Sandeep Pandey salutes women who have contributed to social transformation in India after 1980.
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to Britain has seen India and the UK agreeing on Rs 90,000 crore deals.
On the occasion of her breaking the world's longest hunger strike, Rediff.com reproduces this 2011 feature on the activist and her life.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 73rd Independence Day.
Educationist Dr Shashi K Pande on how he sees India, and how he would like to see it change.
'I'm a rascal, I'm going to play a paramahansa?!'
'Dalits are not going to vote for the BJP in 2019.'
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
In villages in Palghar district -- in Mumbai's backyard -- more than 254 children have died from malnutrition.
Drug maker Cipla always fought a lone battle to make drugs affordable in India.
As two recently declassified Intelligence Bureau reveal that the Jawaharlal Nehru government had spied on the family of Subhas Chandra Bose for nearly two decades, one of India's political mysteries takes centrestage. Rediff.com reproduces this 2006 report in which Sumit Bhattacharya reported that a website claims that Netaji, in fact, did not die in an air crash, as was being believed, and that Netaji had escaped to Russia.
A special episode of the Prime Minister's radio broadcast Mann ki Baat featuring US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aired on Tuesday night. The 35-minute special broadcast of 'Mann Ki Baat', which marked the rapport between Modi and Obama, touched on issues ranging from public health and personal inspirations of the two leaders, both of whom have come up from simple beginnings to assume to top positions of the respective countries. What follows is a transcript of the Mann ki Baat episode.
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
India's beloved President -- there has been no other who has influenced the nation as much -- never stepped back from inspiring people to be the very best that they could be.
'Even apart from the Bengal famine, there was a great deal more bloodshed and deceit than I was prepared for.' 'Almost every one of the acquisitions was won by extreme extortionate methods and what came out was that these relatively honest officers found themselves doing very dishonest things.'
For more than 23 years, Bhanwari Devi, who was gang-raped for speaking out against the marriage of two babies, has been fighting a lonely battle for justice. Rashme Sehgal traveled to Dausa in Rajasthan to meet the courageous woman, a winner of the Neerja Bhanot Award for bravery, a symbol of Indian women's struggle.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel -- who covers the Sheena Bora murder trial for Rediff.com -- reports on a day in a Ranchi court.
Narendra Modi's mother washed utensils to make a living. Madhusudan Mistry's grandmother, who brought him up, was a vegetable vendor. Mistry's trajectory from poverty to membership of the all powerful Congress Working Committee is moving. the man who has Rahul Gandhi's ear and is all set to take on Narendra Modi in Vadodara, speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt in a fascinating interview.
Born and abandoned in Mumbai, reborn in Sweden, Erika Sandberg says she is Indian on the outside but feels Swedish on the inside. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel narrates her tale.
'We are allowing FDI on the terms of the investors, multinationals.' 'We bow down to whatever they say.' 'When they say you open this sector, we open that sector.'
Former editor of Femina magazine, Sathya Saran looks back at the Miss India pageant that changed the lives of two young women.
'In each hartal, enormous amount of public money is wasted. The entire state comes to a standstill. How long can this go on?' 'Every year 3 crore people sit at home not because they support hartals, but because they are forced to do so.' 'This is part of a larger measure to curb democratic rights.'
Hers is a rags-to-riches story for the ages, peppered with risks, determination and strokes of luck.
'Even if the media is partisan, the BJP, governing at the Centre, has the most to lose if India descends into widespread communal violence.' 'Fanning the flames either by vested political interests or by partisan reports only plays into the hands of those seek a conflagration.'
Is Being Human, the actor's apparel brand, an extension of his persona or is it a move to correct his bad-boy image?
'To identify with the common man, Modi had to look like one.' 'The disastrous suit with his name written on it never made its reappearance.' 'Frequent dress changes during the day, which led Arvind Kejriwal to calculate that Modi spent crores on his attire ever year, too stopped.' 'Instead, a newer Modi emerged: Humble and eager to serve.' Narendra Modi has cleverly repositioned himself as a man of the masses in the past three years, says Aditi Phadnis.
'We are two countries that, as Swami Vivekananda said in Chicago more than a century ago, have sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations on Earth.' 'People are watching to wait and see if this Modi moment is going to be the moment when the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy finally capitalise on the full, inherent potential of this relationship.' Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from the State Department's lunch for Prime Minister Modi.
The controversy over Sant Rampal and his army of followers taking the law into their hands has once again thrown the spotlight on the clout that India's godmen possess.
.jpg)
We present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's full speech as he addressed the country on the occasion of 66th Independence Day, from Red Fort, Delhi.
The families of the Muslim youth from Hashimpura who were shot dead 28 years ago had some committed supporters in their long struggle for justice.
Born in poverty and subjected to inhuman abuse, Kalpana Saroj overcame all hurdles to emerge a success story.
