Less than two months before the election, United States President Donald Trump seems to have something to celebrate -- a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Centre decided to drop one of Mahatma Gandhi's favourite hymns Abide with me from this year's Beating Retreat ceremony as playing more Indian tunes would be appropriate in view of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, which celebrates the 75th year of India's Independence, government sources said on Sunday.
The educated, respectable and established Muslims voices, that were on the modernising side on the Shah Bano issue, are fighting on the opposite side now, mostly because they worry about Narendra Modi, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The top posts on social media from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
Uncle Pai, as he was fondly called, inculcated in Indian children a love for and interest in India's glorious past and its heroes.
'In the first elections, Hindutva forces got only 6% of the votes and won only 10 seats.' 'It was a great defeat for them.' 'They have held that grouse against Nehru since then.'
While the BJP says it is confident Dalits will vote for it in the state assembly polls due this year-end, the Congress says it is paying attention to seats with 10 per cent or more Dalit population.
Experts say the party is undoing what it achieved through MNREGA by targeting beneficiaries
MGNREGA scheme: A significant Rs 17,370.58 crore has been carried forward over to the next financial year as unpaid dues as demand for work continued unabated for the scheme in rural areas.
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing his government of "extraordinarily large" interference in academic institutions.
'For an introduction to his career-spanning genius, watch just five of his movies: Anand, Saudagar, Abhiman, Black and Pink,' notes Kalyan Singhal, McCurdy Professor of Business at the University of Baltimore.
However, demand was still much higher compared to the previous years, underlining the scheme's vital role in providing employment to the rural poor, a vast majority of whom are migrants.
The incident comes in the wake of alleged suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit research scholar pursuing PhD in Hyderabad Central University.
The government appointed panel will look at the difficulties consumers faced in receiving the subsidy after buying gas cylinders at market rates.
Opposition parties on Thursday alleged that an "undeclared Emergency" has been imposed in the country in the light of restrictions and detention of thousands for defying prohibitory orders to deal with the mounting protests against the new citizenship law in multiple cities. Rejecting the charge, the Centre and the Bharatiya Janata Party said no government can tolerate violence and alleged that the opposition parties were fuelling the protests for vote bank politics.
He said the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have more importance than the capital.
'This is the first time a majority ruling government is nominating a Dalit for President.' 'So, the moral credibility definitely will go with the BJP, particularly Narendra Modi.'
Attlee said Great Britain had concluded that the Indian element of the army was no longer reliable and that Netaji's Indian National Army had demonstrated that. That had shaken the foundation on which Britain's Indian empire rested, argues Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar sat on a dharna in front of Mahatma Gandhi's bust at Gandhi Maidan as part of the Janata Dal-United daylong Bihar bandh to protest the Centre's "discriminatory" attitude towards the state and vowed to get special status.
Generations of Indians don't quite grasp that there would barely be an India had it not been for the Sardar whose steadfastness and guile stitched together that which had been united only in philosophy and spirituality and sometimes not even then -- for thousands of years. A fascinating excerpt from Hindol Sengupta's The Man Who Saved India, Sardar Patel and His Idea of India.
Complicated times can be helped by simple measures.
Although much loved amongst the right wing in India, few Indians know of and about Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Respected by Mahatma Gandhi, Malaviya was a long standing member of the Congress party, and was one of the founding members of the far-right party the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha. So here's a rundown of top ten things you didn't know about Madan Mohan Malaviya.
'Narendra Modi could be too old to change his personality. On the other hand, his attachment to the RSS could be mostly sentimental. So one must hope that if he becomes prime minister, he is able to detach himself from the RSS view of the world as completely as Narasimha Rao detached himself from the Congress's First Family.' 'India cannot be governed by the autocratic methods by which he has governed Gujarat. If he becomes prime minister he will have to learn to speak in a more civil language about his political opponents,' historian Ramachandra Guha tells Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com
A look at the key decisions taken by the Narendra Modi government in its six months.
Scheme faces pincer attack with a proposed higher proportion of expenditure on material, reducing the budget available to pay wages and focus on implementing it only in 2,500 blocks.
Where does one find a man who shows no bitterness or animosity towards Hindus, even after a frenzied Hindu mob burnt his house down?, Jyoti Punwani asks in this tribute to a truly extraordinary Indian.
'One after the other, they have committed four murders (Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi, Gauri Lankesh)...' 'They feel they will not have to face the consequences of their actions as it is a favourable time for them.'
The plan could mature into either an umbrella programme for urban youths similar to the Garib Kalyan Rozgaar Abhiyaan or a modified urban-focused version of MGNREGS.
Historian Stanley Wolpert, author of several books on India, passed into the ages recently. We remember Professor Wolpert with Rajeev Srinivasan's March 1997 interview published on the occasion of his controversial book on Jawaharlal Nehru.
India's rural employment guarantee programme MNREGA has been ranked as the world's largest public works programme, providing social security net to almost 15 per cent of the country's population, the World Bank has said.
Backed by top IT companies of the Silicon Valley, Indian-American Rohit "Ro" Khanna hopes to get second-time lucky in his effort to enter the US House of Representatives against Democratic Party's sitting lawmaker.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday appeared to give credit to "RSS teaching" for the decision to launch cross-Line of Control surgical strikes even as he slammed those seeking proof for the Indian Army's anti-terror operation in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
Modi is seen as exceptional not only on account of his acts but also owing to his style. He appears to sacrifice his life for the people -- like a fakir, a figure he came to epitomize even more in 2020 by growing a long white beard. Charisma is above accountability, and Modi has grasped these dynamics.
The issue combined with its alliance with anti-Congress parties in 1989 won the BJP 85 seats in Lok Sabha elections against mere two in 1984.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday arrived in Xian on a three-day visit to China during which he will hold summit talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on a range of issues including the festering border dispute and China's plans for infrastructure projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
'There is no evidence that it was Nehru who ordered this surveillance (on Netaji's kin). It was a very low-level Bengal-based operation.' 'Netaji's grandnephew Sugata Bose has written in his book on the leader that the existing evidence that Subhas Bose died in that plane crash is overwhelming. No historian looking at that evidence can come to a different conclusion.' 'Contrary to popular belief, there were very little differences among the three (Netaji, Nehru and Gandhi). Netaji was of the opinion that some amount of violence was necessary to bring independence for India.' Historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee says that the controversy over the alleged spying on the kin of Netaji is a damp squib.
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In the first official visit by a United States vice-president to India in three decades, Joe Biden arrived in India on Monday on a four-day tour aimed at boosting ties in key areas of trade, energy, defence and security. The US vice-president will hold meetings with top Indian leadership, including President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on Tuesday before flying out to Mumbai in the night.
Many factors have been identified as key drivers of the inequality between rural and urban areas in China and India.
Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly Ramesh Chennithala demanded a judicial probe into the circumstances that led to opening of shutters of 40-odd dams at a time in the state.
