Amid Indian strikes, PCB in huddle to decide whether PSL should continue
The delegations led by Baijayant Panda, Ravi Shankar Prasad (both Bharatiya Janata Party), Sanjay Kumar Jha (Janata Dal-United), Shrikant Shinde (Shiv Sena), Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Kanimozhi (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party-Sharad Pawar) will visit a total of 32 countries and the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
'It is only recently that a lot of warmth has slid into our relationship.'
Sources close to the top BJP leadership tell me that Tharoor has already had secret meetings with the BJP's top brass and is waiting patiently to make his next move, reports Ramesh Menon.
'I don't consider acting to be a contest or a game of one-upmanship and I was far from happy with all the talk of Dilip Kumar Versus Me.'
The opposition party, however, said the four eminent Congress MPs and leaders who have been included at the instance of the Modi government will, of course, go with the delegations and make their contributions.
Sweet surprises are made of actors best known for their dramatics taking us by surprise by shaking a leg on screen.
The Congress on Sunday said it was not stopping anyone from being part of diplomatic delegations to be sent to various countries following Operation Sindoor and that its leaders who have been named at the instance of the government must listen to their conscience and contribute to the exercise.
At 13, Naseer Khan left Bihar to work in a saw-mill in Bhutan. He learnt the craft of making sofas, and some of the pieces he made found a place in the royal palace. He returned home after spending 35 years in the Himalayan kingdom, and has continued making sofas, restoring old furniture and creating wire-gutting chairs, all that has become a dying art now.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, offering condolences to families affected by cross-border shelling and encouraging students who lost two classmates to the violence. During an hour-long visit, Gandhi met with students at the convent school that lost the twins, and visited families whose homes were damaged in the shelling.
India has strongly rejected Pakistan's allegations of backing terrorism against that country following the Balochistan train attack. India said Islamabad should look inwards before shifting the blame on others for its "failures " and that the whole world knows "where the epicentre of global terrorism lies ". Pakistan, on the other hand, has accused India of "sponsoring terrorism " without directly implicating it in the Balochistan train attack that killed 21 passengers.
In a major organisational revamp, the Congress on Friday appointed former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel as general secretary in-charge of Punjab and Rajya Sabha MP Syed Naseer Hussain as general secretary for Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
'The Congress submitted four names to the government as the people who should accompany the delegation.' 'I don't know what happened to those names.' 'When I was approached, I told them to speak to my party.' 'I have no further involvement with this delegation.'
The opposition party's attack came after Shashi Tharoor, not part of the four leaders nominated by the Congress, was named as the head of a delegation to key partner countries to convey India's message of zero tolerance against terrorism following Operation Sindoor.
What? No one's calling them anti-national, no trolling, no abuses or threats, no FIRs??
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
'Naseer does not have the sense of humour that Om Puri has. 'Also Om has a great deal of compassion as a human being. Naseer was too focused on his own self.' A fascinating excerpt from Sangeeta Datta's book, Shyam Benegal.
'I am ashamed that you and I were born into the same faith -- because we are nothing alike. My religion is humanity. The Islam I know teaches me to protect the innocent. Yours celebrates slaughter, you #&$#@#. 'My Islam teaches me to serve my nation. Yours tells you to tear it apart,' writes Major Dr Mohommed Ali Shah (retd).
The explosion ripped through the provincial capital Quetta's railway station as passengers gathered on the platform before the scheduled departure of the Jaffar Express to Peshawar.
'It is not as if Hindus are not being touched at all, and only Muslims are.'
In Kerala's society, known for its high material standard of living, plunging into a state of having nothing overnight can be terrible for one's social standing and sense of self-esteem. Rehabilitation entails piecing a community back together after a disturbance and while its aim is noble, the act of reassembling will bring alive disparities and inequalities, explains Shyam G Menon.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has brought back Salman Rehman Khan, an alleged member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, from Rwanda. Khan was wanted by the NIA for terror-related offences in Bengaluru. He was traced to Rwanda and returned to India on November 28, 2024. The return of Khan comes after similar operations in coordination with Interpol, where two other accused were brought back from Saudi Arabia.
'No military offensive by Pakistan will end the insurgency in Balochistan without simultaneous, concerted efforts toward political dialogue to de-escalate tensions.'
The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2025 was passed in the Lok Sabha early Thursday, with 288 members supporting it and 232 against it.
'When so many young Baloch men and women are willingly volunteering as fighters and even suicide bombers.'
'He was in good physical condition. In fact, he was an allrounder who loved the game. We're all still in shock.'
Opposition MPs, some of whom have given their dissent, slammed the exercise as undemocratic, claiming that they were given little time to study the final report and frame their dissent notes.
The Bangladesh senior cricket team will arrive in Pakistan on August 13 following the political unrest at home.
'Neither are Baloch insurgents capable of breaking up Pakistan, nor has Pakistan learned any lessons from the 1971 debacle that led to the country's dismemberment.'
Naseer and his associates had conspired to wage war against the government of India and also to kill Indians in order to destabilise the country and create communal disharmony, it said.
'She was my only choice to play Sonbai. The moment she read the script, she slipped into character.'
The Congress was the only party in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday to demand a discussion on setting up a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe allegations against the Adani group. Other opposition parties gave similar notices on different issues, including violence in Manipur and Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal. The Congress members sought a JPC to investigate the alleged misconduct, including corruption, bribery and financial irregularities of the Adani Group in connivance with other authorities. However, other opposition parties raised different issues, with the AAP seeking a discussion on "increasing crimes in Delhi" and the TMC, DMK, AAP and CPI seeking a discussion on violence in Manipur. The CPI-M, SP and IUML sought a discussion on the recent violence in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh.
'He has always let us do our own thing but if we ever need anything, he is there with the best advice.'
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Sharma has rejected the opposition's move to impeach Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, calling it an attempt to disrupt House proceedings. Sharma claims there are no valid grounds to impeach Dhankhar, who is also the ex-officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The opposition parties submitted a notice to move a motion for removing Dhankhar for allegedly conducting the Upper House in a partisan manner. However, Sharma defended Dhankhar's conduct and asserted that he has been impartial in his role as chairman.
All opposition members of the parliamentary panel on the Waqf Amendment Bill were suspended for a day on Friday amid continuous protests and accusations against Chairman Jagdambika Pal of steam-rolling through the proceedings.
The Central Bureau of Investigation's Special Court in Kochi on Thursday remanded suspected Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative T Nazir and two others, accused in the 2006 twin Kozhikode blasts case, to judicial custody till March 25. The court, which is hearing terror-related cases being handled by the National Investigation Agency in the state, ordered that the three accused, including Shafaz and Yusuf, be produced on March 26.
Local residents have stressed that land acquisition for rehabilitation must be completed promptly, as it has been delayed after estate owners challenged it in the Kerala high court.
The case was originally registered by the Bengaluru City Police on July 18 last year following the seizure of arms and ammunition, hand grenades and walkie-talkies from seven of the accused persons. The seizure was made when the seven men were in the house of one of the accused.
'Rajesh Khanna broke the mould and yet, became the biggest superstar of Indian cinema.'
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