India is too diverse to be governed centrally and with a single system. The way forward is for the central government to keep the monopoly of military power and a share of national resources while the provinces must have greater autonomy, recommends Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Naipaul's views against the commonplace perception towards colonised countries and their people were not the only thing controversial about the famed author.
The Jammu and Kashmir government has cleared ex-gratia to next of kin of 17 persons, including Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani's brother, killed in terrorism-related incidents in the Valley, while giving one week's time for filing of any objection before formal orders are issued.
'"Life-changing" clearly denotes an exceptionally high level of regard for Narendra D Modi.' 'One has to find out if the UGC used such an adulatory term for any other speaker, whether from politics or from academe,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The desecration of Vidyasagar's statue during Amit Anilchandra Shah's rally, which the TMC projected to be a 'Bhojpuri' and 'Dhokla' invasion on West Bengal's culture, may help her gain some favour with middle-class and erudite Bengalis in the last phase of the polls.
A fundraiser for the Aligarh Muslim University hosted in California saw keynote speakers talk about the plight of Indian Muslims and a way out.
As captain of the women's cricket team in Baramulla's Government Women's College, Insha is one of the young women setting trends in this suburban town in north Kashmir and in the Valley.
'This is what Hindu Rashtra looks like, which has been enabled by conditions of democracy.'
The 29-year-old, who has studied electrical engineering in Sudan, lived in Birmingham's Sparkhill district. He describes himself as a shop manager.
It is time the current leaders who swear by 'cultural nationalism', that is religion neutral, assert that Bharatiyata is at the core of our nationalism and India was never a 'Hindu Rashtra', argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The vice-president will be the second Indian to be accorded the honour at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Nikhil Lakshman reports.
Here are a few things to know about 'Jihadi John'
Chakrabarty, who was hacked by three assailants in his head, neck and shoulders, raised an alarm, prompting local residents to grab one of the attackers while others fled.
'The verdict must be seen as something more; as a historical balm, a moral restitution and the deliverance of justice to a people wronged,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
Mohammad Sajjad salutes the memory of Mushirul Hasan -- historian, thinker, academic, institution builder, -- who passed into the ages this week.
'Modi cannot drag India back into a primitive epoch resembling the religious wars in medieval Europe and at the same time claim to represent the aspirations of modernity among Indians,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Our grandparents' generation knew one another.' 'In our generation, you could go a lifetime without meeting someone from the other country,' British Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie tells Rahul Jacob.
Kashmir remained on the edge with six more persons, including a cop getting killed in violence on Sunday.
At least 50 people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas - the deadliest mass shooting in the history of United States. Here's a look at other such incidents that have struck the country in recent times.
The charges against JNU PhD scholar Umar Khalid are shrouded in a lot of "fabrications and lies" and the episode has "taken away" all sense of normalcy and sanity from the lives of his family members, his sister said on Friday calling him a "true son" of India.
'That is not a democratic ideal obviously, but it is a practical reality.' 'It is a consistent feature of politicians in Pakistan that their rhetoric on the army softens the closer they get to the seat of power.'
'This army has lost Pakistan's territory, ideology, financial and intellectual capital, ruined its institutions, democracy, the respect for its passport and, like it or not, reduced its status to a globally acknowledged university of jihad,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Non-violence can be a viable tool for countering the competitive brutality of terrorist groups,' argues Rajni Bakshi.
The two Indians -- T Gopikrishna from Andhra Pradesh and C Balaram Kishan from Telangana, who were teaching at Libya's Sirte University, were abducted by Islamic State militants in July last year.
At least 129 people were killed and 350 wounded -- of whom 99 were said to be in critical condition -- in a series of coordinated attacks by suicide bombers and gunmen in Paris at a concert hall, restaurants and the national sports stadium claimed by Islamic State jihadists.
The dean said: "She appeared to be relieved from depression after talking to him (husband). There is no restriction imposed on her to talk or to meet anybody."
Here's a collection of some of the best photos, taken last week, from around the globe.
The Qatari-owned PSG paid 222 million euros ($263 million) to take the Brazil striker from Barcelona to the French capital in a move that also appears to make little sense for the player from a footballing perspective.
A former top envoy of the country questioned Pakistan's decades-old Kashmir policy.
Khan stressed on taking austerity measures, working on tax reforms instead of taking loans, rooting out corruption.
Aseem Chhabra introduces us to the best of Berlinale.
'Why does Mr Modi only attack Nehru from the Dynasty?' 'At one level, it is pure politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
An insistence on only one language will inevitably be resented as a form of imperialism and resisted.
"Just a handful of Indian youth have joined the ISIS. Some have also returned after being persuaded by their families," asserted the home minister.
The police on Thursday booked litterateur Hiren Gohain, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti chief Gogoi and senior journalist Manjit Mahanta under sedition charges for their comments on the Citizenship Amendment Bill.
'Till today, the RSS only speaks of Hindu Rashtra but never explains what it means. It cannot, because it would be unacceptable to even a majority of Hindus, forget the Indian Muslims and Christians,' says Aakar Patel.
A 15-year-old South African girl was deboarded from a flight to Turkey moments before she was allegedly trying to flee the country to join the dreaded Islamic State militant group.
A Bangladeshi blogger was on Monday hacked to death by suspected Islamists, a month after a prominent writer was killed in a similar attack in the national capital.
A group of Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community members had earlier told the apex court that the female circumcision is practised by a few sects of Islam.
'We are dealing with a size of the world that equaled England and France combined. We are talking about 250 years of history.' Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy -- a first of its kind exhibition anywhere in the world -- opened at the Met, April 20. Aseem Chhabra spoke to Navina Haykel, the curator of the show.
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