'Mr. Modi has now become 1st PM to have his illegal orders set aside by the SC'
'The government says it will file a review petition against the Supreme Court, but there is no conviction here.' 'It is doing this purely because it is worried.' 'It comes from the same sentiment as asking BJP MPs to spend two nights in a Dalit village,' says Aakar Patel.
Around 700 migrant workers, women and children have lost their lives in this reverse migration. But what is happening today with the migrant labour is only a continuation of the policies pursued by the Modi regime during the last six years. It is not for nothing that India was ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women in 2018 by the Thompson Reuters Foundation poll, points out Rashme Sehgal.
The Chinese have just one commander for all the forces confronting India. Commanders of all these forces answer to one man, and one headquarter. India, on the other hand, offers a diversity of options that is a military embarrassment in the 21st century. In Arunachal and Sikkim-Bhutan, the Eastern Army Commander is in charge. In the Uttarakhand (central) sector, it will be the Central Army Commander. The Himachal-Tibet border is the domain of the Western Army Commander. And all of Kashmir and Ladakh further on, the Northern Army's. Effectively, an array of at least eight 'three-star' commanders will be arrayed against one Chinese, says Shekhar Gupta.
Today, the Ladakhis and Tibetans have been joined by the Sikhs, the Madrassis, the Garhwalis, the Rajputs, who are well trained psychologically and otherwise, to defend the nation, observes Claude Arpi.
Major Somnath Sharma was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously for his bravery in the Kashmir operations on November 3, 1947.
'I am sceptical of the Indian economy returning to a sustained high-growth trajectory any time soon'
Swaraj said India has made many efforts to have talks with Islamabad and the only reason they have stopped is because of Pakistan's behaviour.
'General Rawat's unambiguous stand has acted as a much needed confidence booster to the troops -- young officers and soldiers at the cutting edge -- who were often left wondering if they were doing the right and necessary thing in combating the terrorists, many times paying with their own lives,' says Nitin A Gokhale.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
Economic reforms seem to be on a slow train, while good old fiscal populism is alive and flourishing.
Asserting that "maritime muscle flexing" by some countries and other factors have made the Indo-Pacific region "more contested and more volatile," naval chief Admiral Sunil Lanba on Tuesday said that the Indian Navy has its task cut out as it has been a major security provider in the region.
I will give answer to the public in 2019, but Akhilesh government must answer to the people as it had ruled it for the last five years, Modi said.
Vajpayee had always felt that India must act with conviction and panache. He decided that, irrespective of the attendant risks, he would undertake what many felt was a precarious course. A fascinating excerpt from N K Singh's Portraits Of Power: Half A Century Of Being At Ringside on Atalji's 96th birthday, December 25.
Within Sebi, the chairman should hold an umbrella for both young and old employees, says Somasekhar Sundaresan.
Don't forget to make your pick for the newsmaker of 2015.
Bihar's Ruling Janata Dal-United legislator Anant Singh was arrested on Wednesday in a case of kidnapping and extortion at Bihita in rural Patna.
Among the series of questions raised were how self-loading riffles found their way out of the armoury and came to be used in the firing, how snipers were perched atop vehicles and how persons came to be shot in the face and chest.
'Unquestionably, the spirit behind the Panchsheel agreement and the 'Hindi Chini bhai bhai' slogan were thrown overboard by the Chinese, and a trust deficit was injected between the two nations.' A revealing excerpt from General J J Singh's The McMahon Line: A Century Of Discord.
'... it must network its battlefield units quickly, securely, robustly,' notes Ajai Shukla.
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
'He has terror charges against him. And for an army officer, it's just terrible.'
'Keeping its financial interests in mind, China wants no enmity with the Nepalese government.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had invited ASEAN leaders to be the chief guests.
'Pakistan is convinced that the Modi government has -- given its image and political compulsions -- no choice but to act in the case of another terror attack.'
With the series lost, what changes must India make for the final Test?
'With the recent challenging of the notion of the Indian Ocean Region being India's strategic backyard, China is gradually upping the ante in the maritime realm around India.'
Sukanya Verma celebrates the acting legend.
'It would be very easy for me to say, it's only the Pakistanis that want the Kashmir issue to remain alive.' 'Trust me, there is a vested interest on the Indian side in keeping the issue of Jammu and Kashmir alive.'
In the face of climate disaster, a new environmental movement by the name of Extinction Rebellion has risen up, and they will make sure you hear their plea -- 'To governments of the world: we declared a climate and ecological emergency. You did not do enough. To everybody else: rebel' The environmental group, which was founded in the United Kingdom, has planned a large coordinated movement -- called International Rebellion -- in more than 60 global cities. Demonstrators blocked roads and bridges leading to the Palace of Westminster in central London. They staged a "die-in" in Wellington, New Zealand. They obstructed a major roundabout in Berlin and splattered fake blood on Wall Street's "Charging Bull" sculpture. Here are some of the most powerful images from the movement.
'As China rises and India grows to reclaim their earlier positions on the world stage as two of the largest economies and most important countries, there will indeed be some contention between these two powers.' 'There will also be plenty of space and room for cooperation amongst the two of us.' 'As our economic size increases to match the fact that we are the two most populous nations on earth, it will be all the more important for us to keep the interests of our peoples as well as those of the rest of the world in mind.' 'We shall have to grow together rather than as separate and disparate entities,' points out Ambassador Gautam Bambawale -- who served as India's ambassador to China -- in the 7th annual lecture of the Indian Association of Foreign Affairs Correspondents on March 1, 2019.
'NSA Doval and the PM are known to admire Israel's tough response to cross-border terrorism.' 'However, New Delhi's situation is far more complex than Tel Aviv's, which enjoys military superiority over all its neighbours,' says Ajai Shukla.
'Headley's testimony indicates to what extent the Pakistan government and its proxies can go to destroy not only Indian scientific talent but also international expertise.'
'This is a movie made with this gaze fixed on its immediate well-wishers, while at the same time it squints hard looking for those swaying back and forth on the fence,' notes Rohit Sathish Nair.
'For its part, Pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror.'
India and China on Wednesday signed in all nine agreements, including the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement and one on strengthening cooperation on trans-border rivers, after restricted and delegation-level talks that lasted over two hours as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Li Keqiang met for the second time this year for talks which the Indian leader described as "fruitful and productive".
'In the name of pluralism-secularism, the kind of politics that was pursued revealed to many that it was basically a favour to Muslim conservatism and communalism -- a politics of minority-ism, rather than of secularism.' 'This is how significant sections of Hindus have been made to loathe the very idea of Indian secularism by now,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
20 years ago this week, India and Australia played one of the greatest Test matches in cricket history. Sreehari Nair relives the sound and the fury of that unforgettable game at the Eden Gardens.
'If the strength of foreign terrorists can be brought to negligible levels there will be few takers for militancy.' 'That is why it is important to neutralise the terrorists at their launch pads,' advises Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'Pakistan's recent utterances and tendency to use pinpricks to try our patience appear reminiscent of 1965. We are a strong nation, emerging stronger,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).