The new minister must commit himself to supporting long-term defence plans or else defence modernisation will continue to lag and the growing military capabilities gap with China will assume ominous proportions, warns Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Nitin A Gokhale, Co-founder, BharatShakti.in and long-time Rediff.com contributor, remembers a most unusual politician.
The hounding of former AMU students by some alumni over their 'wining and dining' during Ramzan is deeply disturbing, says AMU Professor Mohammad Sajjad. 'Intolerance, irrationality, bigotry, religious/sectarian hatred, and all such pernicious tendencies must be fought and resisted, more particularly by university campuses, in order to build a better society.' 'Have we, as academics, failed, and that too, quite miserably?' he asks. 'I feel like confessing and saying yes, we have indeed failed.'
If Narendra Modi could tame his obsession with the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family, Arvind Kejriwal resist polishing his halo and Rahul Gandhi find his voice, we could begin a debate about the future of this country that actually addressed the seriousness of its problems, says Rahul Jacob.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also called up Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and discussed the situation with her.
Olympic organisers say they will not reveal the final torchbearer's identity until the torch arrives in the stadium on live television, watched by billions of spectators.
In March 2012, UP made Akhilesh Yadav the state's youngest CM. In March 2017, he finds himself in the opposition. At this turning point, we look back at the Samajwadi Party leader's political trajectory.
A 75-year-old Indian-origin Maoist cult leader was on Friday found guilty of rape, child cruelty and falsely imprisoning his daughter for 30 years by a British court.
'More so, if it is their daughters wanting to marry someone of their own choosing.' 'Children are seen as property. That's why the problem is so messy.' For young Indians wanting to marry outside their religion, expressing their right to love and live as they choose is becoming increasingly hazardous.
'How can the BJP give Muslim candidates tickets if they don't have any good Muslim candidates?'
'If you are a slave, nobody has any problem. The conflict starts when you question and ask for equal rights.'
The venom and contemptuous sarcasm evident on the army's tweet on the Yeti and my reply has something to do with the intrinsic hatred that a section of the media nurses against the right wing, says Tarun Vijay.
One warm sunny day, Abhilasha Ojha stumbles upon the soul of Bahrain.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar's worldview sets him apart
BJP President Amit Shah -- arguably the second most powerful politician in the nation -- granted a rare television interview to the Network 18 group of news channels. Rediff.com's Rajesh Alva checks out what the BJP boss said in this word cloud assessment of the interview.
Modi and Shah can't afford to lose any of the 24 per cent Dalit vote of 2014, says Shekhar Gupta.
Kumar will always be known as the reformer chief minister who brought governance back to Bihar.
'We rarely choose to fight when the threat is still a nascent threat. When we do fight, we fight when the invaders reach Panipat and are preparing to knock on the gates of Delhi.'
'If the RSS should be saluted for choosing such a scholarly statesman to address its highly trained cadre, one must also praise Pranab Da's sagacity for having gracefully accepting the invitation, thus disapproving any ideological apartheid,' says former BJP MP Tarun Vijay.
China is worried about the situation post the Dalai Lama and that his reincarnation could surface in Arunchal Pradesh, a region it claims as its own, but which is part of the Indian Republic, says former RA&W Additional Secretary Jayadeva Ranade.
Nitish Kumar has failed to curb communal forces and hoodlums across communities. And that is ominous for Bihar's present and future, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
While Jayalalithaa may have died her political legacy will continue to survive through the slew of 'Amma' branded products and services.
With the government claiming that the economy has been growing robustly and the Opposition refuting these claims, the common man is none the wiser, says Rajeev Sharma.
'Mulayam has by design cornered the people's attention back to the party and Akhilesh.' 'People were only talking of Modi and demonetisation, but now suddenly everybody is talking of Akhilesh and the SP.' 'My personal subjective impression is that the SP is neck and neck with the BJP.'
'In the lingo of Star Trek, how willing are we to keep all hailing frequencies open in order to listen more closely and with empathy to whoever we consider the 'other'?'
Modi said there has been a 'silent revolution'.
'While US officials understand and accept India's desire for retaliation, they still don't want to encourage steps that would likely lead to war.'
Reform ideas do not occur overnight and evolve over the years.
'Fearful of losing strategic advantage, the only option for Pakistan is to rattle its nuclear sabre!' 'Pakistan thereby hopes to play on the worldwide fear of an outbreak of nuclear war in South Asia,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The local labour force is streaming out of the region, creating a vacuum that makes it easier for the Bangladeshis to fill in, says R N Ravi
At first look, the reader would be aghast at the similarities in the DMK and AIADMK's manifestos, wondering if the same hand had drafted both. Yet, when it comes to drinking water and irrigation supplies, both parties are equally silent on the subject -- as if summer did not exist, as didn't water scarcity, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Most likely scenario is Modi comes back with either a much smaller majority and no majority at all and a coalition.' 'Very hard to imagine him doing better than he did last time.' 'He will then be a weaker prime minister,' the author of The Billionaire Raj tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
"It would be my hope that people understand why this particular transaction is important for us," the EAM said in Washington, DC.
'India's nationalism has always been an exceptional and great experiment.' 'We said you don't have to give up your language, your lifestyle or your religion in order to be an Indian national.' 'Nowhere in the world could you find on such a large scale such a democratic experiment of nation building based on diversity.' 'That is the greatness of India's nationalism and we are on the verge of losing that greatness.'
More than 90 police cars, fire brigade engines and other city government vehicles saluted Dr Uma Rani Madhusudana for her non-stop, tirelessly devoted work in the care of COVID-19 patients at a hospital over 8 difficult and dangerous days.
When Prime Minister Modi observes the first anniversary of his government at Nagla Chandrabhan, Deendayal Upadhyaya's birthplace in Mathura, on Monday, he shall be essentially reiterating his commitment to achieving the ideal of Upadhyaya's 'Dharma Rajya', a State free of inequality and of division, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
Besides weakening the Maoists' lethal capacities and reducing violence, it is essential to ensure that governance is improved, so that those prone to sympathising with, or supporting, the Maoists would, in the long run, realise the needlessness and futility of doing so, says P V Ramana and Raj Bala Rana.
Al Qaeda 'had been preparing to spread its ideology to India', says Bruce Hoffman, Director Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
'Embedded with the divisive regime, they administer heavy doses of the opium of religion and nationalism day in and day out,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
AMU has once again been pulled into a crossfire of crass political opportunism. In these post-truth times, that the university also had political stirrings not subscribing to the Muslim League is chosen to be forgotten, says Mohammad Sajjad.
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