If it was true that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis held up the flight to Newark to ensure that Praveen Singh Pardeshi, the state principal secretary, was on board, he had at least one excuse...
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar expects to see progress in India-US defence relations at the speed of a year per month.
'It was impossible to please everyone with Amy Winehouse's story because it is complicated and dark. Everyone has his or her own version of what was going on and I found myself caught in the middle of it.'
Beijing wants assurance that its investments won't come under scrutiny
Injured Australia captain Michael Clarke will arrive in the United Arab Emirates five days ahead of the rest of the Test squad as he races to be fit for the two-match series against Pakistan.
Prashant Lingam and Aruna Kappagantula are changing the way houses are being built in India.
'People on both sides of the Hindutva debate need to read and understand the texts first,' Bibek Debroy, translator of the unabridged Mahabharata, tells Kanika Datta as he gets started on a similar project for the Ramayana.
'It has taken bombings in Beirut, bombing of a Russian airliner and now terror attacks in Paris for people to realise that we are not going to achieve our objectives of destroying ISIS if we drive in second gear. We need to get into top gear.'
CAG may not be the cure-all for the ills that afflict PPP projects and is perhaps a sub-optimal solution to the problem.
It is rare for communal riots to spread to rural areas. The UP riot is the first time after the September 1969 Gujarat riots that a rural area have been affected. Electoral politics which divide society in majority/minority, going on since the early 1990s, is a major contributing factor to this heightened tension between communities, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale in the first of a two part series.
These Indian companies truly defined the essence of entrepreneurship.
The state is trying hard to improve ease of doing business by several notches.
Vernon Gonsalves, who spent nearly six years in jail after being labelled a Naxalite by the security agencies, recounts in detail his arrest, the case against him and his future plans in an exclusive interview.
Nita Doshi and Devashish Sharma share a common goal to help poor patients who cannot afford treatment for cancer.
From DIY submarines to diets of 20,000 calories is part of this week's collection of weird, true and funny news.
Rediff.com columnist Yoginder Sikand recounts his near-death experience during a recent trip to Tabo, a small town on the banks of the Spiti river in Himachal Pradesh.
'Mohammad Akhlaq's death isn't only about a Muslim being killed out of sheer communal bigotry, but also the denial of the Constitutional guarantees of "due process" under Article 21 and the freedom of choice,' says Shehzad Poonawalla, who has moved the National Commission for Minorities over the murder.
An industry of scamsters is operating in the guise of call centres in India.
In a major measure, Mumbai's municipal corporation has sent legal notices to 249 private primary schools asking them to shut down. The step threatens to disrupt the already inadequate educational scenario in the city, reports Hepzi Anthony.
President Xi Jinping's visit may put relations between India and China on a new trajectory
'Soft power is the power really to win friends and influence people with the strength of your ideas.' 'India's greatest soft power is being India itself. A nation of varied beliefs, states, creeds, castes, languages and yet embodying that spirit of unity in diversity.'
You totally should says Lakshmi Sharath.
In an online chat with readers, overseas consultant NNS Chandra offers career advice.
'China's excessive military aid to Pakistan is the real elephant in the room as far as Sino-Indian relations are concerned. India should be confident enough to accept a degree of closeness between China and Pakistan, since China may wish to use this link for its foray into the Muslim world.' 'But the Chinese must be realistic enough to know that as time passes, the tactic of using Pakistan as a proxy to check India will yield diminishing returns. The US tried it for 60 years but failed, so will China,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
When Rediff.com's Archana Masih and Rajesh Karkera set course from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, they could not think of a better place to begin their journey than the stately campus that has given India some of its greatest military heroes.
'There was a day when I didn't want to live.' 'And there is today, when I want to live long and enjoy my life.'
Pranab Mukherjee's book The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years takes the readers through the economic and social unrest of the period leading up to the emergency, rise and fall of leaders, many splits within the Congress, while promising to offer more in the next two volumes of the trilogy, says Nivedita Mookerji.
Rediff.com's Indrani Dey digs up chilling details of the ongoing investigation in the Bardhaman blast case, which exposed the a militant network that had been operating in West Bengal since many years.
Sree Sreenivasan recalls his encounters with the pioneer of sound who passed away on Friday and gives a sense of how many lives he touched -- in big and small ways.
Incidents of arson, firing and vandalism were reported from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab as protesters agitated against the dilution of the SC/ST Act.
'You don't want to admit that it is your wife in the video because she said you were arrested on Wednesday (August 19; Shyamvar Rai states he was arrested on August 21, a Friday).'
The future certainly looks good for Bangalore.
The illegal trade in red sanders wood, which sells for up to Rs 80 lakh a tonne in some Asian countries, involves a complex nexus of smugglers and impoverished woodcutters.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday disagreed with those in the Congress who were dismissive of the challenge posed by Narendra Modi but asserted that the party would approach the 2014 Lok Sabha polls with self-confidence, irrespective of the results of the just concluded elections in five states.
'Power sits lightly on Arun Jaitley's shoulders. Just because earth-shaking election results have brought his party in power, he has not gone recklessly ambitious. "Too soon, too fast" is not what he likes,' says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Budget 2014.
Mumbai-based CA Prince Tiwari is educating and empowering the underprivileged since 2011. This is his heart-warming story.
Overseas consultant NNS Chandra shares crucial advice for students aspiring to study abroad.
'I think I've got to see Happy New Year but people have told me that I would like Haider,' The Best Of Me director Michael Hoffman tells Paloma Sharma.
'... A youth movement which could really transform our politics in a way that the existing elites don't understand.' 'The more you suppress free expression, the more people will value it.' 'The State can't suppress a young society like India where there are so many interesting new ideas emerging,' says Sunil Khilnani, whose latest book Incarnations looks at Indian history through 50 lives.
In an interview to HarmonyIndia.org, the artist, who had famously said that he lived to paint and painted to live, spoke of what the 'bindu' meant to him, about his friend M F Husain and the legacy that he will leave behind.
