B D Pande was Punjab's governor during Operation Bluestar. In this excerpt from his memoir, In the Service of Free India: Memoir of a Civil Servant, Pande reveals what really went on behind the scenes during those dark days in India's history.
Vardhan, however, parried questions on the source of the information.
Fortune favours the brave, and the loyal. And Vinubhai Kanjibhai Jaipal, who served Gajrajsinh Jadeja unflinchingly through thick and thin, will attest to it, having inherited Rs 600 crore from his late employer, says Haresh Pandya.
'Some of his decisions were not so good, but his intentions were always guided by a deep national interest.'
'One does not understand why you should launch your attack against the Constitution, against Gandhiji, against the Left and Congress regimes at a moment when the Hindutva regime needs such attacks against them.' 'By doing so, don't you think you are playing into the hands of Hindutva forces?', Mohammad Sajjad, who teaches history at Aligarh Muslim University, asks Sharjeel Imam who was arrested on charges of sedition on Tuesday, January 28.
Indian forces are doing what they have to do to protect the country, whether it is in terms of deployment, action or counter-action, Modi told political leaders.
No plaque marks the historic meeting place of the fathers of two nations. And no history textbook tells us about that first meeting and their mutual admiration, common ethos and comradeship.
Political parties, agriculture experts and progressive farmers demanded such agri reforms for long, he said and attacked the opposition for misleading cultivators on the issue of MSP (minimum support price) and APMCs.
Unless public health is prioritised over swift re-opening, the chances are that a third wave will hit India sooner than we would like.
Reaching out to present and former employees of the defence PSU at an interaction with them, Gandhi said, work done by HAL for the country was tremendous and the country owed debt to it for "protecting us" and creating a scientific vision.
In her death, the Congress has lost a leader who brought old world grace to politics but was open to new ideas.
'Why do the English-speaking class feel they are the only ones who are efficient in work?' 'My own mother was from a village and she was more efficient than me. She used to handle crises better than me.' 'We will have to come out of our elite perception of governance.'
'So much so we don't feel the need to create anything, but just bask in that glory.' 'It's time to move on.' 'How much burden can you put on a person or the legacy of the person?'
Tipu Sultan is a controversial figure in Kodagu district as Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, believe thousands of their men and women were seized and held captive during his occupation and subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam.
True, Azam Khan is being targeted rather disproportionately and also because of his Muslim identity. That must be protested and resisted. But to say that he is a big messiah, and his profit-making educational enterprise is an issue concerning all Muslims of India, is absolutely unjustified, assert Mohammad Sajjad and Md Mohammad Zeeshan Ahmad.
Addressing BJP's campaign rallies for the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly elections at Pune, Satara and Parli, Modi also said that despite a lot of talk in the last 70 years, it was only his government which dared abrogate Article 370.
Speaking at the RSS's annual Vijayadashami rally in Nagpur which was broadcast online and attended 50 swayamsevaks (volunteers) due to the COVID-19 guidelines, Bhagwat said when the Sangh says Hindustan is 'Hindu Rashtra', it does not have any political or power-centered concept in its mind.
The Congress chief said if his party is elected to power, its government would spend 6 per cent of the GDP on education.
The Congress MP said the party may have underestimated the impact of national security as an electoral topic on the psyche of the voter in North India where the BJP had great success in trying to convert the election into a "khaki' referendum".
The new party office is located at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg and will make the BJP the first major national party to shift its office outside Lutyens' Bungalow Zone.
The Congress leaders maintained that such propaganda against the party would not work and the truth shall prevail.
China on Friday hiked its defence budget to $209 billion, maintaining a single-digit growth for the sixth consecutive year with a 6.8 per cent increase in 2021.
A high-voltage drama unfolded in Lucknow yesterday as Priyanka alleged she was manhandled by cops who grabbed her by the neck and pushed her when she resisted their attempts to stop her from visiting the residence of an ex-IPS officer arrested for anti-CAA protests.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is using modern management techniques, which he picked up during his stint as a strategy consultant abroad, to revamp his party. But the moot question is: will they work? Anita Katyal reports
The CBSE had announced that it had rationalised the syllabus for Classes 9 to 12 for the 2020-21 session by up to 30 per cent to make up for the academic loss caused due to COVID-19. However, it was the decision to drop topics related to Social Sciences which drew sharp reaction from opposition parties like the Congress, Left, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena.
In 2017, the former Union minister called Modi "neech aadmi" following which he was suspended from the Congress party.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister may have opened a Pandora's Box on the religion front with the appointment of qualified non-Brahmin temple priests, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
As the longest serving woman chief minister who ruled the city state for three consecutive terms from 1998 to 2013, Dikshit ushered in an era of all-round development that transformed Delhi into a world class capital.
The cricketer-turned-politician, who will be making his electoral debut from East Delhi, has shown an income of nearly Rs 12.40 crore in the income tax returns filed for 2017-18.
'The uneducated think of their rights as a gift. This is deeply troubling.' 'If they were educated they could claim what is rightfully theirs.'
Hyperbole by our ministers and a few saffronised scientists not only defames Newton and Einstein, but also mocks ancient India's achievements in mathematics, medicine and natural science, says Utkarsh Mishra.
'The Hindu quest for political power in terms of a Hindu identity can pose a problem for tolerance, as the alignment of religion with power often does.'
Sheela Bhatt offers her take on Congress President Sonia Gandhi's speech that kicked off the the party's Chintan Shivir.
Every year, during Navratri, the key attraction in Mangaluru is the tiger dance, popularly known as Pili Vesha or Huli Vesha.
For Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who continues the Gandhi family legacy of active politics that began several generations ago, the formal entry into politics was two decades in the making.
'Tipu Sultan was no doubt a valiant fighter who vigorously opposed the British, but that cannot mitigate the fact that he was also by all accounts a religious bigot -- a figure incompatible with modern secular times,' says Vivek Gumaste.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, who followed FIFA president Gianni Infantino to the podium, directly compared UEFA's revenue to FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Mohammad Sajjad salutes the memory of Mushirul Hasan -- historian, thinker, academic, institution builder, -- who passed into the ages this week.
The manner in which a large proportion of common people have mortgaged their rationality and questioning spirit to let hatred, prejudice, and bigotry take over their minds is a cause of worry, observes Mohammad Sajjad.
'Their idea of unity is uniformity. They disrespect and fear diversity which means they deny our pluralism, our freedom of choice, which are integral to our fundamental rights'
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