'As Indians, we should be claiming and celebrating 'Bhartiyata' rather than seeking commitment to beliefs which are divisive and exclusionary.'
Here's the full text of address to the nation by President Ram Nath Kovind on the eve of the Republic Day 2022.
Veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and Bharatiya Janata Party candidates Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sumer Singh Solanki on Friday won Rajya Sabha election from Madhya Pradesh.
The storm is India's strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in 20 years.
Minister of State for Culture Mahesh Sharma said the government will not be deterred by criticism that it was trying to promote RSS ideology.
"In India, we derive our strength from tolerance, and respect our pluralism. We celebrate our diversity," he said.
Seen as a prelude to the more serious RedInk Awards -- which celebrate the finest in Indian journalism -- the high-profile winners of the 'Ouch' awards included Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
'I worked as a cleaner at a store.' 'I worked as a security guard...' 'I have slept on footpaths.' '[I came to Mumbai with great difficulty.' 'I have not seen better people than I have in the film industry.' 'Nobody has helped me the way people have done for me here.'
At least 24 people, including two policemen, were killed as police tried to evict around 3,000 encroachers from a park in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday.
BJP president Amit Shah, while kickstarting 'Ganatanatra Bachao Yatra' in Bengal, vowed to overthrow the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in the state.
Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu reported one case each, officials said.
'If they were really serious (about conferring the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar) what were they doing for the last five years?' 'Why do they have to take so long?' 'Gandhi himself never got the Bharat Ratna so it does not really matter.'
Attlee said Great Britain had concluded that the Indian element of the army was no longer reliable and that Netaji's Indian National Army had demonstrated that. That had shaken the foundation on which Britain's Indian empire rested, argues Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday termed his Japan trip as "very successful" and hoped that India's infrastructure will improve and the country will become clean with the help of $35 billion promised by Japan over five years, the highest ever amount ever.
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
A man who was ready to die for the country in his youth waits for his government to recognise his sacrifice and pay him his due in his old age.
The BJP president said it is parties run by "dictatorial mindset" which can think about bringing Emergency.
'Gandhi has not become out of date, we have.'
'The power of love is the greatest power in the world.' 'Add a smile and you can conquer the world,' Bengali actor June Maliah, the Trinamool Congress's candidate for the Medinipur constituency, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com.
'Savarkar was the closest the RSS had to a freedom movement icon, however flawed.' 'Indira Gandhi wasn't going to gift him to them.' 'And a non-career politician like Dr Singh understands it.' 'It is just that his party never listened to him,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'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.'
In a 35-minute address to the Indian diaspora, the prime minister said that his government was not afraid of taking "big" and "tough" decisions in the interest of the country.
'One can charge it at home, in the office, on the go. All it needs is a 15 Amp electric socket which is found is all our homes.'
When most nonagenarians are content to pass their time in their neighbourhood's gardens, Raj Kumar Vaishya, 96, has enrolled himself in the Patna-based Nalanda Open University to pursue his lifelong dream of earning a masters in economics, reports MI Khan.
Raag Desh is one of the best films of the year, Sreehari Nair raves.
A weekend without a party is not Bollywood's scene!
India is also likely to push for a Free Trade Agreement with the Eurasian Economic Zone and is sharing details of the study it conducted in this regard.
'The best course for India is to wait out the implosion that is bound to take place in Pakistan sooner than later.' 'We have to ensure that the fallings debris from a collapsing State does not damage us,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'What was previously buried in the sands of time now gets buried by the weight of banality,' notes Sreehari Nair.
Many states like Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were opposed to opening up of their airports in view of rising cases of the coronavirus infection.
'The BJP will take time to come to power in Andhra.'
'Our honourable CM is so shameless that she will say the state is among the safest for women.'
'Unfortunately, during this pandemic, everybody started saying that well, these are desperate times and desperate times need desperate solutions.' 'Purely out of fear, anxiety, panic, this knowledge that people started acquiring from WhatsApp University and social media, it pushed science completely to the backseat.'
'Who are these people on the streets?' 'They are youth and students who were hoodwinked, bluffed by Modi for the last seven years, with a promise of 2 crore jobs every year.' 'And Mamata sings the same tune.' 'But the youth can see that as long as there is Mamata or Modi, there is no hope.'
'The sorry image of a wailing leader visiting relief camps for riot victims was completely incoherent with what he did next, blaming the minority community for the disturbance.' Utkarsh Mishra pens a tribute from the heart.
Scindia, who is now with the BJP and took oath as a member from Madhya Pradesh, greeted his bete noire before taking oath. Scindia and Singh had differences that led to Scindia quitting the Congress. Scindia also greeted Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Ghulam Nabi Azad.
'The BJP may well be his ultimate destination.' 'In the process, he has probably shot himself in the foot.' 'It is unlikely that either Scindia or Pilot will be anything other than a No 3 or a No 4 in the Modi-Shah dispensation,' predicts Amulya Ganguli.
Against the backdrop of the Lok Sabha results, a much larger scale of desertion was anticipated from the TMC. 'It seems, people don't believe that the ship is sinking.'
'How can the monument where the prime minister unfurls the flag on Independence Day, in a ceremony broadcast and telecast nationally, be maintained by a private entity?' asks Jyoti Punwani.
Addressing the Lok Sabha on the 75th anniversary of the Quit India movement, the prime minister said from 2017 to 2022, when India turns 75, there is a need to create the same spirit that existed between 1942 and 1947.
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