'We must begin dialogue with openness and goodwill, but we will not proceed very far without trust and good faith. The alternative is the violence of 'might is right,' which settles very little and destroys so much of real value,' says Dr Rudolf C Heredia, author of Religious Disarmament -- Rethinking Conversion in India.
The main opposition party alleged "trampling" of democracy by the BJP-led government which hit back by reminding that Congress had "butchered" democracy by misusing Article 356 about 100 times.
'Every few days, I wake up with a sense of restlessness that time is running out'... 'We have created a due process for stressed assets to resolve, but there is no concrete plan in place for public sector bank balance sheets,' says RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya.
The two countries also decided to expand trade and commercial ties holding that there are opportunities to exploit untapped economic potential in the two countries.
China continues to hold out on fingering Pakistan as the 'mothership of terror,' declaring Masood Azhar a terrorist at the UN, and India's membership of the NSG, says China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
Mihir S Sharma outlines why this year's Union Budget does not respond to the needs of India's economy, or attempt to frame the economy's future.
While PNB did not name the other lenders, Union Bank of India, Allahabad Bank and Axis Bank are said to have offered credit based on letters of undertaking (LOUs) issued by PNB. Foreign bank branches too are under investigation.
Buoyed by government retreating on the land ordinance, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying he has been "reduced to unedifying flip flops" and most of his poll promises were nothing more than "hawabaazi" (empty talk).
'I felt like a used and discarded rag.' 'The pro-dialogue constituency has shrunk in the valley.' Academician and author Dr Radha Kumar was among the three interlocutors which the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government appointed on Kashmir in October 2010, speaks of how the panel report was never acted upon.
A heavy agenda including the ordinance on the Food Security Bill awaits the Monsoon session of Parliament beginning on Monday amid expectations that the short sitting will be more businesslike and smooth as compared to the din and dust in the last few sessions.
The time is over when United States President Barack Obama thought he could afford to make a joke about the ISIS.
That's all it takes to protect an institution -- just one person with no past and no greed for the future, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Arvind Kejriwal displayed crass male chauvinism and gender illiteracy in saying that "rape tendencies arise out of sex, prostitution and drug rackets." This shows a failure to grasp that rape has little to with sex, and even less with drugs. Such remarks are far worse than the deplorable comments of policemen and politicians who attribute rapes to women's "provocative" attire or their outdoor presence at night!' says Praful Bidwai.
The prime minister had openly said the retail sector should be open to competition, domestic and foreign.
'I do not require validation from a hostile media. My conscience is clear.'
Contentious issues such as the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, abrogation of Art 370 giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir and enactment of Uniform Civil Code have been included in the Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto with the party making promises on them.
The race to succeed Sepp Blatter as president of Fifa is picking up steam and there is a scramble for nominations.
Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu aligns priorities, funding and organisation to shape a transformation agenda.
The WTO toolkit provides various instruments to deal with such situations - anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguard measures.
'We should build a military with the capability to fight today's war on priority -- balancing it with the requirements of the future,' says Lieutenant General Anil Chait, one of the Indian Army's most cerebral thinkers who recently retired as chief of the Integrated Defence Staff, in his agenda for the new defence minister.
Addressing a joint session of Parliament on Monday, President Pranab Mukhejee spelled out the Narendra Modi's government's agenda. Here are the highlights of his speech,
'Without doubt, Narasimha Rao confronted huge challenges. Yet, in the very brief period I saw him at the closest of quarters, I have to say that he was simply magnificent. A lifetime of circumspection gave way to courage.'
Trade union leaders claimed that the strike would be even bigger than the one last year as the number of striking workers is expected to swell to 18 crore
Rahul Gandhi has taken the fight to the Modi government, feels Milan Vaishnav. Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh interacts with readers on Rediff Chat as he discusses the period that changed India's history, forever.
'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.
FY16 GDP growth was seen at 7.5%, against 8.1-8.5% earlier.
'There could be some aberrations here and there. This has nothing to do with the government or the ruling party. The government machinery is put in action when atrocities take place. They are not sitting silent.' 'Beyond making sensational news, what purpose does returning the awards serve?'
CPI-M says it is ready to forge a front with Congress in Parliament on issues like land bill and secularism but ruled out being part of a national front.
There was a leadership crisis in the Board of Control for Cricket in India following the passing away of former chief Jagmohan Dalmiya, forcing the wise men in control of the all-powerful sports body to get into a huddle and recall Shashank Manohar to helm the Board yet again, four years after he had finished off his first term.
India on Thursday bluntly told the US that surveillance of political leaders and others in India by the American intelligence was "unacceptable" to which the US responded by saying that any differences that may exist can be resolved by intelligence communities of the two countries.
Rahul Gandhi has the potential to grow into a good, effective, leader of the Opposition provided he puts his heart and soul into it, with a willingness to learn, says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant who worked closely with India's first three prime ministers.
'The US wants Modi to succeed because we want India to succeed. For our part, when India thinks of its partners in the world, we want it to think of the US first. That means positioning our country as the preferred provider of the key inputs that can help to propel India's rise.' 'The meeting between Modi and Obama is, and must be, an opportunity for true strategic dialogue -- not a scripted exchange of talking points, but an open discussion of the big questions. What kind of world do we want to live in? What are our true priorities? And most importantly, why does this partnership still matter?'
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.
You could step aside from the BJP membership, don the mantle of a full-time journalist again and then go ballistic against the government, Sudhir Bisht tells Arun Shourie in this open letter.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced the appointment of Nisha Agarwal, one of the leading advocates in the city for the immigrant communities, as commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.
'Flush with funds, lending became a cash management exercise.' 'Road projects, power generation plants, airports etc were financed left and right with apparently no regard for the projects' ability to repay,' explains S Muralidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
According to the Reserve Bank of India's data, cash still accounts for 90 per cent of all monetary transactions in India.
Then chief minister Jyoti Basu once told an industrialist that capitalists were class enemies and he should expect no sympathy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made his debut among the world's most powerful people, ranked 15th on the Forbes list topped by Russian President Vladimir Putin who pipped his US counterpart Barack Obama for a second year in a row.
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