In a candid conversation Indrani Mitra, educationist Sunanda Sanyal explains why many intellectuals like him are disillusioned with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
According to a report, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have already declined by 58 per cent between 1970 and 2012.
At the Battle of Malegaon, Muslim soldiers in the Maratha army defied the British army for a full month when they had no hope of victory as the Chhatrapati and Peshwa had already surrendered.
Defending champion Viswanathan Anand will start his campaign with black pieces against Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the first game of the 12-round World Chess Championship in Chennai on Saturday. After declaring the 'FIDE World Championship Match-2013' open, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa picked the photograph of Anand from the first bowl and a 'black piece' from the other during the draw of lots for the match, to be held at Hyatt Regency hotel.
'Whatever the result on December 18, Rahul has succeeded.' 'He has taken the battle to the rival's territory, and forced him to take him more seriously than he has done so far, or would have wished to.' 'A party, dominating and powerful as the BJP today, is spending all its time attacking the leader of one with just 46 seats in the Lok Sabha, and in the woods in Gujarat for 22 years.' 'This isn't the script the BJP had written,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'The ball barely made it to the hole, giving rise to a heady exhilaration and bemusement that only Woods' adroitness could -- and perhaps still does -- invoke.'
There is mounting evidence that the Information Revolution may mean the end of large-scale vertically integrated businesses whose guiding principle, "economies of scale", was the defining miracle of the Industrial Age.
Culinary legend Satish Arora hangs up his apron after almost 5 decades of service at the Taj group of hotels.
'I can confidently say there will be another financial crisis soon enough, and probably more than one global crisis within the next century, given the increasingly integrated nature of the global economy.'
'In the run-up to the summit, Trump had indicated that he might strike a nuclear deal in the course of a single meeting or over several days, but as it transpired, Trump departed Singapore soon after the meeting.' 'This raises questions if his aspirations for an ambitious outcome had been scaled back,' says Rajaram Panda.
'Healthcare is so expensive that while it saves lives, it destroys more lives socially and financially.' 'While the poor gets wiped out, a middle-class man goes to a corporate hospital and after the treatment, he ends up below the poverty line.' 'Generally, hospitals would like to have patients who need procedures and operations.' 'They are not so fond of palliative care.' 'How much can be made from one hour of counselling? And how much can be made from one hour of an operation?'
Much of the pre-2014 peace in our hotspots is diminished. Kashmir is on the boil and the Northeast is anarchic, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'India may be new to world politics and her military strength insignificant in comparison with that of the giants of our epoch.' 'But India is old in thought and experience and has travelled through trackless centuries in the adventure of life.' 'Throughout her long history she has stood for peace and every prayer that an Indian raises, ends with an invocation to peace.' Jawaharlal Nehru's memorable speech to the United States Congress.
The fact that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa approved an expenditure of Rs 29 crore for the World Chess Championship between Viswanathan Anand and Norway's Magnus Carlsen to be held here points to the significance the event has for the state government.
Are hacker collectives like Anonymous and Legion black hats or white hats, or do they lurk in the space between the two? Dhruv Munjal reports.
Modi has the ideas for a new, hopeful India, and an idiom in which to sell optimism to voters. But he doesn't yet have the team for it, and soon enough, questions will begin to be asked by an impatient, non-ideological, I-don't-owe-anybody-anything generation of Indian voters, says Shekar Gupta.
'The monumental first Modi wrought in 2014, followed by the miracle in Uttar Pradesh, is not a matter for celebration, but an ominous warning of the perils ahead.' 'There are 5 areas which Modi has to address immediately and relentlessly if he has to live up to all that the people are taking him for,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
If this Budget was not packaged and sold as a Budget for the poor and for farmers, Narendra Modi would have lost the next election.
'There are so many dimensions to history that we need to attend to: We need more space for local and regional histories; we need to delve into the histories of particular communities; we need to emphasise gender history and environmental history.' 'We need to think about India's history beyond India's current borders.'
'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.'
Here's your weekly digest of the most weird, true and funny news from the across the world.
With what joyous expectations I welcomed you! You have tumbled me into a cauldron of gloomy forebodings, says B S Raghavan.
An A-Z of Bachchanalia, the letters expanding into unforgettable bits of his filmography.
'The Modi regime, after experimenting with its own versions of neighbourhood policy for 18 months, has now reached the exact stage where the Manmohan Singh government had left it in so far as our Pakistan policy is concerned,' says former senior RA&W officer Vappala Balachandran.
There is indeed a Bengal Model but it is one which negates generational aspiration, generates animus, thrives on bloodletting and political vendetta, reiterates outdated ideas of vote bank politics, is shorn of any vision or roadmap for reconstruction and is fast depleting the levels of a legitimate tolerance, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
From a laidback boy with poor dietary habits, Kidambi Srikanth has become an attacking player who can quickly deploy his considerable skills against tough opponents, writes Anand Datla
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his historic visit of the United States of America, here's a look at some landmark visits by Indian prime ministers to the United States of America.
'Narendra Modi could be too old to change his personality. On the other hand, his attachment to the RSS could be mostly sentimental. So one must hope that if he becomes prime minister, he is able to detach himself from the RSS view of the world as completely as Narasimha Rao detached himself from the Congress's First Family.' 'India cannot be governed by the autocratic methods by which he has governed Gujarat. If he becomes prime minister he will have to learn to speak in a more civil language about his political opponents,' historian Ramachandra Guha tells Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com
'China's excessive military aid to Pakistan is the real elephant in the room as far as Sino-Indian relations are concerned. India should be confident enough to accept a degree of closeness between China and Pakistan, since China may wish to use this link for its foray into the Muslim world.' 'But the Chinese must be realistic enough to know that as time passes, the tactic of using Pakistan as a proxy to check India will yield diminishing returns. The US tried it for 60 years but failed, so will China,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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