By clinging to the past misdeeds of some Islamic rulers, present day Muslims are making reconciliation of communities an impossibility, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Where is the analysis that we need to spend at least Rs 4 trillion to keep India safe?'
Singh and Punjab Governor V P S Badnore led hundreds of people from all walks of life who took out a candle march to pay homage to the martyrs.
'Tragically, compassion is in short supply in our ancient capital city, as the horrific violence in recent weeks testified,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Dai Bingguo, who served as the China's boundary negotiator with India from 2003 to 2013, told Chinese media, "If the Indian side takes care of China's concerns in the eastern sector of their border, the Chinese side will respond accordingly and address India's concerns elsewhere."
A devastating fire swept through the British-era Gorton Castle, which houses the office of the Accountant General of Himachal Pradesh, in the wee hours of Tuesday, reducing two floors of the magnificent heritage building to ashes.
'No other Communist leader after Lenin had such an internationalist vision as Fidel,' says Prakash Karat, the CPI-M leader in this eloquent tribute to Fidel Castro who passed into the ages on Friday.
'The creation of Pakistan was integral to Britain's grand strategy.' 'If they were to ever leave India, Britain's military planners had made it clear that they needed to retain a foothold in the NWFP and Baluchistan because that would provide the means to retain control of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar.'
'Over one million people served in various battlefronts during World War I. And yet, even today, we know so very little about them.' 'It is absolutely essential to acknowledge this part of India's colonial history,' Santanu Das tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
'We are beginning to see that the rest of the world will not simply accept the domination of one power'
Priya Ramesh, a psychoanalyst and life coach, recounts how she, her husband and neighbours braved the floods by sheltering on the first floor of their villas in Chennai's Sholinganallur suburb.
2016 saw the worst unrest in the Kashmir valley in 26 years.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel discovers Ross Island where the clock can never be turned back.
Earlier in the day, the prime minister inaugurated a slew of development projects and laid foundation stones of several others related to energy, connectivity, education, tourism and health sectors.
'Like Nehru, too, Modi has found dealing with Beijing more and more difficult and has adopted an increasingly assertive approach towards managing India's northern neighbour.'
When Rediff.com's Archana Masih and Rajesh Karkera set course from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, they could not think of a better place to begin their journey than the stately campus that has given India some of its greatest military heroes.
'In this season of inspired mean-spirited campaigning, it still seemed remarkable that we are more likely to learn civics lessons from school children than our leaders,' says Rahul Jacob.
"Political will can reform but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms. We have to bring them on one wavelength," Prime Minister Narendra Modi told bureaucrats on civil services day.
'As India progresses and takes an increasingly hardline approach to Pakistani hostility, the young and restless population of Pakistan, sooner than later, will demand 'Gazwa e Hind' (conquest of India),' warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'India's military posture has become significantly stronger than China's on the 3,500-kilometre Line of Actual Control.' 'This is enhancing confrontation between the two sides,' points out Ajai Shukla.
'The brutal violence of the UP government's first response to the anti-CAA protests suggests that the BJP will test drive the NPR/NRC in UP, where it has both a massive majority in the assembly and a chief minister whose instinct for Hindutva extremism and whose appetite for punitive policing allows a prime minister as darkly majoritarian as Modi to appear statesman-like,' notes Mukul Kesavan.
'The parallels between 1914 and 2014 are striking. The crumbling of American and Russian hegemony, the rise of powerful terrorist groups, ferment in the Middle East and the rise of China... These closely mirror the world of 1914,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Chennai on Wednesday turned a virtual island after unprecedented rains in 100 years pounded the city, shutting the airport and rendering thousands homeless.
'Does the Indian army's new assertiveness risk a clash escalating into shooting and possibly skirmishes?' asks Ajai Shukla.
Government will probe the findings in a book on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks which claims that a "super- agent" code-named 'Honey Bee' in the Indian establishment had helped Pakistan's ISI in identifying the landing site for the terrorists.
India, England cricket teams unite to unveil Khadi poppy in UK
'Pakistan needs to be constantly at war with somebody, ultimately resulting in it waging war on itself and its own people,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
'India's first and longest-serving prime minister created -- or at the very least imagined -- a modern, democratic nation-State of the 20th century,' says Sunil Sethi.
'China held a meeting on the One Belt One Road and India boycotted it.' 'However, all of India's neighbours attended, except for one, Bhutan.' 'India warned those attending that the partnership with the Chinese would come at a heavy price, but almost nobody heard us.' 'The question is: Why not?' asks Aakar Patel.
The publishing of the NRC will not rid India from illegal immigrants who are already here. But even if it manages to withhold their political and voting rights, it will be a significant achievement, says Anand Kumar.
Twenty-eight years ago almost to the day, 37 unarmed Muslims were killed in cold blood, an act of wanton violence for which no one has so far been held guilty. Jyoti Punwani and photographer Uttam Ghosh visited the Meerut locality after the trial court recently acquitted the security personnel charged with the killings, and found a town untouched by its grim past.
Hundreds of people trapped in floods-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir with some left marooned on rooftops and others clinging to trees are in dire need of water and food.
Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar visits Pallikaranai, once a marshland and now a bustling neighbourhood. The effect of Cyclone Verdah is startling on an area that was once a water body and now has been built over.
'So you have a middle class, and an elite that have seceded into outer space and they look down and say, "What's our bauxite doing in their mountains?" and "What's our water doing in their rivers?" There's a sense of entitlement there.' Arundhati Roy captures minds with her thoughts on capitalism, Indian politics, war, and more in New York.
With floods rendering the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway inoperational for 12 consecutive days on Monday, Valley residents are facing an acute shortage of essential commodities even as people in some areas of north and south Kashmir accused the administration of concentrating only on Srinagar city.
Why did the district magistrate take over an hour to order retaliatory firing on the murderous SBVS mob?
'The Gita was propounded on a battlefield and regards the use of force to establish Dharma or righteousness, as not only legitimate but one's highest duty,' says Colonel Anil Athale (retd).
'As long as Pakistan exists, the situation will not stabilise and violence is bound to erupt from time to time.' 'Though not a final solution, a step that could help localise the abscess -- trifurcate Jammu and Kashmir state into three parts: Jammu, Ladakh and the Valley.'
Tanaji Sable's story confirmed what the first witness had told the commission: That the Dalits who had gone to Bhima-Koregaon were stoned; that there were motorcyclists bearing saffron flags roaming around inspiring fear; that the police did nothing to protect the Dalits.
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