'Minakshi Jafa Bodden is the first person to have ever taken Bikram Choudhury to trial and we greatly admire her courage.'
'We are a young nation. But I wanted to explore the conflict between the young and the old.' 'The cynicism of people who have lived it versus the optimism and naivete of the young.'
'And Sir, you are at fault if they don't like you. 'You don't boast of your government's efforts to be the first one to bring in thousands of Indians back home without thinking for a second about their race, religion, language, orientation, or even citizenship,' says Sarang, a reader of Rediff.com.
While the denial rate has dropped slightly to 21 per cent in 2019 from 24 per cent in 2018, the National Foundation for American Policy has said it is much higher for Indian IT companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro and very low for American companies like Amazon and Google. For instance, the denial rate for TCS and Infosys in 2019 was 31 per cent and 35 per cent respectively, whereas for Wipro it was 47 per cent and 37 per cent for Tech Mahindra. On the other hand, the denial rate for the new H-1B petitions in 2019 was just four per cent each for Amazon and Google. The denial rate for Microsoft during the same period was six per cent, and Facebook along with Walmart was just three per cent each.
Major General Sujan Singh Uban, a legendary veteran of the Second World War, was a natural choice to raise, train and command the Special Frontier Force and mould them into a well oiled fighting machine, recalls his son Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd), who led SFF troops during the Kargil War.
'Political elites need to feel that these are our children dying, that this is a crisis for us, a tragedy for our community, we must take immediate action to save the lives of our people.'
'Beijing is comfortable with Hasina's pragmatism -- perceived as 'pro-India', but staying out of Indian orbit and receptive to forging close ties with China and yet, siding with neither neighbour,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'India showcased its ability to launch multiple Special Forces strikes simultaneously across a well defended front.' 'Through these strikes Pakistan was given a glimpse of the full range of India's military capabilities,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
A currency slump and slowing economy have cost India its biggest golf tournament after sponsors pulled out of the country's only European Tour event on Thursday.
Around 700 migrant workers, women and children have lost their lives in this reverse migration. But what is happening today with the migrant labour is only a continuation of the policies pursued by the Modi regime during the last six years. It is not for nothing that India was ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women in 2018 by the Thompson Reuters Foundation poll, points out Rashme Sehgal.
On June 23, in a huge blow to Indian IT professionals eyeing the US job market, the Trump administration suspended the H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas until the end of 2020 to protect American workers in a crucial election year.
Dwaine Pretorius felt like an outsider, stuck on the sidelines as South Africa's World Cup went wrong but he was integral again on Friday as they claimed a morale-boosting win over Sri Lanka. The all-rounder had not featured for the Proteas since their tournament opener almost a month ago at the Oval, where he finished wicketless and ran himself out for a duck in their defeat to England.
Bollywood's biggest overseas event, the IIFA Awards, will be held in the US for the first time. Aseem Chhabra reports.
'Learning to learn should be given more importance than what is actually being learnt,' recommends Zaki Ansari.
One of the other key takeaways of the manifesto is setting up a separate maintenance department for the national and state highways, where repairs and other works are currently done by the road construction contractors.
'Respect nature, working with (it) rather than against it.'
'He had a continuing interest in life, people, and the society in which he lived,' remembers Shyam Benegal, who collaborated with the polyglot playwright and actor through the 1970s and remained his friend for more than five decades.
What Saisuresh Sivaswamy learnt about the election from television and the newspapers. A must read column, folks!
Karnad, a recipient of Jnanpith Award, was also conferred the Padma Shri in 1974 and the Padma Bhushan in 1992.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs deferred on Thursday a decision on sharing royalty earned from oil output with states.\n\n
To an award show that's famous for honouring artists belatedly, we have sent as our official entry one of our major film-makers's weakest work yet, feels Sreehari Nair.
'The Indian Navy has sufficient combat power in areas of interest to India that can quickly scale up operations if the need arises.' 'This includes all the choke points leading into the Indian Ocean as also areas within.'
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said on Tuesday that the Rio de Janeiro Olympics would be 'spectacular' and a 'great success' despite a political and economic crisis gripping the host nation.
China's behaviour in the post-pandemic geopolitical landscape which may determine the Quad's future trajectory, notes former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'Once our voices are crushed, they can bring in an agenda of privatisation.'
Kavitha Kuruganti has been fighting for decades to ensure farmers are respected and get their due from the Indian nation. In order to ensure they don't struggle for a living, she works to ensure sustainable farm livelihoods and farmers' rights.
The government on Friday said in Rajya Sabha that it is "not in favour" of abolishing the capital punishment considering the "prevailing circumstances" in the country.
'My enduring memory of Lula is personal,' says Ambassador B S Prakash, our former envoy in Brazil. 'He was visiting India after retirement to accept an award.' 'At a private dinner in the Brazilian ambassador's residence, where I too was present, he was missing at the end of the evening.' 'We all went looking for him in the sprawling house to find him eventually in the kitchen talking happily to the cooks and servers.' 'He was thanking them for the excellent meal and service!'
'This confrontation could have been avoided by a less arrogant administration that initially listened, used whatever negotiating skills they had and tried to be more credible,' observes Ramesh Menon.
During the phone call, Trump underscored the determination of the US to defend itself and its allies from the growing threat posed by the North Korean regime, the White House said.
Iran's decision to keep India out and welcome China to the scene is a huge strategic setback for India, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Indians at large harbour a notion that their country is cherrypicking out of the American basket of goodies, but the policymakers in Delhi and the political leadership are well aware that it can only be a pipe dream since a military alliance with a superpower is a profound irrevocable commitment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
"There should be a complete shutdown on April 2 to protest the proposed visit of Modi. All rhetoric about development or construction of tunnels and roads are futile and will not succeed in luring us," chairmen of the rival factions of the Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik said in a joint statement.
'The recalculated ranking showed India should have had a higher ranking earlier (113 in 2012 instead of 132) and lower ranking later (114 in 2018 instead of 100).' 'This would mean that there has been no change in India's climate of doing business across two regimes.' 'This is exactly consistent with the reality on the ground,' observes Debashis Basu.
If Indian storytelling can deliver, it can make the entertainment industry an engine of economic growth and a substantial contributor to GDP, says Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
'We have had 27 years of liberalisation and in the same period Korea and Japan and China transformed themselves forever,' says Aakar Patel.
Eminent journalist B G Verghese, a Ramon Magsaysay award winner and former editor of leading dailies Hindustan Times and Indian Express, died on Tuesday at the age of 87 after brief illness.
'This is a historic juncture when the US is in great need of an alliance with India to strengthen its hands in the fierce struggle with China in the Asian theatre,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Whilst substantive public allocations have been made in the infrastructure sector, this strategy is plateauing due to the fiscal deficit constraint, capacity limitation of statal implementing agencies, the declining ability of PSUs, and the precarious situation of the Railways' operating ratio. It is, thus, high time to get the policy compass to point at rejuvenating private sector investments in infrastructure, says Vinayak Chatterjee.
'Surprised by the absence of any sloganeering or even mild protest in an ambience so free and self-regulated, I asked a friend from Delhi whether he too, with sharp political antenna, was surprised at how smooth and easy going everything was,' notes Ambassador B S Prakash.
