His colleague and Law & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the court has held that the purpose of issuing Aadhaar to all Indian citizens is legitimate and no surveillance is possible.
New Delhi should resist any temptation to act as spoiler and instead should cooperate with its SCO partners in reaching a regional consensus behind the formation of an interim government in Kabul, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday held talks with his Nepalese counterpart Sushil Koirala on key strategic issues after which ten agreements, including a pact on $1 billion assistance to Nepal, were inked.
India has gone through this exercise twice, and here's what happened then.
The prime minister lamented on the lack of unanimity amongst the member states on the issue of terrorism, saying it dents those very principles, that are the basis for the creation of the United Nations.
'Le Carré's spies were nothing like the exotic Kim of Kipling or the caricature that is James Bond.' 'Driven by a simple patriotism, held back by incompetence and politics, his characters use deceit and treachery to win their morally Pyrrhic victories,' notes P Rajendran.
The Indians felt that if they acceded to Chinese claims in Ladakh, Beijing would simply be emboldened to press for further concessions in the future. A revealing excerpt from India And The Cold War.
Opposition parties on Thursday launched a vociferous attack on the Centre over its handling of the farmers' agitation, callings its dialogues with the protestors 'monologues', even as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party defended the new laws asserting that its government is committed to the welfare of peasants and increase their incomes.
Ambassador Natarajan Krishnan and Ambassador Shankar Bajpai helped shape Indian foreign policy at a glorious, but difficult, time in history, recalls Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Modi have learnt from their past mistakes. Modi has understood that Rajapaksa is a 'forever politician' that India has to live with, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Finance Minister and senior party leader Arun Jaitley said the Congress does not deserve "even a single vote" for its promises, such as doing away with sedition law.
The Indian economy was on an impressive growth path through the first decade of this century till it was brought to an abrupt halt by the policy inertia during UPA2 and the Modi government's inability to restore economic and financial momentum. Fascinating glimpses of what went wrong from Puja Mehra's must-read book The Lost Decade: How India's Growth Story Devolved Into Growth Without A Story.
The average global temperature between January and October has been 0.68 degrees Celsius higher than the 20th century's average global temperature of 14.1 degree C.
Lack of consensus on 'how not to let Jignesh Shah get away' could become a huge embarrassment for the government.
'While all would agree on the need to be ready to launch cross-border strikes on terror camps, there is sharp disagreement on how best to do it.' 'Through IAF fighters, or surface-to-surface missiles?' 'Or should army Special Forces be created to do the job?' 'If air strikes are the agreed priority, additional funding must be made available for the purchase of fighters and missiles.' 'If it is to be Special Forces, the army must be facilitated in raising a Special Forces Command,' notes Ajai Shukla.
The first major aspect is that of the veto power to the governor.
'Jaitley was one of the earliest politicians to sense the changing political scenario in Delhi. He had closely watched the rise of the BJP and declining fortunes of the Congress party during the L K Advani era. But it was between 2009 and 2014 as the Leader of the Opposition that he began to read the tea leaves. 'And thus it was that he introduced Modi-Amit Shah duo to Lutyens Delhi,' says senior journalist R Rajagopalan who had known Jaitley since 1975.
Apparently resorting to a pacifier after the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena agitation on toll collection, the state government on Thursday assured party chief Raj Thackeray that it would draft a new policy on the issue before the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections comes into force.
The ministry is preparing a draft note for consideration of the CCPA on pricing of diesel, kerosene and LPG, official sources said.
'If Urjit Patel had resigned after the five-state elections results people would have taken a different view. So this was the right time for him to resign.' 'He rightly resigned as he felt the differences with the government were not getting settled.'
Addressing a press conference, in New Delhi on Thursday, along with visiting International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, Indian Olympic Association president Narinder Batra said, "We are bidding for three events, 2026 Youth Olympics, 2030 Asian Games and 2032 Olympics. We don't know whether they will come to India or not. Let us see how fierce the competition is."
'This squad certainly has the ability to pick up 20 wickets'
Kangana Ranaut, the fiery movie star, continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons.
The prime minister also said that country nurtures a mindset that loudly proclaims that terrorism is justified for political gains.
'Till today, we don't know what PM Modi discussed with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, but we have been told that the relations have been reset.' 'We have no evidence from China to show that anything has changed, even though India had made several gestures in preparation for Wuhan,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
The theme of the reshuffle is to fulfill Modi's earlier promise of 'maximum governance, minimum government.' Some key ministries are likely to be merged.
'In the hands of a majoritarian government, with utter contempt for the cultural plurality and diversity of our great nation, the pipe dream of making Hindi the sole official language takes on nightmarish proportions.'
Amit Malviya has been pilloried for allegedly threatening journalists, indulging in fake news and generally bringing a bad name to his party.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Saturday released the party's manifesto for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections promising to make efforts to ensure construction of Ram temple under constitutional provisions if voted to power.
It takes approximately one to two months to write your SOP with an ideal length of 750 to 1000 words.
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The Management Committee headed by Director General of Hydrocarbons R N Choubey refused to take a view on appointment of renowned reservoir consultants Ryder Scott, DeGolyer and MacNaughton, Gaffney, Cline & Associates or Netherland, Sewell & Associates to ascertain if RIL's claims of fall in reserves are actually true or the firm was hoarding gas by producing less, official sources said.
'In each hartal, enormous amount of public money is wasted. The entire state comes to a standstill. How long can this go on?' 'Every year 3 crore people sit at home not because they support hartals, but because they are forced to do so.' 'This is part of a larger measure to curb democratic rights.'
Finance minister attempts a clean-up job, keeps projected expenditure growth low.
'The best remedy would be to scrap Section 124-A of the IPC, a colonial vestige, altogether.' 'However, if legislators don't want to do so, they can do two things.' 'They can formally amend Section 124-A to bring it in line with what the Supreme Court has said about sedition.' 'The words which stand on the statute book today were inserted in 1898.' 'The Supreme Court's words are not a part of Section 124-A.'
Rather than talking about Khajuraho and Shikhandi, the argument should be about a Constitution that promised rights to all, says Mihir S Sharma
Former Army Chief V K Singh was on Wednesday rapped by the Supreme Court for allegedly making contemptuous remarks on its order on his age row, saying one cannot be allowed to "scandalise" the court and attribute motive to its verdict.
'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.
Finance ministry maintains that all KYC requirements will be followed.
Although the markets could see a knee-jerk reaction, they rule out a sharp fall.
