The perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack, who shot dead 166 people, had confessed to details that should have been enough to hang him, but Pakistan enjoyed his anti-India rhetoric and let him spread his tentacles. A revealing excerpt from Khaled Ahmed's Pakistan's Terror Conundrum.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday hailed a Gujarat court's rejection of the protest petition against the clean chit given to Narendra Modi by the Special Investigation Team in 2002 riots as a moral victory for him and the party.
How does the country's civilian government reclaim legitimacy after the names of many Pakistanis, including the family members of PM Nawaz Sharif, figured in the leaked documents.
50 others were injured in the stampede that took place when hundreds of people stormed the home of a businessman in northern Bangladesh for a charity handout during the holy month of Ramzan.
Breaking his silence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday "strongly disapproved" of Union Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti's controversial remarks, saying such language should be avoided.
'I believe in India people should have, up to a certain age, compulsory military training. I also believe that voting should be made compulsory. I have some violent idea, that all candidates should sign an affidavit that whatever they have promised to the people, if they are unable to fulfill they won't stand in elections again.' 'I addressed a meeting near the Kalandari mosque where more than 8,000 Muslims had come to listen to me. I said Muslims have nothing to fear, you fear only Allah. You should be afraid of no one... Some people are creating a fear about Modi in your community. I only want you to understand that.' Paresh Rawal, the BJP candidate from Ahmedabad East, speaks to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
Close on the heels of the much-hyped '84-kosi parikrama' on August 26 last, yet another 'fixed' match between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Samajwadi Party was witnessed in Ayodhya on Friday when blatant posturing by the two sides ended in a damp squib.
The rift between Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his party colleague Azam Khan, who also happens to be a prominent minister in the state cabinet, appears to be widening.
'It has done a disservice to the cause of Muslims... Modi also spoke of Muslims progressing with the Quran in one hand and a computer in the other, which I think is welcome... I wish he had spoken his mind on the issue of communal discord much earlier and shown swiftness in nipping it in the bud,' says former AAP leader Shazia Ilmi.
Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Ansari believes a national debate on a Uniform Civil Code is a must. 'The need of the hour is to debate this issue at length in order to create a consensus,' Ansari tells Rediff.com, adding, 'Such a debate must take place at the grassroot level. We must understand all the divergent viewpoints before any draft can be prepared.'
Dissent in BJP grows stronger as more leaders question party's poll strategy in Bihar.
This whirlwind of activity only confirms that rushing around creating an impression of pompous busy-ness is not the same thing as solving problems, argues Mitali Saran.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday said it would have been good if Rahul had attended the budget session
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
Several relatives of the killed workers said they were not officially informed about their loved ones by any government authority.
The new Ministers of State sworn in by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony in the Rashtrapati Bhavan include Virendra Kumar, Anant Kumar Hegde and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, former IAS officers Alphons Kannanthanam and R K Singh, former diplomat Hardeep Puri and ex-Mumbai police chief Satyapal Singh. Two other new faces are Ashwini Kumar Choubey, a member of the Lok Sabha from Bihar, and Shiv Pratap Shukla from Uttar Pradesh.
A single party will need at least 137 of the directly elected seats to be able to form the government on its own.
On Tuesday, police in Suri in West Bengal's Birbhum district used batons to disperse a rally where 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans were raised.
The swearing in of the new members will begin on Thursday and continue on Friday, when the Lok Sabha speaker will be elected. Rediff.com contributor Renu Mittal reports
RSS head Mohan Bhagwat will be present through the exercise in which issues like census figures and OROP are likely to come up for discussion.
India on Thursday slammed Pakistan for making "absurd" charges of a chip, camera or a recorder being installed in the footwear of the wife of Jadhav.
From the Yadav-dominated Madhepura to the Brahmin-dominated Darbhanga and Bhumihar-dominated Begusarai -- three of the seven parliamentary constituencies in Bihar -- that go to vote on April 30 are crucial for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as it will be a test of his 'development model'.
Sukh Ram and Raja were charged with corruption during their tenure as telecom ministers. Sukh Ram was convicted while Raja has been acquitted. One had cash found under his bed; in the case of the other the trial judge mockingly asks: Where is the money? And if there's no money, where is the corruption? So, pronounced innocent. Sukh Ram is a Brahmin. 'Maybe he strayed just that one time, people like that aren't usually corrupt.' And Raja is a Dalit. 'Can you expect any better?' What race is in some places, caste is in India, says Shekhar Gupta.
Several SP leaders fear Muslim voters may shift loyalty, which will benefit rivals like the BJP.
Batting for minority rights, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday cautioned people against forces weakening the country's secular ethos and said communal harmony should not be disturbed over small, local incidents.
"The world's eye is on Kashmir and on Pakistan...I will be the ambassador who raises Kashmir's voice at every international forum," he said.
'The locals want a permanent solution to the perennial Mandir-Masjid issue. They have realised political parties will lose relevance if a temple is built.'
Pakistan played a 'key role' in fomenting the recent trouble in Kashmir, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday asked the victims of Muzaffarnagar riots living in relief camps here to go back to their homes, saying those engineering communal riots want them to remain in the camps as such a situation "benefits" them.
It also provides that no preliminary enquiry will be required for registering a criminal case and an arrest under this law would not be subject to any approval.
Pakistan's political crisis deepened on Monday with cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri giving a fresh 48-hour ultimatum to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down after a former top election commission official backed protesters' allegations of rigging in last year's polls.
'We are not marketing (the) Modi name but the work and trust that it projects.'
She said no government can declare anyone dead without proof and her government does not believe in the theory of 'missing, believed to be killed'.
'Why is the RSS trying to destroy the indigenous culture of Assam and its language?' 'If these migrants settle in Assam, they will overwhelm the 47 per cent of people who speak Assamese.'
The Congress leader said democracy allows dissent and debate and not monologues in an apparent barb at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Asaduddin Owaisi opens up to T S Sudhir on his party's plans for the elections in Uttar Pradesh next year and why he thinks both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party have vitiated the secular atmosphere in the state.
As the year 2014 draws to an end, we at Rediff.com take to look at some of the ridiculous remarks made by some blundering politicos.
The Rajya Sabha election was personal so it had to be won and Amit Shah needed to be sent a message.
Noting that Lok Sabha elections are around the corner and only one session of Parliament remains, he asked the government to bring an ordinance.
