'But, of course, in cricket anything can happen. While England start the favourites, there are other teams which are also playing some good cricket'
'The Congress shall have to take some brave-tough decisions to give a new social face to the party and its leadership composition,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Mamata is campaigning hard and not giving the BJP a walkover.'
According to a nation-wide survey on financial behaviour, India has the highest account dormancy rate even more than countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
'The mobilisation is nothing but a political ploy -- a sort of a fixed match between Hindu and Muslim communal forces, towards polarisation, in a run-up to the next election,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Tawang is very much a part of India, and if the present Dalai Lama decides one day to take rebirth in Tawang, the Indian government will openly welcome him and support him, notes Claude Arpi.
'The top-most functionaries and destiny-makers of the nation have thrown away the pretensions of statesmanship.' 'They seem to have made a categorical announcement that the next general election will be fought on the solo plank of Hindutva, rather than on good governance, economic development, and employment to youth', says Mohammad Sajjad.
Named ConceptFutureS, it is a uniquely styled compact car with distinct SUV like characters and will define the next generation of design for compact vehicles in India, the company said.
'The BJP has sent out a message that its allies are at its mercy.' 'The allies cannot pressurise or bargain with the BJP any more,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Why did the Chinese military take over the lab in Wuhan in end January? Did something go wrong? Claude Arpi glances at the mystery surrounding the origin of the coronavirus.
The man behind Aligarh Muslim University 200 years on.
Noted economist Arvind Subramanian is favoured as the choice for the government's Chief Economic Advisor (CEA).
Using the Jinnah portrait as an issue, and by demonising AMU and consequently Indian Muslims, the politics of communal polarisation is sought to be played out ahead of the Kairana Lok Sabha by-poll and to sustain it till the next Lok Sabha election, says Mohammad Sajjad.
While the start may have been rocky, with renewed syllabus and coaching, students and teachers are largely in favour of the exam.
Cracks in the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar is frittering away the ground gained in social justice and contributing to increasing polarisation in the state, says Mohammad Sajjad.
The government's negligence towards this 'treasure house of knowledge' can be seen from the fact that monkeys roam about freely in the reading rooms, disturbing the calm of the library, as well as putting the lives of the readers in danger, writes Sajad Ahmad Dar.
India scripted history by successfully launching EMISAT, a military satellite, and 28 foreign nano satellites on-board its polar rocket from Sriharikota on Monday, in a complex mission which marked many a first for Indian Space Research Organisation.
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).
'I hope that the incoming Biden-Harris Administration works with India to address some of the most profound geopolitical transboundary challenges.'
Muslims need to get out of their Isolation Syndrome, argues Mohammad Sajjad.
What does one deduce from this silence? That the minorities in the BJP era have been muted, perhaps even coercively, asks Sajad Ahmad Dar.
We are what our thoughts have made us, Swami Vivekananda said.
The CBSE had announced that it had rationalised the syllabus for Classes 9 to 12 for the 2020-21 session by up to 30 per cent to make up for the academic loss caused due to COVID-19. However, it was the decision to drop topics related to Social Sciences which drew sharp reaction from opposition parties like the Congress, Left, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena.
News of all that transpired on and off the football field
Nearly 31 million Indians are unemployed and looking for jobs. While economic growth has been humming along, the pace of job creation has been poor. A revealing excerpt from Dev Kar's India: Still A Shackled Giant.
Globally, the estimated average financial loss from cyber incidents was $2.7 million, a 34-per cent increase over 2013.
In an era when the misguided youth of today are trying to build political careers by subscribing to divisive ideologies, they need to look to independent thinking icons such as Acharya Kripalani, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'They must take the bull of conservatism within their own ranks by its horns as much as they need to speak out against the fallacies of the non-Hindutva (or 'Muslim-friendly') political forces as well,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Indian students, who are living and studying away from home, tell us how they are dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and what they discovered on their journey back home.
Data localisation, an overarching theme across recent government policy proposals, has been a thorny issue with industry
'This is basically aimed at vilifying Nehruvian ideals.' 'Why?' 'Because, Nehruvian leadership is seen by Hindutva forces as the one which did not let them have their Hindu Raj.' 'The Hindutva proponents have always assumed that had Sardar become the first prime minister, India could never have become a secular State,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The Central Bureua of Investigation sought a maximum of seven years imprisonment for the five convicted persons and imposition of heavy fine on the private firm.
Mohammad Sajjad profiles Professor Riazur Rahman Sherwani, 94, versatile mind, intrepid intellectual.
Over two dozen Muslims have been elected to the Lok Sabha. This shows that all is not lost for India's Muslims, suggests Mohammad Sajjad.
'The spread of barbarity in Muzaffarnagar's villages makes administrative complicity so very evident that your government is rightly alleged to be imitating what the Modi-led administration did in Gujarat in 2002,' Mohammad Sajjad tells UP Minister Azam Khan.
'The prime minister has merely paid lip service condemning these crimes instead of launching a massive crackdown against such brutalities,' argues Professor Mohammad Sajjad.
'Indian nationhood is indeed at the cusp of alarming redefinition -- hate-filled, and exclusionary.' 'Nations are not built this way, instead these are the ways of liquidating nations.' 'We must pre-empt it.' 'Can we?' asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Pakistan's 'approach is one of getting even, an eye for an eye, or death by a thousand cuts.' 'The entire effort is to be the equal of India. Unfortunately, the reality is that this can never be the case.' 'India will always be the bigger, economically stronger, technologically more self-reliant country.' 'Therein, lies the dilemma Pakistan faces which leads it to perennial enmity with India,' notes Ambassador Gautam Bambawale in the Air Marshal Y V Malse Memorial Lecture 2019.
'In today's India very few would, of course, stand Basavanna's test. This led Professor Kalburgi to not only take on casteist and conservative forces in general, but also some powerful conservatives among Lingayats.' 'Conservatives found him polarising and some researchers disagreed with his speculations while admiring his scholarship, but he posited that culture studies and historians have to perforce join the dots, speculate, interpret, interpolate, extrapolate and take leaps to make progress even if some of them later turn out to be wrong.' Shivanand Kanavi salutes Professor M M Kalburgi, the scholar who was assassinated in Dharwad on Sunday, August 30.
India-born Mexican scientist Sanjaya Rajaram has been presented with the prestigious World Food Prize 2014 for his agricultural research that led to a remarkable increase in world wheat production building on the successes of the Green Revolution.