'It has even been suggested that Modi and Amit Shah, however grudgingly, harbour admiration for her controlling streak and steely resilience,' says Sunil Sethi.
Most farmers depend on rainwater for farming.
On International Tiger Day, India is still a long way from making sure that the future of our national animal is safe.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has left from Delhi for Brazil to attend the five-nation Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) summit slated to be held for two days, starting Monday. Here is his statement ahead of the meet.
With all its ups and downs, 2015 is now concluding. And the New Year will bring new expectations to all of us. So tell us your expectations from 2016:
'If the money we spend on importing pulses reach our farmers, there won't be any suicides'
'Against the backdrop of difficult administrative, political and economic problems, Imran's temperament and staying power will be the subject of intense expectation and public scrutiny,' says Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan Desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
'Wayanad has become famous because of Rahul Gandhi.'
'Antonio Guterres takes over as the UN secretary-general with tremendous goodwill as the process of his election was without the usual horse trading and compromises.' 'We have every reason to believe that he will be sensitive to Indian positions,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday virtually backed the non-governmental organisation Greenpeace in the backdrop of an Intelligence Bureau report warning that the NGO is a threat to the country's economic growth.
The Olympic torch was raised before Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue on Friday on the final leg of its journey to the opening ceremony of the Olympics, as Brazil excitedly put the final touches to seven years of preparations.
May announced her first big shake-up just minutes after entering Downing Street on Wednesday.
Outlining seven principles of engagement for closer cooperation between India and China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said the two countries should show sensitivity to each other's interests and sovereignty and move quickly to resolve the boundary issue.
Godavari Dange, a school dropout who was widowed at the age of 19 is now changing the lives of farmers in her village and beyond.
'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.
'EPFO's investments this financial year should be Rs 1 lakh crore'
'What has taken the government so long to understand what the people of this country are going through?'
As the context of Panchsheel has changed, it is all the more essential that India and China need to reinvent and redefine Panchsheel for a new world order taking into account globalisation, and mutual economic interdependence. The new Panchsheel, in order to be relevant, needs to shed its binary approach of west verses the east recognising the seamlessness of global frontiers, which globalisation has brought in, says Rup Narayan Das.
This is the time when the US would need the conceptual strategic thinking of a Henry Kissinger, able to ally diplomatic skills with a well-conceived worldview of what the emergence of a new balance of forces will mean for a US whose ability to shape global events has definitely declined but still exists, says Claude Smadja.
'Four years ago, when Gadkari was BJP president, Fadnavis was president of the state BJP, I had gone on a fast unto death demanding separate statehood for Vidarbha.' 'They had come to meet me and promised that once the party comes to power at the Centre and in the state, we will get separate statehood.' 'Four years have passed, but no change is seen on the ground.'
United States Vice President Joe Biden on Monday left for a rare vice presidential trip to India for the first leg of his visit to the Asia-Pacific region.
'You can't go on creating division and rhetoric of hate.' 'It comes to roost. We are seeing the first glimpses of that in the state elections.'
His father is a former finance minister. His brother is a minister in the Modi government. But Sumant Sinha wants nothing to do with politics and tells Shreya Jai why he is bullish on the renewable energy sector.
'I want to ask Modiji is the support price announced by him good enough to make a farmer's sons to start farming in their villages?' 'Can he swear by Bharat Mata and say that is true?'
Borrowing from BRICS bank will help India avoid other kinds of politics emanating from the West. Overall, the BRICS institutions will necessarily adopt alternative ways of doing things based on their own cultural and socio economic needs, says M K Venu.
'The government must keep bad news out of the newspapers. If you have news about a fight everyday, it is not a climate where investment takes place.'
Fireworks light up the night sky above the Maracana as some 50,000 spectators present, and some 3 billion people tuned in around the world as Brazil lifted the curtain on its second major sporting event in two years, after the 2014 soccer World Cup.
'A master politician who excelled in the politics of intrigue, Subash Ghisingh kept winning election after election, sending a clear message to the state and central governments that he remained the undisputed king of the Darjeeling hills.'
'We're going to see a defence relationship that really takes off -- now that India is a major defence partner of the US, the sky is the limit for arms sales.' 'The economic partnership will lag behind the security relationship, but the meeting and joint statement give cause to believe that it will progress more robustly than many of us would have expected.'
'I am not surprised that hubris brought Chanda Kochhar down. It would appear that as a person she thought she could do no wrong and as a leader she considered herself above what her company demanded of others in terms of financial probity and honesty. That, my friends, is NOT a good way for a leader to feel,' says S Muraleedharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
'Studying History, we come close to all of the messiness of human life -- we understand what motivates people, what makes them get along or go to war, what dreams they had for themselves and their futures.'
The United States is stronger and more prosperous than it was eight years ago, US President Barack Obama has said, attributing it to a series of steps taken by him during his two four-year terms.
UK's largest retailer Tesco, Singapore Airlines and Etihad queued up to invest in India as a persistent UPA threw open more sectors to foreign investments with indications of more big ticket deals to be announced in the new year.
The situation in Greece worsened with banks closed for a 2nd week.
Incoming US President Donald Trump has assembled a core team that is -- not surprisingly -- overwhelmingly white and male.
The Smurfs 2 is a film rife with cleverly marketed mediocrity, writes Sukanya Verma.
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
Six Kashmiri Muslim students belonging to Sarhad, an organisation which brings semi-orphans from strife-torn regions to live and study at their school and college in Pune, share their hopes for their state and their experiences outside it. Jyoti Punwani reports.
Because of India's weak fiscal position, the plethora of debt-burdened infrastructure companies and the poor asset quality of public sector banks, economic growth in 2015-16 may be limited to about six per cent, say Shankar Acharya.
