India is free, certainly, and has been so for 70 years. But are Indians free-spirited? asks Shreekant Sambrani.
What we need to do straightaway is to get our act together and educate children better than merely award degrees. Since English cannot be thrown away, it would be better to learn it well. The crux lies there. Lowering standards of UPSC tests is no use, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
'You can't go on creating division and rhetoric of hate.' 'It comes to roost. We are seeing the first glimpses of that in the state elections.'
Fun and games at start-ups have ended as easy money dries up.
From being forced to work as a construction labourer after his family lost their home in a slum demolition drive to making his way to Harvard and then work for the US government, Deelip Mhaske decided to return to his motherland to pave the way for a better future.
Appealing that another chance be given to Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul, who have drawn flak for their outrage-evoking comments on women during a chat show, renowned umpire Simon Taufel Monday said 'we all make mistakes'.
'It is imperative to restore the dignity and authority of the services chiefs. Erosion of this has resulted in lowering of service efficiency. It is also time to end the practice of taking seniority as the sole criterion for appointing chiefs.'
At the 53rd annual convocation ceremony of the IIT-Bombay, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi shared stories of his struggle and victories.
In our special series revisiting great Hindi film classics, we look back at Randhir Kapoor and Jaya Bhaduri's 1972 film, Jawani Diwani.
Anup Raaj shares the lessons he learned from his mentor.
'Lakhs of engineers graduate every year in India and the IT industry used to be the primary recruiter. That is going to end.'
'A lot of unauthorised encroachments have taken place in our forest area.' 'The landslides are partly because of such encroachments.' 'The other factor is deforestation.' 'Protection of forest resources is not on the agenda of any government.' 'The damage caused by the rain in Kerala is a man-made factor.'
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar expects to see progress in India-US defence relations at the speed of a year per month.
During his four-day-long stay in India, Biden will hold meetings with top Indian leadership, including President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Nitin A Gokhale, Co-founder, BharatShakti.in and long-time Rediff.com contributor, remembers a most unusual politician.
'No other leader in our history, or that of our neighbours, has been able to produce anything of the quality that Nehru did,' says Aakar Patel.
Sushil Reddy took a seven day trip to spread awareness on solar power.
United States Vice President Joe Biden on Monday left for a rare vice presidential trip to India for the first leg of his visit to the Asia-Pacific region.
Ajit Balakrishnan decodes the angst-ridden discourse of the day.
'This exercise helped the Aam Aadmi Party and its leaders reach out to more voters and at the same time, fine tune the poll strategy.'
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is tipped to become the Union defence minister, on Saturday tendered his resignation from the post paving way for the appointment of his successor in the state.
Tanay Aggarwal who is currently pursuing his post graduation in management from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Powai tells us how he secured 99.80 in the Common Admission Test last year.
'Our network somehow saves 3,000 lives every year, but there's so much more to do, as every death due to shortage of blood is easily avoidable.'
Though e-commerce opens a new world for the handicraft industry, empowering craftspersons still remains a real challenge.
India's freedom, its rambling but working Constitution, its parliamentary democracy, its lumbering administrative machinery all have many a father, but its greatest claim to fame, especially today, that of being a modern state, is due to but one person: Its first and longest-serving prime minister, Nehru, says Shreekant Sambrani.
'We all expected Modi with the majority to tame the bureaucracy, but it is the bureaucracy that tamed him.'
'The darkest days of Indian democracy were (during) the Emergency when basic democratic rights were suspended. For a time it seemed as though India would move along the East Asian model -- everybody works hard, nobody asks questions, certainly not of the government.' 'There are people who say we are headed that way, but I am not persuaded by the evidence,' says Mahesh Rangarajan who recently resigned as director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.
Jyoti Punwani examines the relevance of the Sairat, the hit Marathi film everyone is talking about, in today's times.
'With his envious academic record, extraordinary research calibre and unparalleled work experience, we can trust him to become the first Indian -- fully Indian, not one of those Americans of Indian origin -- to win the Nobel Prize in Economics,' says Sudhir Bisht.
No word on appointment of Shagun Kapur Gogia
After 11 years at the helm of Jubilant, Ajay Kaul, the 'nuts and bolts' executive, called it a day amid speculation that his expansionist strategy was not clicking, says Viveat Susan Pinto.
'India today has to fight many a battle, all of which cry out for innovation. This is where the experience of the Diaspora could be the most productive well-spring.'
Stepping up his offensive, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday hit out at BJP's ideological mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh saying its belief was "murdering" individuality and that thought process is now running the country in which only one man knows everything from farmers to clothes.
Ashish Chauhan is generous in his praise for his former bosses and doesn't flinch in pointing out the reasons why the BSE lost out in the initial years of the NSE.
Shuvajit was confident of making a huge difference in the lives of people in rural India.
20 years ago this day, May 11, 1998, India conducted its second nuclear test at Pokharan in Rajasthan. In a fascinating interview on Rediff.com, K Subrahmanyam revealed how Indian PMs reacted to nuclear ambitions.
Akshay Manwani traces Aamir Khan's fascinating journey to stardom.
Jaipur-based start-up Logic Roots aims to teach children math skills through board games.
How bridge keeps corporate India sharp and quick-witted.
'No PM has said no to anything we have proposed. I am not a politician and I cannot give speeches about things, but a lot of good things have been done in science by previous governments.' 'Under Dr Manmohan Singh, we could do a few important things. I used to meet him once in 6, 8 weeks. He often said, 'Professor Rao, you assume that you have my approval and carry on.' He was shy and decent. He is a real gentleman.' 'Science keeps me going at 80. I feel young.' Professor C N R Rao, the eminent scientist who was honoured with the Bharat Ratna, on the state of science in India.
