Behind the movement are shock-workers functioning quietly to ensure that a seemingly spontaneous, apolitical, grassroots mobilisation sustains itself without dribbling into chaos or violence. Sai Manish lists some of them.
Can we make high speed 4G Internet available at 10 cents per GB, and make all voice calls free of cost -- that too in a large and diverse country like India? Can we make high-quality but simple breast cancer screening available to every woman, that too at the extremely affordable cost of $1 per scan? Can we make a portable, high-tech ECG machine which can provide reports immediately and that too at the cost of 8 cents a test? Can we make an eye imaging device that is portable, non-invasive and costs 3 times less that conventional devices? Can we make a robust test for mosquito-borne dengue, which can detect the disease on day 1, and that too at the cost of $2 per test? Amazingly, says Dr R A Mashelkar, the eminent scientist, all this has been achieved in India, not only by using technological innovation but also non-technological innovation.
'Modi has shown political courage by instituting several economic reforms which include demonetisation, ushering in GST, eradication of benami transactions...'
'For Muslims it is time to understand what sense of fears are in the minds of Hindus.' 'I think the conversation somewhere is not taking place.'
Bad loans of PSBs are at Rs 20 trillion. Most of it is, I sense, due to corruption and behest lending. Nobody pays a price for this charade. Not the promoters, the bankers, RBI officials, finance ministry bureaucrats or politicians, points out Debashis Basu.
Kevin Pietersen wants to hug Andrew Strauss and resolve his differences with his former captain, the controversial ex-England batsman said on Thursday.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on Friday described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a "great economist", who she said has given a positive direction to the nation's economy.
For 'a person who has dedicated his life to teaching students, guiding them to restoring monuments and preserving our built heritage, I never dreamt that my home will one day be demolished.'
'Both my father and brother are very strong. Their spirit is unbroken,' says Dr Farooq Abdullah's daughter and Omar's sister, Safiya Abdullah Khan.
'It is from her that present-day political stalwarts continue to draw lessons on testing the limits of Constitutional democracy, and whose slogans even her party's staunchest opponents imitate even after over 30 years of her death,' says Veenu Sandhu.
Martand Singh, the master of weaves, took India to the world.
'This is what Hindu Rashtra looks like, which has been enabled by conditions of democracy.'
You don't need to be a fan of Jurassic Park or Jungle Book to head out on these holidays!
Enjoying the backing of the regulator, Gill has identified the core problems, ring-fenced the banks from "influencers" and is in the process of building a new team. Now, he needs to play a Vikram Pandit for YES Bank, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The search for that one stock that transforms a virtual beggar like me into a profligate millionaire might be over, says Mudar Patherya.
'This is fake. Tyagi was made to sign on a blank paper of the register for media entry and later the names of Rahul Gandhi and others were added in the register,' Congress said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said he has accorded highest priority to the modernisation of defence forces as strong security was necessary for an atmosphere of peace, amity and harmony in the country.
Bureaucratic insensitivity gave way to compassion with the state administration, police and passersby joining forces to help the stream of Indians fleeing Delhi.
Amazing stories about some of our best loved movies from Bhavani Iyer who wrote them.
In politics, if your objective is only winning elections, just Chanakya neeti might do. For governance you need both, Chanakya neeti and Ram Rajya. You can neither beat up the farmers into submission, nor dismiss them as 'Khalistanis', asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The young RJD leader is yet to earn the trust of the crowd and many senior party members believe he is no patch on his father.
The court while granting bail to the duo also held that it does not find any possibility of the accused persons fleeing from justice and that their custodial interrogation was not required.
'... A youth movement which could really transform our politics in a way that the existing elites don't understand.' 'The more you suppress free expression, the more people will value it.' 'The State can't suppress a young society like India where there are so many interesting new ideas emerging,' says Sunil Khilnani, whose latest book Incarnations looks at Indian history through 50 lives.
Chief Minister Stalin seems to have drawn a line between his personal beliefs and those of others in the family, beginning with wife Durga Stalin, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sebi on April 4 gave the brokerages 60 days to have their books vetted by third-party auditors.
May confirmed the deadline for triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which sets in place a two-year process of Brexit, as the first quarter of next year.
Sources at the NSE as well as the President's office rejected media reports that Kovind's pulling out of the event had to do with reasons other than his packed itinerary this week.
Soumitra Chatterjee -- one of the finest Indian actors of our time -- meant so much to Aseem Chhabra.
Nitin A Gokhale, Co-founder, BharatShakti.in and long-time Rediff.com contributor, remembers a most unusual politician.
It's not as easy to know how the funds were deployed and gauge the impact.
'Who are these people on the streets?' 'They are youth and students who were hoodwinked, bluffed by Modi for the last seven years, with a promise of 2 crore jobs every year.' 'And Mamata sings the same tune.' 'But the youth can see that as long as there is Mamata or Modi, there is no hope.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday began his historic two-day visit to Bangladesh by paying homage to the martyrs of the 1971 War of Liberation in which India had helped.
>Health Collective is building a safe space for conversations on mental health and illness.
The three promoters - Anil Kumar Sharma, Ajay Kumar and Shiv Priya - had diverted Rs 1,500-1,600 crore through bogus methods like loans and advances between group firms at inflated rates.
'there is absolutely no question that the Hinduism of the mob-lynchers, the people who have actually gone and killed others because of what they are eating or how they are worshipping or the faith they belong to or what they're doing professionally, those are, to my mind, not Hindus at all.' 'Hinduism needs to be reclaimed for the Hindus who are not bigots.'
In the mid-1980s, India and the US struggled to arrive at sufficient confidence for Washington to even sell a supercomputer to India for monsoon prospecting. Now, the most sensitive military technologies, data, and intelligence resources are being shared. This would not have happened without that one, big deal that changed the fundamentals of India-US relations, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Not a single person I spoke to there believes that the Kundalkulam plant is safe.'
'Being authoritative is one thing -- Nehru was that -- but being authoritarian is quite another -- the current prime minister is clearly one.'
Make sure that these places feature in your 2019 travel bucket list.
'On the drive to the airport, the streets are lined with men in battle camouflage carrying assault rifles and bearing familiar faces -- Tamilians, Bengalis, Punjabis, feared by the locals and in turn fearing them,' notes Aakar Patel during a visit to Srinagar.
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