After Pyongyang tests a missile potentially capable of reaching the US, Dr Rajaram Panda explores the realistic -- and peaceful -- options before Donald Trump and the international community at large.
If we value India, we must not only 'Make in India', but defend the idea of India, too.
It is only gradually dawning on us that some of the information we have trustingly shared with commercial service providers can be used against us when we apply for a job or when we apply to admission to a college, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
'Islam insists on sameness, which is fine but can run the danger to jihad against those who are not the same.' 'Brahminical Hinduism insists on difference, which is fine but can run the danger of an oppressive internal hierarchy: Caste oppression, for instance.' 'In actual fact, humans need both sameness and difference to exist.'
The Tata empire turns 150 this year. R Gopalakrishnan, former director, Tata Sons Ltd, imagines a conversation among the group's founder Jamsetji, his son Dorabji, his successor, Nowroji Saklatwala, and his successor, J R D Tata.
'The way to pay tribute to Guruji would be to continue on his path and principles and be steadfast on true and genuine practice, which I want my students to learn from me.' Nivedita Joshi, who overcame her physical ailments thanks to yoga guru BKS Iyengar, speaks to Upasna Pandey about his legacy.
The Sino-Pakistan relationship remains fundamentally asymmetrical: Pakistan wants more out of its ties with China than China is willing to offer. Today, when Pakistan's domestic problems are gargantuan, China would be very cautious in involving itself even more, says Harsh V Pant.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field.
The former finance minister also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the words he chose to attack his predecessor Manmohan Singh, saying he should remember that the Chair he sat on was used by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use right language.
'In the past the US has been reluctant to name Pakistan directly in an US-India joint statement.'
'We're going to see a defence relationship that really takes off -- now that India is a major defence partner of the US, the sky is the limit for arms sales.' 'The economic partnership will lag behind the security relationship, but the meeting and joint statement give cause to believe that it will progress more robustly than many of us would have expected.'
'The worst case scenario is for China to behave like a bull in China shop, and brazenly and wantonly indulge in further encroachments, create obstacles to free navigation and convert SCS into an Air Defence Identification Zone.'
'Modi's investment in the relationship with Washington is the biggest deliverable of this visit. He means business and that's fantastic!'
'Indians are great savers, but they are lousy investors.'
'There is nothing bigger than Bigg Boss. I was lucky and blessed that I stayed inside the Bigg Boss house for three months. The love that I got from people was so humbling that I started crying. That's the first thing that I did when I came out.'
'The ISI has given a stunning display of its capacity to do with impunity what it likes within Kabul. Incensed over the triumphalism of the hardliners in Kabul, the ISI has hit out; it is a typical ISI reflex action that Indians are familiar with,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Rahul Gandhi accuses the Modi government of being in thrall to corporate fat cats at the expense of farmers and other common folk. But the facts do not bear out this argument, as Indian farmers are relatively better off compared to the really wretched of the earth, the unfortunate landless, often itinerant, labourer. And since Rahul's ancestors are the ones who failed them, it is a little disingenuous of him to ignore them in his rhetorical flourishes,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'An America at war with itself, groaning under a mounting debt, with woolly-headed economic policies of a neophyte president who is more feared and suspected among the comity of nations does not augur well for the world.' 'It would be well justified in asking,' says Shreekant Sambrani, '"Is this how you expect to make America great again, Mr President?"'
'The real test will be in defence-related deals, for instance the Javelin anti-tank missile: Is the US willing to co-develop something with India, on terms that will support the 'Make in India' initiative? Is there defence technology transfer? Or will it dump old junk on India?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
In an hour-long chat on rediff.com on Thursday, A K Prabhakar, senior VP and Head - Equity Research (Retail), Anand Rathi Financial Services Ltd, answered some important questions on the market.
A first-of-its-kind travel show explores the special bond a father and daughter share.
'I belonged to the working class, not the middle class.' 'I was a rag-picker. I used to pick up coal from the railway tracks.' 'I was rejected from the FTII, as I was very unkempt and skinny.' 'I did not look like a hero, villain or comedian.' 'But Girish Karnad and Jairaj said I should be taken based on merit, not looks.'
Brazilian model Bruna Bernandes -- who wants to become a cardiologist -- is in India to try her luck. She's already worked with SRK and Salman and finds India safer than Brazil.
Global investor and author Jim Rogers, who recently sold his India investments, talks about his disappointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic reforms, why he is betting big on the US dollar and the Chinese Renminbi and what will bring him back to India some day.
Can we make high speed 4G Internet available at 10 cents per GB, and make all voice calls free of cost -- that too in a large and diverse country like India? Can we make high-quality but simple breast cancer screening available to every woman, that too at the extremely affordable cost of $1 per scan? Can we make a portable, high-tech ECG machine which can provide reports immediately and that too at the cost of 8 cents a test? Can we make an eye imaging device that is portable, non-invasive and costs 3 times less that conventional devices? Can we make a robust test for mosquito-borne dengue, which can detect the disease on day 1, and that too at the cost of $2 per test? Amazingly, says Dr R A Mashelkar, the eminent scientist, all this has been achieved in India, not only by using technological innovation but also non-technological innovation.
'I have never seen the Kashmiris in a more conciliatory mood or a more defensive and reasonable mood than I did when I went there in May. All of them said, "raasta nikaliye".' 'Farooq Abdullah has said hundreds of times that the LoC has to be recognised as the international boundary. So that is where the solution lies, it lies on the LoC.' A S Dulat, former RAW chief, explains why he is perplexed by the Modi government's decision to call off foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan.
'Secretiveness and the element of surprise in announcing decisions marks the Modi style of diplomacy. From being a voluble politician, he became a reticent statesman... But the diplomatic dance is performed on thin ice and his adroitness is still to be proved,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Meet the US Attorney who took on Donald Trump.
'Small bands of terrorists believe they can destabilise superpowers if they are ready to become martyrs.' 'Since the road to paradise is under the shade of swords, it is a win-win situation for those ready to die for the cause of Allah.'
Mohandas Pai took part in an hour-long chat on rediff.com
Keep exit plans handy, D-day could be the second week of August, writes Sonali Ranade in Market Notes.
'China's excessive military aid to Pakistan is the real elephant in the room as far as Sino-Indian relations are concerned. India should be confident enough to accept a degree of closeness between China and Pakistan, since China may wish to use this link for its foray into the Muslim world.' 'But the Chinese must be realistic enough to know that as time passes, the tactic of using Pakistan as a proxy to check India will yield diminishing returns. The US tried it for 60 years but failed, so will China,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, newly elected co-chair of the influential Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, discusses her vision for US-India ties with Rediff.com's Monali Sarkar.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has to deal with 3 powerful enemies: the media, the political establishment, and business houses.
'If the dimensions of the strategic partnership worked out by India and the US seem like a grand alliance targeted at you-know-who, China had better realise that it has fathered it,' says B S Raghavan, a long time observer of China.
Praising the US for turning barriers into bridges of partnership, he said that America had stood with India when the support was needed the most, like when terrorists attacked Mumbai in November 2008 and in other economic endeavours as well
Sheela Bhatt meets Bharti Patel, a truly exceptional mother of our times whose son Dr Vikram Patel was recently ranked among Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2015, to find out her recipe for a remarkable upbringing.
'If you destroy the assets in Pathankot, you degrade the combat potential of India; you degrade the war potential of India.'
A special episode of the Prime Minister's radio broadcast Mann ki Baat featuring US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aired on Tuesday night. The 35-minute special broadcast of 'Mann Ki Baat', which marked the rapport between Modi and Obama, touched on issues ranging from public health and personal inspirations of the two leaders, both of whom have come up from simple beginnings to assume to top positions of the respective countries. What follows is a transcript of the Mann ki Baat episode.
