On the occasion of her breaking the world's longest hunger strike, Rediff.com reproduces this 2011 feature on the activist and her life.
'Even if Akhilesh Yadav opens up the entire state treasury for us we will not vote for the Samajwadi Party... ''...I don't want to return to my village, my head will be chopped off. They want me to press the button on the lotus.' Caught between an aggressive BSP cornering Dalit votes and the BJP cornering other Hindu votes, the Muslims of Muzaffarnagar have nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt presents the grim situation on the ground in western Uttar Pradesh.
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We present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's full speech as he addressed the country on the occasion of 66th Independence Day, from Red Fort, Delhi.
More noticeable than the hue of his shirt was his mast style in the witness box. He seemed to be reinventing the truth every few minutes. He yarned on and on, navigating his testimony further and further away from the facts, but he never lost his aplomb.
'I don't want it to be a batting affair otherwise you could just walk in with the umpire, with the bowling machine, put your hat on the bowling machine, walk away.' Brett Lee tells Harish Kotian on how Twenty20 cricket has changed the dynamics of cricket and why a bit of controlled aggression is needed in the sport.
'I believe politics was imposed on it by the censor board, when it gave the film's trailer an A certificate, hoping to deny children, teenagers the opportunity to watch it during prime time television shows,' says Aseem Chhabra.
"Saudi Arabia continues to be a land of opportunity for Indians. Indians have benefited the most from the amnesty scheme as 1.4 million people got their residency and work status legalised," says Faiz Ahmad Kidwai, Consul-General of India, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
CLP saw early that the pollution caused by China's rush for industrial growth would lead inevitably to demands for cleaner electricity.
On International Yoga Day, South Delhi-based yoga teacher Saudamini Chandra found herself shepherding the young girl students to their first taste of India's heritage that was being celebrated across the world. This is her experience.
'A series of arrests have illustrated that IS now has a footprint in India.' 'India has been, for a very long time, a key part of Al Qaeda's global jihadist ambitions.'
'The Indian and Israeli rabbis were singing a small departure song for brave little Moshe, who had spent many, likely, heartbreaking but bittersweet hours at this home of his babyhood, looking at the drawings his mother had made for him, that were still up in his room.'
Rediff.com looks at other sensational murder mysteries that left India shell-shocked.
'My grandfather was a poor farmer who fought for democracy and freedom in India and who could have never dreamed that his grandson would have the opportunity to sit before you today and be considered for the position of Surgeon General,' Dr Murthy told a US Senate Committee
'We teach our kids the 3 R's -- reading, writing, and arithmetic -- so that they can be successful. It's time the fourth R joined that list: Programming. My vision is to expose every student to computer science and show them that coding IS fun and applicable to their daily lives.' Just 15, Swetha Prabakaran, founder and CEO of Everybody Code Now!, a non-profit working to empower the next generation of youth to become engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs, is already a White House Champion of Change for teaching hundreds of students how to code.
It is always wonderful to discover a gem of film at an international film festival. It is even more exciting when that film is from India.
There are 2.5 lakh undocumented Indians across the United States. While President Barack Obama's executive order last week does help, only the US Congress can really address the needs of those caught in the immigration tangle.
GM is already in our food chain for years. The approval for indigenous GM mustard should put fake fear-mongering to rest, says Shekhar Gupta
'Having a voice at the table means the other side has to show up to listen. It became clear that wouldn't happen,' says actor Maulik Pancholy, one of the 10 members who resigned from the US president's advisory commission on Asian Americans.
Curfew has been lifted from Surat city after no untoward incident was reported from there since Wednesday night.
Here are some of the most stunning moments of the week that was.
The year threw up quite a few shockers, some rather rude one. Below are Rediff.com's 12 picks that made us sit back and think, 'Did that really happen?'
The 39-year-old, the fifth child of an illiterate labourer couple and only the second of their eight to be educated, now helms various ventures that bring in a turnover of between Rs 75 crore and Rs 90 crore.
Ganesh Chaturthi no longer has the power that Lokmanya Tilak had seen in it way back in 1893 -- the power of bringing people together. This, say 83-year-old Vinaysheela Govilkar and 19-year-old Arnav Thakker, is the festival's biggest tragedy.
With the Supreme Court quashing the ban on dance bars in Maharashtra, bar-owners and dancers look forward to business starting once again, reports Neeta Kolhatkar. However, some issues need to be sorted out
While the state's decision to take the road to Prohibition has been given a communal twist, there are several political imperatives of the move
Vandana has been attempting to bring in radical changes in the unhealthy food habits amongst the tribals.
Paloma Sharma -- the only non-middle aged, non-canine member of the home -- on a Sunday spent at the bank.
BJP-supported students' union, aided by a friendly government, is aggressively settling historical scores with Leftist students' organisations.
In a marathon address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday underlined India's unity and diversity and the progress of his 15-month-old government's policies.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
Opposition on Monday picked holes in various government decisions like demonetisation and surgical strikes as well as allocation of funds for MNREGA, agriculture sector and Scheduled Castes, saying it has failed on all fronts despite which it is trying to "fool" the people.
Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi, in an interview to a leading daily, has stated that he is "ready to take charge".
Rediff.com reproduces the translation of the remarks made by President Ashraf Ghani at a press conference.
The collapse of an under-construction 11-storey building in Chennai which claimed 11 lives should serve as a wake-up call for the housing sector to have a regulatory mechanism for the construction industry, says N Sathiya Moorthy
'Minorities should not fear a Modi sarkar... Who has given the right to kill in the name of religion? No one! You are not James Bond 007, that you will just take a shotgun and kill anybody at your whims and fancies. We are not living in a banana republic...' The inimitable Shatrughan Sinha on Narendra Modi as a dabbang action hero, what a Modi Sarkar would be like.
'The first thing they ask me and people like me is, are you a Pakistani spy? They don't call you an American or a Chinese spy; they only call you a Pakistani spy.' 'At first, a few inmates tried to attack me saying they would make me sing the national anthem, but another group rescued me from the assault. When I got out of jail, so many of them cried and asked me, "When will we see you again?"'
The book Effective People by Dr TV Rao features inspiring examples of success icons from across the world.
'I believe Modi mentioned Balochistan only to embarrass Pakistan and also divert attention toward the situation in Kashmir.' 'I think from now on, India intends to raise Balochistan whenever Pakistan brings up Kashmir or upsets them on the issue of terrorism.' 'Balochistan is the least developed of Pakistan's four provinces. It is the least educated and least economically developed. People are agitated that a region so rich in mineral resources and a sea-port is still so poor.' Baloch political analyst Malik Siraj Akbar on why the province wants freedom from Pakistan.
Motivational speaker and bestselling author Priya Kumar has a knack of talking to people and telling them stories that inspire them to feel good about their lives even in the worst of circumstances.
Excerpts from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the Combined Commanders Conference on board the INS Vikramaditya at sea, off the coast of Kochi.
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