'The Congress-NCP is a declining force while we are a rising force.'
'In Yogi's Raj, Hindu festivals are State festivals.' 'He celebrates them, so does his police force, as he boasted in the assembly on Tuesday.' 'Eid, Christmas -- these can be observed, but expect nothing from the State to facilitate these celebrations,' says Jyoti Punwani.
Authorities in Pakistan have frozen bank accounts with more than Rs 400 million of over 5,100 terror suspects, including JeM chief Masood Azhar who is under "protective custody" after the terror attack on the Pathankot air base, officials said.
Constable Mazoor Ahmed Niak came forward on two occasions after senior officers decided to bring down the house at Reshipora from which the two militants had continued firing on the police, army and the Central Reserve Police Force.
The principal of the missionary school further noted that wearing a headscarf did not conform to the 'dress code' of the school, while reprimanding Rizvi for questioning the school management's decision on this issue.
The chief opposition in the state, the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party has breached the stronghold of National Conference in prestigious Srinagar Parliamentary constituency by gaining a lead in five seats with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah trailing in Sonawar seat.
Naramalli Sivaprasad's over-the-top style of protest has become a unique tool to generate attention at the national level.
The meeting was facilitated by Pakistan's spy agency -- the ISI
The mood was subdued with roads deserted across large swathes of the Valley, the silence broken only by police sirens and Indian Air Force helicopters hovering overhead.
The Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent says a series of drone attacks have killed nearly 50 of its members, including deputy head Ustad Ahmad Farooq and Qari Imran, the group's central council member and in charge of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
'I've seen the craze for English education even among the poorest. But that is only for their sons. Parents feel thrilled when they see their sons going to school wearing a tie. They don't mind paying for their sons' private tuitions too.' 'But daughters are sent to municipal schools, madarsas, small schools where teachers with no teaching skills are paid Rs 2,000 or Rs 4,000. That's why more girls come to my class.' Syed Feroze Ashraf, who has sent 500-odd girls (and a few boys) -- all first generation learners, children of grave-diggers, hawkers, rickshaw-drivers, tailors and watchmen -- to college, speaks to Jyoti Punwani. A Rediff.com Special.
After several years of travelling, Guru Nanak settled down at Kartarpur as a farmer. His followers were the first Sikhs of an order that was to prevail for many years to come. A fascinating excerpt from Sikh Heritage: A History of Valour and Devotion.
Less than two days after the Taliban announced the launch of their official website hosting videos, a magazine, and its leaders' interviews and statements, it was taken down on Monday.
Dreaded Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is trying to expand its influence in Pakistan, with pamphlets being distributed in Peshawar and border provinces of Afghanistan, seeking support for jihad.
Mohammad Naved Yakub Naved, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist who was captured alive after the attack on the BSF convoy in Udhampur, has been giving his interrogators vital information on how the terror industry thrives in parts of Pakistan.
'The brainless 'fidayeen' you have been breeding are going to hell to rot and not to any heaven.' 'No one can get away after messing with the Indian Defence Forces,' Major Mohommed Ali Shah, an Indian Army veteran, tells the Jaish e Mohammed.
Armed forces and the police can only ensure that violence is kept under control but for any kind of lasting peace, politicians will have to find an answer to the perception that the Indian State is anti-Islam. Therein lies the biggest challenge to the Modi government, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retired).
'The whispers and the murmurs had reached even the king's private quarters.' 'Of a royal surgeon wielding a chain-saw like a carpenter; a chemist with a cannister of acid; the royal chief executioner instructing someone about the fine art of handling swords...' 'All this being supervised by Mohammed's closest confidant.'
Taliban's reclusive leader Mullah Muhammad Omar is alive and hiding in the Pakistani city of Karachi, a top Afghan intelligence official has said, echoing a similar assessment by Western intelligence officials.
India's majoritarian regime is now making a dangerously fast-paced move towards theocracy, like its western counterpart did a few decades ago, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
Kerala remains a safe haven for members of the IM and the SIMI alike, says Vicky Nanjappa
Weakened by two fierce political opponents and the army in Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's United Nations speech was to address his domestic audience.
Zakir Naik, a gentle, rockstar televangelist, is dangerous as young Muslims may be swayed by his fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and justify victimhood and extremism, says Shekhar Gupta.
Jamida K is the first Indian Muslim woman to lead the Friday prayer.
Madhu Kishwar is a patriot whose freedom of expression needs to be supported by all, especially the liberals, says Sankrant Sanu.
According to an IB report, preachers of the extreme Wahhabism form of Islam are trying to take over madrasas and masjids, which is a cause of deep concern, says Vicky Nanjappa
Bukhari also backs Trinamool Congress but says no support to SP and BSP. Kavita Chowdhury reports.
'If they were really serious (about conferring the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar) what were they doing for the last five years?' 'Why do they have to take so long?' 'Gandhi himself never got the Bharat Ratna so it does not really matter.'
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Gujaratis, among all Indians, are supposed to be born businessmen, but if more than 80% of them do not have the ability to do basic arithmetic, the future is grim.' 'The big issues are in society and they cannot be changed by an HRD minister no matter how brilliant she may be or think of herself as being,' says Aakar Patel.
'Hindus are proud of what the Dharmashastras symbolise, but they don't want to do any work to preserve it!,' Sanskrit scholar Donald Davis tells Kanika Dutta.
'I want to be murdered at your hands, so I can live on in history. The verdict of who is or is not a traitor cannot be pronounced by a secret agency, but by history.' Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who survived an assassination attempt on April 19, challenges his enemies to dub him a traitor and says nothing will stop him from exposing them.
'Those who say the Indian Army is persecuting Kashmiris... I will tell them that the reality is that the Kashmiri loves the fauj and what all the Indian Army has done.'
'The mobilisation is nothing but a political ploy -- a sort of a fixed match between Hindu and Muslim communal forces, towards polarisation, in a run-up to the next election,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
The foundations of the army's own peculiar secularism are potentially being destabilised
Why are far right Hindu organisations growing in strength? Why is there a rising subscription to Neo-Wahabism, the Saudi Arabian version of contemporary Islam?
Not far from Delhi, the orchards of Rataul offer a wide variety of mangoes, including one that rarely makes it to the market
Senior officers admit the BJP's revival, and the mainstreaming of the Hindutva narrative that has accompanied this political shift, have complicated communal relations within the army.
'Aurangzeb spent a major part in the Deccan. The later Mughals were looted by Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Abdali. The Mughals had no money to build. That's why Zafar Mahal, the only palace they built in Mehrauli, was built very shoddily and quickly fell into ruin.' 'Mehrauli spans a much longer period of time than any other city of Delhi,' says historian Rana Safvi.
'Manto is the only writer to grasp what the project of Pakistan would eventually mean,' says Aakar Patel, who has translated a collection of Saadat Hasan Manto's essays in a just-released book Why I Write.
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