'Elected representatives have won elections in the past on the basis of money power received from the central government.' 'This fact has been highlighted by former army chief V K Singh who boasted of crores of rupees being distributed to Kashmiri politicians in order to buy their loyalty and win votes.' 'All the Kashmiri politicians have been co-opted by the Indian State,' says separatist Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
'The problem of a Hindu rashtra is that it has no text which can be adapted to the modern world.' 'The most prominent element of the Hindu way of organising society and the State is through caste.' 'This is not acceptable to most Hindus.' 'Because a Hindu rashtra also erodes the power and the rights of the majority of Hindus, we can be assured that this is not something that the BJP, or any other force can do,' argues Aakar Patel.
The all-powerful working committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India retained former India all-rounder Ravi Shastri as Director of the Indian cricket team till next year's ICC World Cup while deciding to hold its Annual General Meeting in Chennai on November 20.
'India was in no position to wage another war in 1965, having suffered a morale-shattering defeat in 1962. The three services were in the middle of a modernisation and expansion phase and therefore not fully trained or battle-ready.'
The central government, in its revised draft of the constitution amendment bill, had proposed that fuel and liquor should be brought under the ambit of GST.
She said if somebody commits a mistake, he should be punished as such a course only brings laurels to the institution.
'According to me, her finest hour was in 1983-1984 when she neutralised a combined US-Pakistan-British conspiracy to Balkanise India by creating an independent Sikh State of Khalistan,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). A special assessment of Indira Gandhi on her centenary.
'Some people chose to describe it as the Pakistan army's permanent presence, as if it's another Kargil. The reports were highly exaggerated.' Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt, who is travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his two-nation trip to Brunei and Indonesia, reports.
Thousands of mourners jostled and some clambered on trees to capture the moment on their phones as former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cortege left the Bharatiya Janata Party's headquarters for Rashtriya Smriti Sthal.
According to a report by the National Bomb Data Centre, a total of 337 blasts of various kinds were reported last year, an increase from 268 in 2015.
Amidst fracas over the launch of his book in Mumbai, former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has said that he is optimistic about peace between India and Pakistan and called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take forward Atal Bihari Vajpayee's work towards that end.
As it has done in the past, Beijing put a technical hold on the proposal just as the deadline was about to end.
'The idea of Hindu Rashtra is one of the most inclusive concepts.'
Captain Pradeep Shoury Arya is an Income-Tax officer whose mission against terrorists in J&K won him the Shaurya Chakra.
'If chutzpah nationalists brought the Babri Masjid down, chutzpah secularists did precious little to stop it from being torn down.' 'If chutzpah nationalists ensured carnage in Gujarat, chutzpah secularists allowed Muzaffarnagar to become their next hunting ground.' 'Chutzpah secularists readily banned SIMI, but dragged their feet when it came to banning the Bajrang Dal.'
Besides the Joint Entrance Exam that we all know of, here are some more that are equally competitive.
Sanjeev Nayar offers some ideas on how Indians can help in improving the lives of those living in border areas and in the process help the Indian Army.
If the flag comes into being, Karnataka will be the second state to have its official flag after J&K.
Rajeev Kumar, the Kolkata police commissioner, is known for his impeccable investigating and electronic surveillance skills.
Interestingly, India had objected to the establishment of a UNHCHR when it was proposed by the US at the Vienna Conference on Human Rights in July 1993 and the whole proposal was remitted to the General Assembly in New York because India and others said that the whole issue should be examined in detail, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, who had led the Indian delegation for negotiating the terms of the HCHR.
Insisting that PM Modi has consistently cared for the farmers, Goyal said the Rs 75,000 earmarked for paying Rs 6,000 per annum to each of 12 crore farmers is not one time but a 'sustainable' provision.
'The Chinese have taken to telling their Indian interlocutors to bear in mind the 5:1 disparity in the sizes of the two economies.' 'The message from Beijing, says T N Ninan, is clear: Acknowledge superior Chinese power, and behave accordingly.'
'There was the indisputable fact that Savarkar knew Godse, Apte and Karkare well, he had corresponded with them closely, and funded their extremely provocative newspaper, and they looked up to him as their icon.'
Political leaders and celebrities, including Union Minister Kapil Sibal, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and filmmaker Karan Johar, have condoled the death of Sunanda Pushkar whose body was found at a five-star hotel in New Delhi.
New Delhi has reached out to neighbours like seldom before while singling Islamabad for criticism at international forums.
Sudha Murty worries that India has still not learnt its lessons from history.
'After Vajpayee-Advani, Modi-Shah is the second best in India.'
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 73rd Independence Day.
Brigadier M P Bajwa (retd), commander of the troops that captured Tiger Hill, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how a band of young soldiers won the Kargil War's most famous battle with their blood and grit.
The company has been developing donor-derived stem cell platforms.
Nitish Kumar's unanimous election to the top post at the party's National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
With ambitious generals knowing that political patronage might be rewarded, a worrying era of politicisation of the military looms ahead, observes retired Colonel Ajai Shukla who has known Generals Rawat, Bakshi and Hariz for a long time.
The high court remained unconvinced by Mallya's claim that he has been a non-resident Indian since 1988 and has lived in England since 1992, a country where he has indefinite leave to remain
'How can Kashmir be demilitarised if the terrorist threat remains and Pakistan continues to incite elements in Kashmir to keep the internal situation unstable?' asks former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
'The public has unfair expectations from Mrs Swaraj who is in Islamabad primarily for the Heart of Asia Conference. To restore India's position among stakeholders on Afghanistan is a fair one but to expect her to do more on the Indo-Pak front without requisite preparatory work is unrealistic.'
'Overlying his idealism was a hatred of war and of all things military. He gave no deep thought to politico-military matters and this prevented him from making sound security decisions.'
The Centre would need the concurrence of 20 states out of 29 to impose a GST on petroleum
Ajai Shukla presents an action plan for Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to fix the systemic weaknesses in defence.
'Both reflect prejudice and short-sightedness peculiar to Mr Modi's way of thinking.'
With a term ending in January 2017, he has to move fast to tackle the tough tasks cut out for him, says M J Antony.
