A simple look at the prices of 10 media stocks during the tenure of the current government tells an interesting tale, says N Sundaresha Subramanian.
With India's political wheel turning full circle this year, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will negotiate from an expanding diplomatic space, writes Ajai Shukla
The class 12 English exam of the Uttar Pradesh secondary school board was cancelled in 24 districts after the question paper was leaked hours before the beginning of the test on Wednesday.
'India cannot allow Beijing's policy of stabilising and destabilising the border at will to perpetuate its own ends.' A riveting excerpt from Manish Tiwari's 10 Flashpoints; 20 Years National Security Situations That Impacted India.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was the cynosure of all eyes at the United Progressive Alliance anniversary function last year, was conspicuous by his absence Wednesday night.
'Unlike the Congress, the BJP is not a party that merely goes by family connections.' 'Scindia's future will depend on what he brings to the BJP table.' 'The BJP is also a party where vertical growth is mostly factored by RSS preferences.' 'To secure confidence of the saffron brotherhood, Scindia will have to be his grandmother's grandson and not his father's son,' notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
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."
'The heart of the matter is that India is not Israel.'
This is the first full-scale review of VIP protectees by the Union home ministry after the Modi 2.0 government took charge.
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Less than half the ministers in Team Yogi are not long-term BJP members. Many old-timers have been dropped.
Several girls were sexually assaulted in a shelter home run by Thakur in Muzaffarpur, Bihar. He was convicted under various sections of IPC, POCSO Act and Juvenile Justice Act.
We should have anticipated it on August 5 last year, when we made the big changes in J&K. Amit Shah left nothing to chance when he told Parliament that 'we will bring back Aksai Chin even at the cost of our lives'. 'Then, there were the new maps, objections to the CPEC going through Indian territory, the weather reports.' A broad territorial status quo had existed in Ladakh-Aksai Chin since 1962. India made its intention to change this public, notes Shekhar Gupta.
APJ Abdul Kalam was passionate about everything he did. He was perfect, says Aditi Phadnis
Amit Shah now enters an unfamiliar and interesting phase of his political career. His success or failure will henceforth be assessed based on his performance as a key minister, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
Dikshit will take on BJP's sitting MP Manoj Tiwari and Aam Aadmi Party's Dilip Pandey.
The Congress kept sheltering Quattrochi, and the BJP was more intent on shielding the Hinduja brothers. The fact is that the two roads crisscrossed, and neither the truth prevailed nor did the law take its course, says Mohan Guruswamy.
'Nawaz Sharif asked: "What if I invited him and he declined?"' 'I said I will check.' 'Vajpayee liked the idea. He said I should see him on my return.' Shekhar Gupta reveals how Sharif wanted to make peace, but was tripped by the army and notes the lessons it has for Imran Khan.
'I was present at a meeting where he decided to permit the IAF to strike at Pakistan positions in Kargil, with the caveat that they should not cross the LoC.' 'Confident that the Indian Army would succeed, Mr Vajpayee was positioning himself to tell the world after the Kargil conflict was won that India did not violate the 'sanctity' of the LoC,' recalls Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's envoy in Islamabad in that eventful year, 1999.
'Poor home work, and a subsequent loss of nerve.' 'This sums up the Modi government's current travails, the stall in key sectors, fading momentum, irritability,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
India's national security strategy needs to be revised periodically since the global and regional geopolitical situation is dynamic, points out Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'Nobody would dare directly target Modi, and while there are murmurs about Amit Shah after Bihar, nobody is willing to say this openly. Arun Jaitley, in some calculations, is most expendable for Modi,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'He is still compulsively an operations man. Just a whiff of a live operation, and he is back in the field, at least in his mind. That is why the immediate decision to send the NSG to Pathankot.' 'But there is a difference between classical intelligence or counter-terror operation and dealing with a larger threat to a place as sensitive and sprawling as an air force base. This is what led to confusion and mix-ups,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Modi took to the dais and said he would like to step down as chief minister over the riots.' 'Immediately, people from several sides got up and said there was no need to do so.' 'Whether it was orchestrated or not, Shourie wasn't sure.' 'But, according to him, Vajpayee felt that it was a coup.'
The success of the government will depend substantially on the quality of its team of key ministers, officials and advisors
'These children are wards of the State. They were exploited because the state government and its officials didn't do their jobs.'
Nitin Gokhale, national security expert and founder BharatShakti.in, tells us what the controversy is all about.
'All of Indira Gandhi's bad economic ideas are being strengthened, from nationalised banks to anti-poverty, handout yojanas,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Who are the men the prime minister relies on to execute his impressive agenda?
'The India-France relationship has been that of the elites of two countries, who appreciate each other's philosophical traditions -- whether it is ancient Indian civilisation and Sanskrit texts or the French tradition of Rene Descartes, Albert Camus, (Jean-Paul) Sartre... This is a drawback. It doesn't create the buzz, the excitement necessary for a relationship. We need more people-to-people contact, especially among students,' says former Ambassador to Paris, Rakesh Sood.
Were the May 1988 nuclear tests a success? 20 years after Pokharan, a look back at those decisive atomic tests through the eyes of someone who knew.
Her book is less of a Hindutva-loving diatribe against the Dynasty than its detractors suggest, but it is still hard to agree with much of what she writes, says Vir Sanghvi on Tavleen Singh's latest book.
'In his eulogy at Sandy's memorial service, President Clinton recounted the unusually hot US Independence Day, July 4, 1999, when most of official Washington was more interested in watching fireworks than international diplomacy. Sandy insisted that Clinton confront Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in no uncertain terms.' Former US Assistant Secretary Raymond E Vickery, Jr salutes Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser, as a true friend of India.
'It is strange that a country like India, which had gone through crisis after crisis resulting from militancy, insurgency and terrorist attacks, should still be practising ad hocism in managing its security imperatives,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant and former member of the Joint Intelligence Council.
"Who will be his men?" a distinguished official close to the prime minister asked. Frankly, nobody has an idea. Hardly seven weeks are left for a regime change, but the idea of Narendra Modi on Raisina Hill looks abnormal, if not unreal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt captures the uncertain mood in the capital's bureaucracy ahead of the largest democratic transfer of power in the world.
'Dulat's professional successors in the game would now find it that much harder to access/create meaningful sources/assets needed for effective functioning in a place like Kashmir. By blowing their cover the former top spy has undone whatever he might have been able to add to his organisation's resource kitty.'
'The Modi government's pusillanimity vis-a-vis Pakistan makes almost certain that India will, in the coming weeks and months, be confronted with cross border terrorist actions of increasing intensity,' warns Satish Chandra, former deputy national security adviser.
The city readies itself for the biggest economic, political and social event of the year
With an aggressive Opposition and unyielding government, important legislation could be the biggest casualty, as details of the helicopter contract surface.
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