How do you view P V Narasimha Rao's legacy? Tell us
'Does the BJP opening up a new assault on Rajiv Gandhi indicate that the BJP's internal calculations are pointing to the election results not going as it hoped, and hence a sign of desperation?' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Saurabh Mahajan, a former Indian Army officer, is making history in medieval battles grounds. Rediff.com's Archana Masih meets the man who has supplied vintage armour and war props to Assassin's Creed, The Hobbit and knights in shining armour to the Tower of London.
The 71-year-old MP may have time to pursue her other interests, but many believe that she will continue to play the role of a mentor.
Drones may have been used for non-lethal purposes but state-sponsored assassinations and semi-covert wars are fuelling their boom and not scientific missions or creative activists, says American political activist Medea Benjamin.
"The inquiry committee was set up not to implicate anyone but to find the missing files," he said amidst allegations that the National Democratic Alliance government set up the panel to find faults in the previous United Progressive Alliance government.
A prominent Pakistani rights activist was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Karachi as she was returning home after hosting a seminar about human rights abuses in Baluchistan province, police said on Saturday.
Rajiv Gandhi would have turned 72 on August 20. Had he lived. On a humid night 25 years ago, the former prime minister of India was murdered in cold blood by an LTTE suicide bomber. Neena Gopal was an eyewitness to the assassination, and in this exclusive extract from her new book, The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, she reveals for the first time what she saw in Sriperumbudur that night.
All the drama from inside Bihar's legislative assembly.
'As I went around Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna and Mannar, my mind went back to my visit in January 1990 at the fag end of the IPKFs mission in Sri Lanka,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'He always avoided eating non-vegetarian food in presence of his deputies if they were fasting for the month of Shravan.' 'There were no Hindu, Jain, Parsi and Swaminarayan festivals he would forget.' 'He was a conservative Muslim and therefore could get along well with conservative Hindus.'
'He has a splendid opportunity to capitalise on the CPEC and turn the economy around decisively, putting Pakistan firmly on a higher growth trajectory.' 'Indeed, under the Imran-Bajwa dispensation, there has been a noticeable whittling down of support to militant groups,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The deaths of Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi within months of each other neutralises any sympathy factor their parties may hope to gain from. What's more, by removing charismatic leaders from the fray, it also levels the field for others, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Historian Stanley Wolpert, author of several books on India, passed into the ages recently. We remember Professor Wolpert with Rajeev Srinivasan's March 1997 interview published on the occasion of his controversial book on Jawaharlal Nehru.
Pakistan has formed a high-level panel to probe the high treason case against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for imposing emergency rule in 2007, the government said on Thursday.
The 3,000-strong force, plus its highly trained dog squad, is responsible solely for the protection of one person: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi.
Immediately after the attack, people started assembling outside the residence of Parihar and refused entry of senior police officers, who were even manhandled.
'My only interest is that the law is upheld for each and every citizen.' 'Whenever this case is decided, it will be protection for you and every Indian.' 'I just want the rule of law of to be followed.'
He said the 'toxic combination of deep distrust, pervasive fear and a sense of hopelessness in our society' is stifling economic activity and growth.
Pakistan police have arrested a Taliban militant allegedly involved in the killing of former Minister for Minorities' Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, who was shot dead for speaking against the blasphemy laws.
Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has said that nearly 500 terror convicts will be hanged to death within the next two to three weeks.
'I want France to remain itself. The barbarians who attack France would like to disfigure it. They will not make it change.'
An program by the National Security Agency, which uses metadata and learning algorithms to select targets for drone strikes, may be targetting thousands of innocent people, a report has said.
Senior IAS officer B K Prasad, who probed the Ishrat Jahan missing files case and was at the centre of a row after a report alleged he was 'tutoring' a witness, on Thursday got a new Secretary-level posting for a two- year period.
The trial court declined the plea of Kumar's lawyer that he be sent to high-security Tihar Jail.
'There will be an instant and positive change in the way Rahul Gandhi is perceived by millions if he says he is not a candidate for PM,' suggests Aakar Patel.
They accused the government of resorting to all kinds of measures, including character assassination.
Trial against suspected top Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist Abu Jundal, an alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, should be conducted through video conferencing as he faces threat to his life, NIA told a Delhi court on Friday.
The Delhi high court called the anti-Sikh riots case "communal frenzy" after the then prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards.
A delegation of victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots have urged Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to further increase the amount of compensation given to them.
'Why has the rhetoric gone down on the Indian side, Durrani wondered aloud.' 'I said because almost total normalcy and peace had returned on the ground in Kashmir,' recalls Shekhar Gupta. 'The general gave me that career spook's laser look. And he said: "That situation on the ground can change in no time".' 'This was precisely when the Pakistanis began their first incursions into Kargil.' 'Durrani had been retired for five years.' 'But once the ISI boss, you are always in the know.'
'Why does Mr Modi only attack Nehru from the Dynasty?' 'At one level, it is pure politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Faith, and the notion that it has been 'outraged', is used to justify the most outrageous, illiberal and regressive acts,' notes Shuma Raha.
'Both Nehru and Patel were thorough gentlemen and whatever their differences never disrespected each other.' 'Neither Modi nor Rahul Gandhi has much in them to claim such legacies.' 'They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday dedicated birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as National Unity Day, saying a nation that disregards its history cannot create one and made a veiled reference to anti-Sikh riots that followed then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination this day 30 years ago.
In a background briefing arranged by the Prime Minister's Office, a government official last week suggested that Atwal's presence was arranged by "factions within the Indian government who want to prevent Prime Minister Narendra Modi from getting too cosy with a foreign government they believe is not committed to a united India," the paper said.
Singh said the Centre will provide whatever assistance required but the state governments should take stringent steps to curb such incidents.
'If you look through the optics of BJP leader Kapil Mishra, he was standing with a deputy commissioner of police while giving a hate speech.' 'Immediately, the message goes down that the police is 'with us' so let's start rioting.'
Adnan Rashid, a Taliban fighter wanted for an attempt to assassinate former President Pervez Musharraf, wrote a letter to Malala, who was shot in the head in a militant attack last year.
Former PM Manmohan Singh and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi also paid their tributes.
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