'After Ambedkar, Dr Gail was the only writer who wrote critically on caste issues.'
Sheela Bhatt reveals how Sonia Gandhi has decided to take an active role in governance with the resurrection of the powerful National Advisory Council. A rediff exclusive!
Did Prime Minister Modi receive a different kind of reception at the Biden White House on Friday than he has has been used to at the American president's home?
'Growing up in Karnataka, in middle-class and forward-caste background, Ambedkar did not enter our consciousness at all, I realised.' 'The 'exclusion' of sections of our society was not only physical; it was comprehensive in the sense that all aspects of their lives including the life of an exceptional intellectual and stalwart had been under-understood by people of my class, I thought,' says B S Prakash.
Politics, bureaucracy, ineptitude, double-standards and an attempt to politicise the fight in pseudo-nationalistic terms have all hampered the fight against this deadly virus, says Vir Sanghvi.
Back in the Press Briefing room on being commended for her questions to President Biden and the Indian prime minister, The Wall Street Journal's Sabrina Siddiqui responded, "You gotta do it."
'Between its natural immunity with Delta, in so many populations, and then getting on top of the vaccination (situation), I do not think India is going to have another bad wave.'
Senior leader P Chidambaram whose Rajya Sabha tenure is ending from Maharashtra is under consideration from Tamil Nadu as the Congress is all set to get the support of alliance partner the DMK. The G-23 leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Vivek Tankha, are also said to be in contention.
The move is aimed at reflecting the diversity of India and highlighting the contribution of prominent personalities.
'This incident offers ammunition to those inside the US government and elsewhere who question the wisdom of trusting India, so it will have a lasting consequence no matter how it is managed.'
'They are fighting it out, but they have deeply traumatised; they are alive and they are carrying on in life.'
A BJP leader in Bihar on Thursday died while taking part in a 'Vidhan Sabha march' against the state's Nitish Kumar government, evoking allegations from senior party leaders that he was "killed in a brutal lathi charge".
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The Mahatma's descendants differ over Modi and the BJP victory... US-based Coalition Against Genocide vows to oppose Modi... Only Hindu US Congresswoman congratulates Modi... George Joseph/Rediff.com reports from New York.
The opposition leaders also accused the government of violating Constitutional norms by not inviting President Droupadi Murmu to the event.
'We were children and could not distinguish freedom from bondage, but we could understand that a momentous and happy event was imminent.'
Shinde, who was accompanied by civic chief Abhijit Bangar and district collector Ashok Shingare, said the patient deaths at the CSM Hospital, located in his political turf Thane, were painful and asked all parties to desist from indulging in politics on the issue.
'If we want a stable society, then all groups must feel that they have a seat at the table of power.'
The Congress on Sunday took a strong exception to the exclusion of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the Karnataka government's newspaper advertisement on freedom fighters and termed the Bharatiya Janata Party action 'pathetic'.
It is not unlikely that ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP government comes up with more imaginative schemes aimed at constituency-building. The party under Modi's leadership has a more modern thinking in such matters unlike its rivals, which are still steeped only in ideology, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
The 150-year-old Madras University on Friday conferred Honorary Doctorates of Literature (D.Litt) on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi at a special convocation to commemorate its sesquicentennial-year celebrations.
Fifty years ago today, December 25, 1972, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, one of the titans of India's freedom struggle, passed into the ages. Kalki Krishnamurthy, who penned the Tamil classic Ponniyin Selvan among numerous other novels, describes his first glimpse of the man who would become an august national leader and his cherished role model.
'If because of El Nino, the monsoon is affected adversely in the current year, naturally it will affect income projections and consequently Budget numbers.'
Nath's resignation was accepted by party president Sonia Gandhi keeping in view the party's 'one person-one post' policy.
The ultimate consequences of Rahul Gandhi's yatra may be known only in 2024, points out Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Dr Reddy's Laboratories is in a pact with Russian Direct Investment Fund to sell the first 125 million people doses (250 million vials) of Sputnik V in India.
Singh, who headed the UPA coalition government between 2004 and 2014, turned 88 on Saturday.
Senior journalist Ram Bahadur Rai, former news editor of Hindi daily Jansatta, replaces Chinmaya Gharekhan.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Deepa Gahlot lists some interesting made-for-OTT hostage dramas that you can watch.
'...despite not being ideologically aligned with a vast section of the people of the north east.' 'But the results in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya show that no party, including the BJP, can say that it has really done well.'
Venkataraman Krishnamurthy, who is considered as the turnaround man of several Indian corporate houses like BHEL, Maruti Udyog, SAIL and Gail (India), passed away on Sunday at the age of 97. Krishnamurthy is considered as "the father of public sector undertakings in India" by many in India Inc. Born in the temple town of Tamil Nadu's Karuveli, he started his career as an airfield technician during the Second World War.
The CBI, in its FIR, alleged that Mayaram, the UK-based company De La Rue International Ltd and unidentified officials of the finance ministry and RBI hatched a criminal conspiracy to extend undue favour to the firm.
'The upper caste elite's belief that they are casteless is a belief that is available only to the upper castes. Because all the lower castes are reminded by society every day what their caste is.'
'Because of the apprehension that I could be implicated in any other case by the Uttar Pradesh government, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had helped me on humanitarian grounds'
'If Israel had stuck to the peace accords, Hamas would have had no one to fight.'
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
