Sandeep Pandey salutes women who have contributed to social transformation in India after 1980.
One of the best stories coming out of Bihar is about a place where Chandragupta Maurya, Buddha, Ashoka, Sher Shah Suri and India's Mona Lisa meet.
'The nominations were not meant to last permanently, but depended on the government of the day.' 'There was no question of revoking it during Congress, Janata Dal or even Vajpayee's NDA rule.' 'But Modi is different.'
2015 will be a real test for Modi govt.
He said it was not only a tax reform but 'is a measure that lends strength to the new culture of honesty'.
Street art has emerged from its rebellious underground existence to a growing art genre in its own right. Ritika Bhatia maps the Indian leg of the movement.
'Communalism and communal riots happened in India only during and due to colonialism. Pre-colonial India didn't have this problem of communal conflicts and religious strife.'
'This is basically aimed at vilifying Nehruvian ideals.' 'Why?' 'Because, Nehruvian leadership is seen by Hindutva forces as the one which did not let them have their Hindu Raj.' 'The Hindutva proponents have always assumed that had Sardar become the first prime minister, India could never have become a secular State,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'For the last 10 years the Congress made the RSS an idea of intolerance, anti-minority, especially anti-Muslim, and an idea of fascism.' 'That has been demolished now by Pranab Mukherjee.'
104 years after it was first written, and 76 years after the poet's clarification, the controversy surrounding Rabindranath Tagore's Jana Gana Mana refuses to go away.
'Well done, Mr Jaitley, now go and implement your schemes. No leakages, no lapses and no laziness.'
Cairn India CEO has a tough task at hand.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 73rd Independence Day.
Will this team of 12 change the way films are certified in India?
'Where have we failed, as parents, teachers and leaders, that our children have forgotten all tenets of decent behaviour and respect for women?' President Pranab Mukherjee asks the nation on the eve of Republic Day.
'Modi's campaign has been strikingly devoid of anti-Muslim rhetoric. After the kutta pilla incident, it has been several months since he said something horrible about the Muslims of India. It is the result of democratic constraints. He has to make compromises... He's trying to reinvent himself. He will politically hurt himself if 2002 becomes the definition of Mr Modi again', says political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
'Over the last two decades, the India-French relationship has grown steadily, no major political difference having darkened the sky between Paris and Delhi,' says Claude Arpi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to Britain has seen India and the UK agreeing on Rs 90,000 crore deals.
'Our countrymen should be made aware of the need to be polite and friendly to our African guests.' 'They should know the dictum, athithi devo bhava, whether they are black or white,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, who once served as India's high commissioner to Kenya.
'...by combining religious and political missions -- to destroy the Babri Masjid and establish Ram Rajya.' 'Hindutva was successful in creating synergy with the aspirations of devotees,' Dhirendra K Jha, author of Ayodhya: The Dark Night, tells Kanika Datta.
'A dangerous and false binary is now surfacing in Indian political discourse, which must be firmly rejected.' 'It is that we have to choose between freedom and development.' 'For us freedom is neither merely an instrument for development nor to be subordinated to development.' 'It is, as our founding fathers proclaimed early in our freedom struggle, 'our birthright' on which we shall never compromise.' 'Growth, wealth and development are fruits of democracy, not substitutes.' Dr Manmohan Singh's thoughts on democracy: A Must Read!
'Never lose your optimism. Never lose your aspiration and never -- even if India becomes a prosperous consumer society -- never ever lose that shining light in your eyes,' advises Dr Peter McLaughlin, headmaster of the Doon School.
We sorted through countless photographs taken around the world to come up with the top photos of 2019. Together these images tell the story of the year -- capturing moments of hope and heartbreak, triumph and tragedy.
"Climate change is a major global challenge. But it is not of our making," Modi said.
'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.'
Rahul Gandhi thinks his imaginary Congress is the silver bullet; Narendra Modi thinks he himself is the silver bullet; Arvind Kejriwal seems to think that neighbourhood councils are a silver bullet. But none of them is right, says Mihir S Sharma.
Educationist Dr Shashi K Pande on how he sees India, and how he would like to see it change.
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.
'The current government must act sooner rather than later,' asserts Vivek Gumaste.
'Modi has said he has been made the PM of India not to do small things but big things. What bigger thing can there be than to have peace with Pakistan and in the neighbourhood?'
Secretary general of CBCI Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas on what he doesn't like about the new education policy.
Why Dalit leaders cross over to the BJP
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.
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.
This is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to media persons ahead of his interaction with them in New Delhi on Friday
'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.'
On the occasion of her breaking the world's longest hunger strike, Rediff.com reproduces this 2011 feature on the activist and her life.
'Indian politics has had three-and-a-half master narratives -- secular nationalism, Hindu nationalism, justice for lower castes and regionalism. The AAP seeks to go beyond that. Therein lies its promise and its challenge,' says Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University professor and author of book Battles Half Won, India's Improbable Democracy.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday addressed the nation on the eve of the 68th Independence Day.
