It is rare for communal riots to spread to rural areas. The UP riot is the first time after the September 1969 Gujarat riots that a rural area have been affected. Electoral politics which divide society in majority/minority, going on since the early 1990s, is a major contributing factor to this heightened tension between communities, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale in the first of a two part series.
Canada will supply uranium to energy-starved India beginning this year over a period of five years, a decision which was termed as a launch of a new era of bilateral cooperation and mutual trust by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Throughout a quarter century of proxy war, India has shown tremendous restraint in the face of grave provocation. It is inconceivable that any other nation would have refrained from launching trans-LoC operations to eliminate terrorist training camps and interdict known routes of infiltration, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
We list down some of the memorable performances as historical figures.
'The response to terror is not always reciprocal terror, nor is launching a conventional response the best response.' 'The best response is to make the sponsor pay a price he cannot afford,' says former RA&W chief Vikram Sood.
With an aim of boosting manufacturing and exports amid sharp fall in the rupee, the government has decided to take a slew of steps, including enhancing steel production capacity to 300 million tonnes and raising textile exports by 30 per cent this year.
With the launch of the first indigenous aircraft today, India will join a club of nations like the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France that possess nuclear-powered submarines
The woman whose lone fight against the establishment all these long years has only the state machinery to keep her safe from the public whose cause she championed all this while.
'Clearly, from the Indian viewpoint, the US retrenchment from Asia cannot be happening as good news.' 'The abandonment of the US' pivot to Asia exposes the US-Indian partnership to be a mere transactional relationship,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
A very delayed and subdued reaction, at a time when the non-aligned world had expected a big country like India to come out in support of rights and justice. It was yet another example of the mealy mouthed approach that has come to define Indian foreign policy, says Seema Mustafa.
Sentiment has improved but no progress on GST & ending 'tax terrorism' disappoints.
The perfunctory management of external affairs has left India's foreign policy establishment largely unprepared to manage the consequences of dramatic international developments, says Nitin Pai.
Sonia Gandhi's iftar was meant to be a powerful show of unity of Opposition parties to take on the Modi Sarkar, but that was not to be...
A key government official involved in initiatives to make doing business in the country easier said improving the ranking to 50th in a year was not possible but the country could certainly do that over two years.
'The Chennai floods in particular clearly show there is a nexus between corruption, disaster, destruction and death.' 'Urban development in India is the source of all corruption.'
'If Indian armed forces entered Pakistan and succeeded in inflicting major damage on the Pakistani army and occupied territory in the Pakistani heartland, there is reason to think the Pakistani military would use some nuclear weapons against the incoming Indian forces to compel India to stop.'
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
India and Japan have a shared interest in countervailing China's hegemonic ambitions in Asia. Although neither has an interest in forming an overt anti-China alliance, Tokyo and New Delhi feel increasingly obligated to work together to find ways to guard against a muscular Beijing's power sliding into arrogance, says Brahma Chellaney.
'This is what we train for: That one chance to deliver a blow so lethal that the enemy will constantly think about it when planning any misadventure.'
'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.
Ramesh says that since the attitude of the Narendra Modi government is deliberately provocative and confrontational, it should not expect cooperation from the Congress.
Sushma Swaraj, like Clinton, has a strong political base in her own party and is likely to have her imprint on foreign policy, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday address Members of the British Parliament in London where he promised to open more doors of cooperation between the two countries and delved on issues like terrorism and United Nations reforms.
Indian Air Force Commander claims Su30-MKIs beat the British Royal Air Force's Typhoon FGR4s 12-0 during Indradhanush 2015. The opponents dismisses it 'clouded recollection'. What really happened, we will never know and do we really need to?
'Islamist terror groups have never been challenged ideologically. As long as their ideology survives, like cancer, these groups will sprout somewhere else, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The Modi PMO is like none other: It is staffed by people who are so low profile that the only dominant personality is the Prime Minister's.
Without civilisational moorings, India, more a sub-continent than a country, could not exist. Primacy of Dharma has been the cornerstone of Indian civilisation, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The India card is now almost obsolete. There are more pressing challenges. People of Pakistan are fed up with years of bad governance, corruption and broken promises of successive governments. However, the politicians and former generals are still provoking sentiments on what is happening on the Line of Control for petty political gains, says Shahzad Raza.
The night before Dr Singh was to meet President Bush, he said he could not sign the agreement.
No account of the 1962 war could be complete without Maxwell's authoritative analysis. Which is why we are reprinting this article which was run on Rediff.com in June 2001.
Manchester City's Sergio Aguero scored a hat-trick as coach Pep Guardiola maintained his 100 per cent record at the club with a commanding 4-0 victory against Borussia Moenchengladbach in their rearranged Champions League Group C opener on Wednesday.
Rahul Gandhi's remark about communal conflicts in Uttar Pradesh being "deliberately engineered" has triggered a war of words between Congress and BJP, with both accusing each other of indulging in "communal politics".
'Diplomatic engagement will continue even as India keeps all its options open with respect to discretely targeting the Pakistani military and its terrorist proxies.'
'The entire Ufa fiasco was predictable and predicted. The Ufa venue had created international interest in the initiative and its failure may have implications for both Pakistan and India. What remains for Modi to do is to produce a prettier rabbit out of his hat next time to deal with the Pakistan imbroglio,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'If the US-Pakistan relationship continues to suffer, Pakistan may feel it has less to lose and decide that it need not keep a leash on LeT in order to appease America.' 'A tougher US policy toward Pakistan could lead to an emboldened and strengthened LeT and JeM, resulting in more terrorist attacks in India.'
If it was true that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis held up the flight to Newark to ensure that Praveen Singh Pardeshi, the state principal secretary, was on board, he had at least one excuse...
The Prime Minister's Office has clarified that the total sanctioned strength of the PMO has been around 525 in the period 2011-14. As against this, the actual strength of the PMO in the years 2011, 2012 and 2013 was in the range of 407 to 411. The number has now declined to 385.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expanded his Cabinet and inducted 21 new ministers. Of these, 4 - Manohar Parrikar, JP Nadda, Suresh Prabhu and Birender Singh were appointed as Cabinet ministers. Other than this, Modi has inducted 17 other ministers of state. Here's a quick look at them:
'We are going to see relatively soon an executive order that deals with H-1B and other temporary visas.' 'We are also going to see an executive order on undocumented people.' 'Undocumented Indians comprise the largest population growth of all undocumented people in this country.' 'Just because India is not named in this executive order doesn't mean it won't be in the future.'
The fiscal deficit of the Centre remains a worry, running at over 6.5 per cent of GDP in April-September 2014, mainly because of revenue shortfalls from exaggerated projections in the government's July Budget and despite the relief on subsidies from lower oil prices.
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