India has upgraded its technical mission in Kabul to an embassy, with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar acknowledging the Taliban's consideration of India's security concerns. The announcement was made during talks with Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, marking a significant step in advancing ties between the two nations.
Thackeray had also supported the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975 when most of the other parties were vehemently protesting against it.
Gandhi urged the prime minister to speak out "clearly, boldly and forthrightly" on behalf of the legacy that India has long represented.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday read out a resolution condemning the imposition of Emergency and termed the decision by then prime minister Indira Gandhi an attack on the Constitution, triggering a wave of protests by the opposition in the House.
Dense fog enveloped Delhi for a second consecutive morning, leading to disruptions in air and rail traffic. Visibility dropped to zero in several areas, causing delays for 81 trains and diversions for 15 flights. The Met office attributed the fog to calm surface winds, and predicted continued dense to very dense fog throughout the day. Meanwhile, the national capital's air quality remained in the 'very poor' category, with an AQI reading of 380 at 9 am.
From a modest start with baithaks of a handful of swayamsevaks in a small town in Nagpur, the RSS, which completes 100 years of its foundation on Thursday, has come a long way to become the world's biggest voluntary organisation with a pan-India presence, shaping the country's political and social discourse.
"We stand vindicated. Those who tried to tarnish the image of Sohra and its people as violent have now been exposed," said a visibly relieved Pde.
BJP and RSS leaders are once again pushing to remove the words 'secular' and 'socialist' from the Constitution's Preamble, showing a deeper effort to change India's identity from a diverse, multi-religious republic to a Hindu-first nation, even though they don't have the numbers in Parliament to officially change the Constitution, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Election Commission's involvement in the avoidable SIR controversy has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I want to ask the entire nation and the opposition. Can a Chief Minister, Prime Minister, or any leader run the country from jail?'
The Karnataka chief electoral officer has issued a notice to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, requesting documents supporting his allegation that a woman voted twice. The Election Commission has also asked Gandhi to either substantiate his claims of vote theft or apologize.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting individuals involved in voter deletion and election rigging, citing data from Karnataka and Maharashtra.
The panel was constituted after a 20-year-old Nepalese student of the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Odisha's Bhubaneswar was found hanging from the ceiling fan of her hostel room.
After spending nearly 50 years in a colonial bungalow at 24, Akbar Road, the Congress moved into a new office on January 15. Rasheed Kidwai, who knows the history of the Congress better than the Congress, looks back at the people who breathed life into this address.
As with biopics these days, Kangana Ranaut's films may be less about telling the story of a dark chapter of Indian history and more about giving fodder to those who seek to defend or justify government highhandedness today, observes Utkarsh Mishra.
In his powerful book, The Blood Telegram, Gary J Bass, a professor at Princeton University, has exposed how US President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger 'allied with the killers,' the Pakistani government in then East Pakistan, as it unleased genocide on a horrific scale. Professor Brass discusses Nixon and Kissinger's 'moral blindness,' why they hated India and then prime minister Indira Gandhi, and their plan to draw China into the conflict in an illuminating interview with Rediff.com's Arthur J Pais.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned 75 on Wednesday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party launching over a fortnight long 'Sewa Pakhwada' to mark the birthday of its preeminent leader.
Expressing sorrow over the incident, Khandre immediately ordered an investigation into the matter, which will be led by a team under the principal chief conservator of forests.
After big win in Bihar, the BJP is likely to push harder in Tamil Nadu, where the DMK government and the uneasy BJP-AIADMK alliance are preparing for a tense election filled with seat-sharing fights, changing alliances, and the unpredictable entry of Vijay's TVK party, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sankarshan Thakur, editor of The Telegraph whose prowess with words added that extra edge to his analyses and ground reports, died at a Gurgaon hospital on Monday after prolonged illness. He was 63.
The Delhi High Court has ordered a retrial in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case related to the killing of a man in Ghaziabad's Raj Nagar area, citing a flawed investigation and trial.
B S Raghavan, West Bengal's former chief secretary, worked with Indira Gandhi for many years. He remembers the late leader on her 25th death anniversary.
Taking exception to RSS chief K S Sudarshan's glowing remarks on Indira Gandhi, NDA convenor George Fernandes on Tuesday wrote to him saying that any appreciation of the late prime minister amounted to 'endorsing dictatorship'.
Hours after, however, firing from the Pakistani side was reported in Akhnoor sector in Jammu and Kashmir. Drones were also seen in the Pir Panjal area.
The leading constituent in Maharashtra's ruling coalition said it had always respected Indira Gandhi, who it said, had a towering and strong personality. Whenever there were attempts to malign her image, the Shiv Sena acted as a shield. She was a powerful leader who split Pakistan and avenged Partition, the Marathi daily said.
Some leaders of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) of Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed have claimed that their outfit played a role in last year's mass anti-government protests in Bangladesh that led to the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
The Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) asked passengers to contact the airlines concerned for updated flight information and also regretted any inconvenience caused to the passengers.
Bangladesh's prime minister met Advaniji and Soniaji on her short visit to New Delhi.
Ending days of suspense, the Congress on Friday announced that Rahul Gandhi will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli, the constituency held by his mother Sonia Gandhi for the last two decades, and Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, will fight from Amethi.
According to authorities, the group is suspected to be operating together as part of an international in-flight theft racket.
The two leaders shared a warm hug as they met each other.
On her 101st birth anniversary, November 19, four letters that reveal a different side to inarguably India's toughest prime minister.
A thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rain battered Delhi overnight, disrupting flight operations, uprooting trees and electricity poles, and causing waterlogging in several areas while bringing relief from stifling heat. The sudden change in weather led to a sharp drop in mercury with the city recording a minimum temperature of 19.8 degrees Celsius, 6.9 notches below the normal. The India Meteorological Department said the city's primary weather station at Safdarjung recorded winds gusting up to 82 kmph and 81.2 mm of rain in six hours -- between 11.30 pm and 5.30 am.
The Congress party also called for a special session of Parliament to evaluate the situation in detail, to identify any mistakes that were made, and to ensure that they are not repeated in the future.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been chosen for the prestigious Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development this year for her "outstanding contribution to the promotion of democracy and pluralism".
When the country has been at war, the Opposition has buried its differences with the government, points out Aditi Phadnis.
In a significant move, the United States on Wednesday removed restrictions on three Indian nuclear entities, over a week after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced that Washington was finalising steps to 'remove' hurdles for civil nuclear partnership between Indian and American firms.
'I want to say to my Muslim friends that if they want to free Islam from the curse of terrorism, they have to embrace spirituality and yoga helps that. Yoga promotes serenity.'
Esow escaped with "minor" injuries after he was hit from behind by two bikers on Wednesday but he said that it could have been worse.
In a confidential communication, the government has urged ministers not to name any programmes or projects after former prime ministers Indira Gandhi or her son Rajiv.
