishna didn't play the flute for timepass," Assam BJP MLA Dilip Kumar Paul said.
Israeli Olympic team members killed by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics were remembered during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony on Friday with a moment of silence, the first time in 49 years this has happened.
'Why did they not raise their voice against the pollution in the Yamuna earlier?' 'Why were they quiet for so long against construction and encroachment on the flood plains.'
Would Ukraine be such a pushover if it had that nuclear stockpile?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
'Failure is success delayed. It teaches you to be patient and persevere so that you improve.'
Godse's choice fitted with the Hindutva world view in which the assertion of masculinity, power and virility -- both discursively and institutionally -- occupied the central position. His close association with Savarkar seems only to have sharpened his uncompromising views on women.
The country may become militarily impressive, pile on GDP and the durbar of the ruling party may fill with the wealthy indebted to the rulers for their riches. But the spontaneous camaraderie of a free people will diminish and with it, our shared ownership of the country, warns Shyam G Menon.
The flame was carried to the podium by three-time Paralympic shooter Taguchi Aki. It was a special moment for Taguchi, as it came 106-days after she lit the celebration cauldron when the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay was re-started in Fukushima on March 25, this year.
Rediff readers share photographs from their travels to the desert state.
Notwithstanding how the current impasse is solved, at some point in the future, Russia will realise that just as centuries ago it developed the paradigm of securing its heartland's safety through annexing vast buffer zones between itself and the enemy, a more modern security is possible only through friendly relations and sustainable peace, observes Shyam G Menon.
Many of the stories, the pictures going out of India worldwide lately with these provocative processions, taunting of Muslims, bulldozers targeting mostly their properties, the sweeping 'othering' of a community of 200 million are painting the front pages and TV screens in the democratic world. That is where most of the friends we covet lie. Soon enough, these will also make our vital friends among the Muslim nations, from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, uneasy. The best time for course correction is now, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Prathmesh Kher/Rediff.com recalls how a planetary mission became interstellar in scope with the addition of a simple gold-plated disk.
Xi arrived at the Nyingchi Mainling Airport on Wednesday and was warmly welcomed by local people and officials of various ethnic groups, Xinhua news agency reported.
Modi said Ayurveda is India's heritage whose expansion entails the welfare of humanity and all Indians will be happy to see that the country's traditional knowledge is making other countries prosperous.
Arsh Ali's work is about getting reliable evidence about the ancient Buddhist link between India and Egypt, discovers Veenu Sandhu.
About 18-19 coronavirus vaccine candidates are in different clinical trial stages and may be available in the coming months, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Monday.
What is being exposed is we have no real doctrine and no idea how to deal with the world, asserts Aakar Patel.
Measure each word you utter in public, advises Virendra Kapoor.
On the occasion of International Day of Yoga, Mirza, who is expecting her first child in October, posted a photo of her performing yoga on Twitter and tagged Maneka Gandhi and the Ministry of Women and Child Development to it.
'Aurangzeb, who had destroyed the Hindu temples of Mathura and Kashi and many others in the north, was a very different ruler when he came to Maharashtra.' 'He did not touch a single temple in Maharashtra.' 'It was possibly the greatest triumph of Shivaji's statesmanship,' notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd), the well known military historian.
The official said the piece of the lime stucco work probably got detached from the granite slab as it could not stick properly with the previous one and fell off.
Ajit Balakrishnan on the surprising drivers of mathematical innovation.
The most essential and necessary things should be on top of the list and others which we can do without should be avoided, says Nandini Anandkumar.
'2,000 years later, we all want the same thing -- we want to live a healthy life, a life that has quality.' 'And Chanakya tells you exactly how to do that.'
The ineptness of successive American presidents, from Bush the Younger to Joe Biden the Old, combined with the cluelessness that Americans demonstrate in foreign lands, contrasts with the Chinese leadership's seemingly singular focus on the accumulation of wealth and power, asserts T N Ninan.
Charpentier, 51, and Doudna, 56, are just the sixth and seventh women to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry, according to France 24.
The contribution is towards archaeological restoration, including repair of ancient structures as old as 1,400 years
The Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics countdown got under way on Thursday with the lighting of the torch at the site of the ancient Olympics, with organisers hoping it will shift attention away from Brazil's political and financial turmoil.
The proclamations came after various Hindu organisations in the US announced the addition of another major festival, an entire month of festivals, in October as the Hindu Heritage Month.
In his address to the nation on the eve of 73rd Republic Day, President Kovind noted that democracy, justice, liberty, equality and fraternity form the bedrock of India and stressed that the observance of Fundamental Duties mentioned in the Constitution creates the proper environment for the enjoyment of Fundamental Rights.
'As a course mate who has followed closely this star on the Bombay Sappers firmament, my heart swells with pride to see his extraordinary brilliance and focus; his commitment and his dedication; his hard work; and his technical as well as tactical knowledge,' says Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd) of his batchmate General Manoj Pande who will take over as chief of the army staff on May 1.
Indian comic book character Chacha Chaudhary has been declared as the mascot of the government's Namami Gange Programme with an aim of bringing behavioural change among children towards the Ganga and other rivers.
'Such kind of mythology-based talks do not in any way contribute to science'. 'My biggest concern is these things will (eventually) become part of school curriculum (in India), and that is completely unacceptable.' Ramprasad Gandhiraman, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Centre in California, has launched a petition demanding that a lecture on Ancient Indian Aviation Technology to be delivered at the 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai be scrapped. Ritu Jha/Rediff.com reports.
The Federation of Indian Associations, the largest non-profit umbrella organisation in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut of the Indian community, lit up the monument in a special ceremony organised by the FIA in cooperation with the Empire State Realty Trust.
'Mumbai turned me into a fighter, always hustling to keep up with the world.' 'Now, I hustle for the poor and the ones who don't have a voice because I feel they are poor for no fault of their own.'
According to trust sources, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat , Maharashtra Chief Minister Udhav Thackeray and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar are also on the list of invitees.
'Let Modi not be in the news, I will stop making cartoons on him.'
Jitender Soni gives us a glimpse into the fascinating city.
