Lit fests in India have become vibrant cultural celebrations across India, bringing together celebrated authors, emerging voices, poets, thinkers and passionate readers, many of them very young, under one lively roof.
Debates on changing the name of India to Bharat continue to spark a crisis of identity without answering moot questions that stare us in the face. Ramesh Menon asks a few of those questions that do not have easy answers.
Wing Commander Raveendran and flight steward Sargeant Iyer, though shaken and injured, managed to open the rear door of the aircraft and shouted for Prime Minister Morarji Desai and the passengers in the forward cabin to exit in haste since they suspected that fire would engulf the aircraft.
What is required is boring leadership that ensures that the basics are right and not genius leadership that dreams of bullet trains, says Aakar Patel.
'Three manufacturing sectors can create jobs by the million: Apparel, food, and electronic assembly.' 'Let's talk to them and ask them what it would take to scale by a factor of ten,' suggests Naushad Forbes.
Thayil, the author of 'Narcopolis' and winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award, will join his fellow judges to look for the best works of translated fiction, selected from entries published in the UK and Ireland between May 2019 and April 2020.
A study by an international team of researchers had warned two year ago that the South Lhonak lake in Sikkim may burst in the future and significantly impact the downstream region.
'The benchmark was set by Dr Sarabhai.' 'If there is a problem, everybody would be encouraged to come up with a solution.' 'The final solution will be the result of all the inputs.' 'This is passed on through time.' 'Even today, you see that nobody wants to take particular credit on a success.'
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
An initiative to fund the education of bright Indian youngsters undertaken by two Indian-Americans has now acquired a momentum of its own, discovers Anjuli Bhargava.
He cited the Congress' poor performance in the 2019 general election after victories in assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh the previous year to buttress his point.
'If we were to change the name of our country officially and become a Hindu Rashtra, will the treatment of Muslims change?' asks Aakar Patel.
The reputed urban planner designed IIM-Bangalore, Tagore Memorial Hall, Aranya Low Cost Housing in Indore and private residence Kamala House in Ahmedabad among many others.
Jet Airways, SpiceJet and Vistara also operated all women crew flights, though on their domestic network.
Bangalore-born Bhattacharyya, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2002 for his services to science and technology and made a life peer in the UK's House of Lords in 2004.
The prime minister is likely to talk about its possible extension.
Taking note of the 'indigent circumstances' in which former athlete Santhi Soundarajan has been living, the Sports Ministry has sanctioned an assistance of Rs 60,500 to fund her NIS Diploma Course at the SAI Centre in Bengalore.
'The easy availability of funds has enabled us to not only hire the best faculty, but has also made it possible for us to retain them with the best possible infrastructure -- labs, grants etc,' Ashoka University VC Malabika Sarkar tells Geetanjali Krishna.
Taking exception to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan not mentioning the death of healthcare workers due to Covid-19 in his statement in Parliament, the Indian Medical Association has published a list of 382 doctors who died due to the viral disease and demanded that they be treated as "martyrs".
The Union health ministry said West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh reported a casualty each on Monday, taking the total number of deaths to nine in the country due to COVID-19.
Aruneel Sadadekar/Rediff.com picks his best eleven on performances from the first half of the tournament.
The National Security Guard lost an experienced counter-Improvised Explosive Device officer to a deadly booby trap in the Pathankot terror attack as the terrorists used an innovative technique whose antidote was not included in the Standard Operating Procedure of the elite counter-terror force.
'We have integrated start-up space created in almost all the 14 district headquarters of the state.'
'They have incubation facilities providing entrepreneurs common facilities like shared software, legal support, fab labs, hardware, manufacturing facilities and services like chartered accounting facilities, etc, enabling the start-ups to concentrate on technology R&D and product development.'
Each story in the book will motivate you to find critical answers to questions that most of us face in professional and personal lives.
Former Watson Fellow and social entrepreneur Srikar Gullapalli talks about the issues affecting India's growth and tells us why he wants more people to actively participate in building a bright future and put India on the global map.
The attorney general admitted that there is no sovereign guarantee, but asserted that there is a letter of comfort by France which would be as good as a governmental guarantee.
'They don't always agree with our governments, their teachers or their parents, but it is the conviction of their ideas, and their determination to share them with the world that, I believe, is one of the greatest sources of hope for our planet.' 'The colonisation of space, understanding the very building blocks of matter and the universe, utilising our understanding of the human genome to conquer disease -- these are the tasks waiting for a fellowship of minds to realise new triumphs in our collective destiny.'
'What I see in Bollywood is that there's this assembly line -- there's a lyrics writer, there's a composer, then there's playback singer who is selected on mutual discussion, and then there's a producer who oversees the entire thing.' Grammy-winner Ricky Kej would rather make his own music than pander to the Indian film industry.
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.
'When I was young, I used to look around the village we lived in.' 'There was a lack of resources -- no proper health centres and schools.' 'I felt that becoming an IAS officer would help solve those issues.'
The Board of Control for Cricket in India president Shashank Manohar on Wednesday said that the BCCI will abide by the International Cricket Council's decision of rating Nagpur pitch as 'poor' but at the same time termed the inference on the nature of the wicket being a 'subjective decision' by ICC match referee Jeff Crowe.
'Who is the right Mekhail? Mekhail I or Mekhail II?'
Who are the NGOs in India with maximum funding in India? Which are the countries funding them? How many NGOs are registered under the law? Vicky Nanjappa finds out.
'Obama probably thinks, "He is quite a guy!" Americans on Capitol Hill think, "He has guts. He is a big player".' An Indian official explains the importance of the Modi visit to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
'The Indian middle class ignores the conflicts areas in Jammu and Kashmir, in Central India and in the North East.' 'The violence does not touch us at all and so we are able to easily look away from the underlying reasons and grievances.'
From extreme poverty to building a company worth Rs 60 crore, Raja Nayak's incredible rags-to-riches story is an inspiration for all.
After snapping his political alliance with the ruling National Democratic Alliance at the Centre, N Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, speaks to B Dasarath Reddy on what he now has in mind.
'His simple lifestyle, his optimism, his hard work and his genuine humility made him an authentic role model to millions of children, many of them growing up in challenging circumstances.'
Not Out! is a brilliant analysis of the IPL that explains why it alternates between thrill and scandal, says Dhruv Munjal.
'The biggest lacuna in this agreement is it is called 'full civil nuclear cooperation agreement.' Actually, it is anything but full.'
