'Is Ansari flagging a genuine concern? Is a rectification called for?' 'And finally: Do minorities matter?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
'Attempts at long-term rapprochement have been rather feeble from both sides. The primary cause of the lack of progress is that these efforts do not appear to have the support of the Pakistan army,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The Indian Army and more recently the Indian Navy have already set up dedicated intelligence branches. It is surprising indeed that the IAF, where real time and timely intelligence is most vital for effective and safe prosecution of the air war, has still not done so itself, says Group Capt (retd) P I Muralidharan.
No account of the 1962 war could be complete without Maxwell's authoritative analysis. Which is why we are reprinting this article which was run on Rediff.com in June 2001.
'Openness is a great weapon in the armoury of more open societies. That's why the fight with Pakistan isn't just about India be six times bigger, but equally bitter and insecure Pakistan,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
J Sandhya, member, Child Rights Commission, speaks to Shobha Warrier about the recent incident where more than five hundred poor children from Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal were being sent to Kerala orphanages, and why children's rights need to be protected with vigour.
'The BJP has latched on to the idea of nationalism, but the nationalism they advocate is not nationalism as we have understood it since the time of the freedom movement.' 'This is not secular nationalism, it is Hindu nationalism.' 'It is a form of nationalism that is exclusionary and it tends to conflate national interest with the government.' 'So, if you disagree with the government, for example, on surgical strikes or demonetisation, you are anti-national or holder of black money.'
Premier Li Keqiang highlighted his government's performance in the last one year and the challenges ahead in various fields. Compared to other reports by his predecessors, Li spoke more frankly about the mounting challenges faced by the country. Srikanth Kondapalli on the two recent Chinese parliament sessions.
In the second and final part of his column, Col Anil Athale says the fight between forces of Indian nationalism and Macaulayism aided and abetted by West is going to be long, hard and dirty. The outcome will decide whether India becomes a superpower or continues to wallow in the swamp of underdevelopment.
Biometric authentication is based on the unscientific and questionable assumption that there are parts of human body that does not age, wither and decay with the passage of time.
China is spending billions of dollars to improve infrastructure in Tibet and other parts of its border with India. Claude Arpi explains why New Delhi can't afford to ignore Beijing's plans.
.jpg)
Ayurvedic expert Dr G G Gangadharan on how the ancient Indian medical practice needs to be propagated in the country of its origin
Nayan Khanolkar, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016, tells Rediff.com's Divya Nair his story.
The need of the hour is not a divisive, slanging match of accusations and counter-accusations, but a call for sanity,' says Vivek Gumaste.
China wants a code of conduct for troops on the India-China border areas. While the Indian side has reacted cautiously, it is not clear what effective additional protocols that the current proposed code will bring forth to usher stability in the border areas, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
.jpg)
In India, the need to find a solution for the jobs problem is perhaps even more urgent considering the oft-quoted number of a million young people arriving every month looking for jobs.
After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again. Four or five months later she met her death. Mekhail referred to their last meeting without overt emotion, clear-eyed.
'The devious minds across the border will test us to the hilt, but in the course of that will offer us opportunities for which we must be prepared,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), who commanded the Uri Brigade, the Baramulla Division and the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps.
The facts remain cloaked in mystery, but the legend goes that Talpade had created a flying machine powered by mercury and solar energy, and based on ideas outlined in Vedic texts.
'Our religion had some important philosophies regarding trans people that cannot be ignored.' 'Contemporary India is refusing and ignoring transgender people.'
What impressed me right up front was the patience he showed towards a rookie reporter.
'Modi is likely to make more announcements to win or retain popularity, and put himself at the centre of things even more than now,' says T N Ninan.
The ripping off the lid, that Mekhail did, on the chain of episodes that lead up to his sister's murder, while condemning Indrani for her actions, for the first time, paradoxically, allowed a more human -- if flawed and complicated -- picture to emerge of Indrani, allegedly The Woman Who Killed Her Own Daughter and shocked a nation.
Rahul attacked Modi and BJP, alleging that 'politics of divide and polarisation is radicalising people in India'.
'The execution has been 100 per cent faulty.' 'The scheme is also a stupid one, a real Tuglaq Darbar scheme.' 'This way of attacking black money is the most ineffective one.'
Today, with the 'Cauvery row' in full flow, the DMK has managed to wrest the 'pan-Tamil initiative' for the Dravidian polity as a whole. What more, the DMK has also stolen much of the 'Tamil thunder' that had belonged to peripheral pan-Tamil groups over the Jallikattu protests in January 2017, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition first attracted attention in the US as the "Punjabi tycoon" who was a huge supporter of Narendra Modi in the US. 'He will be best for India. There is no better ally for the US than India in the region,' Shalabh Kumar tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gone to China with a bagful of initiatives, but not all seems to have been fulfilled given China's reluctance to go the whole hog with him
'After General Raheel Sharif took on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, some sections of the military establishment may have felt unease as to whether the crackdown could be extended against friendlier 'non-State' actors like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.'
Hindi cinema seems readier than society to focus on women. It is not just rape one is talking about, though an act of rape and its consequent injustice unfolds most narratives. Suddenly women are central not just as problematic but as possibility, as agency, as alternative, feels Shiv Visvanathan.
'She was the only prime minister who won a decisive military victory.' 'She won a real war; she didn't play video games on prime time TV over surgical strikes!' 'She understood power better than any other politician, saw it as her birthright and used it with inborn expertise.' 'Every politician today who tries to be a "supremo" through populism and absolute control over his or her party is referring to the Indira Gandhi playbook!'
'In the past the US has been reluctant to name Pakistan directly in an US-India joint statement.'
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
One of Indian TV's most famous faces tells Kanika Datta why and how she hopes to reinvent herself in the uncharted territories of multimedia and think tanks
'Pakistan thinks it is winning this low intensity conflict.' 'It is a serious observation. Half the battle is convincing your adversary that he cannot make headway.' 'A lot depends on how the internal professional management of the army and the handling of situations that are bound to rise sooner than later in his command, are done.'
What is Change really like in Bihar? Once seen as India's basket-case, what is its turnaround story like?
November 12 marks 25 years of the beginning of the World Wide Web. Shivanand Kanavi gives us the story of how it all began.
IIM-B, professor R Vaidyanathan talks to Shobha Warrier about black money, Mudra Bank and Jaitley's Budget.
'Pakistan's capacity to carry a normal relationship with India doesn't exist.' 'The relationship with Pakistan is less important than several others.'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances