Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dedicated to the nation the 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the tallest in the world, and said it will be a reminder about the courage of a man who thwarted efforts to disintegrate India.
The two-and-a-half-foot idol was looted from the Sivan Temple in Tamil Nadu's Sripuranthan village.
This week's collection of unbelievably unusual images from across the world
'Not allowing people to speak or listen is the biggest act of anti-nationalism,' says Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, one of India's finest poets.
An ambitious exhibition tells the story of India as also the history of the world.
'I have never seen such a large parade being commanded with such precision just by a vocal word of command.' 'I would like to import this technology to England.' Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd), then a final year cadet at the National Defence Academy remembers Queen Elizabeth II's visit to NDA in November 1983.
'Astad had the courage to plough a lonely furrow. He made a life of his own, on his own, and created a path-breaking dance style.' 'Only a few in the performing arts could do what he did.' 'A classical dancer can fall back on tradition, but Astad created something absolutely new.'
A group of concerned individuals as the India Pride Project and the support of one man dubbed America's Indiana Jones has resulted in the return of India's heritage back to the country, says Vijay Kumar.
'Now, no one can stop me from making music till the day I die.'
When Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje Scindia decided to convert her government's capital outpost into a hub of culture, she transformed Bikaner House into Delhi's premier cultural space, notes Kishore Singh.
Shashi Tharoor says the British Museum should change its name to Chor Bazaar because whatever it has within its portals is the result of 200 years of theft. The museum is once again in the eye of a storm for the possession of a statue of a god Hindus, across the world, worship as the Supreme Being.
These trips will fill you with wanderlust.
'Imagine how secure are our seaports and airports that 10,000 objects can leave every decade and our custodians are not even aware?' 'This kind of targeted looting when thieves pick and choose the best of Indian art and steal on an industrial basis will eventually impoverish our great land.'
'Every time I step on stage, I feel like I'm performing the play for the first time,' Manoj Joshi tells Sadiya Updade.
First person account: To say the entire stretch is ripe for a stampede is putting it mildly.
This week's collection of stories that prove we live in a truly mad, mad world
'If you are doing something to our national democratic space which involves serious amounts of land, the public should have been consulted.'
The portraits -- painted by African American artists -- will shake up the assumptions of visitors to US presidential galleries.
The Pm He also inaugurated the Yaad-e-Jallian Museum, (museum on the Jallianwala Bagh and World War I), the Museum on 1857, India's first war of Independence, and Drishyakala-Museum on Indian Art within the Red Fort complex.
After injecting life into Mumbai's Prithvi Theatre and running it for years, Sanjana Kapoor tells Anjuli Bhargava that she is consumed by a new passion -- Junoon.
An exhibition in Bengaluru showcases some of the best photographs by legendary photojournalists, such as James Nachtwey, Sebastiao Salgado and Steve McCurry
Here's this week of photos that prove we live in a mad world.
Avantika Bhuyan meets a train ticket inspector who captures everyday scenes beautifully on canvas.
'We like to tell the rest of the world that we did it better, that we were stronger, that we had larger cities, that we taught them science,' Naman Ahuja tells Anjali Puri. 'This exhibition is an antidote to insularity -- it is saying we have learnt as much from the world as we have given it.'
'Does a thousand-year-old sculpture worshipped in a thriving religion belong to a foreign museum or the temple from which it was extracted?' Congress MP Shashi Tharoor asked angrily. 'They legitimately belonged to India and people of past, present and future generations are interested in re-possessing them,' a central information commissioner declared last month.
All of the halls, from the East Room to the Red Room, were decked by over 125 volunteers.
How Rayna Arya, who became a victim of a hit-and-run at age 12, got back on her feet again.
India's greatest contemporary architects Charles Correa died on Tuesday night at the age of 84. He was best known for his "open-to-sky" designs, which were reflected in some of his famous projects. Rediff.com takes a look at some popular buildings that got the Correa touch.
'It was only relatively recently that Subhash Kapoor was able to secure the sources in India, Afghanistan and Cambodia, that allowed him to get the really highest level objects, and that helped propel him in recent years up the ranks.'
'I reached Bhopal the day after the gas tragedy; the smell was still in the air. It was a professional hazard but I was not scared.'
One warm sunny day, Abhilasha Ojha stumbles upon the soul of Bahrain.
"For some, these artefacts may be measured in monetary terms but for us this is beyond that. It's a part of our culture and heritage," the prime minister said at the ceremony held at the Blair House.
If Irrfan could have been our finest professor of empirical philosophy, and Nawaz is our foremost poet of that space halfway between the gutter and the stars, then Jaideep Ahlawat has to be our greatest artist-scientist, asserts Sreehari Nair.
2017 is full of long weekends! You won't regret planning your next trip to these wonderful cities.
'Google and Facebook need to be tamed, their garb of 'Investing in India's future' need to be pulled off,' observes Vibhu Arya.
While inaugurating the projects, Modi said highways construction has reached 27-km a day from mere 12-km a day during the Congress regime.
Ten people, including the gunman were killed in in Dayton's Oregon district, while another 20 were shot dead at a crowded Walmart store in the southern border town of El Paso in Texas.
'In Pakistan there has been no problem about the installation of the statues of these men, unlike the Jinnah portrait or other controversies that seem to be present in India these days quite regularly,' says Aakar Patel.
Life inside the prime minister's official residence is highly regulated, but it comes with its perks, says Veenu Sandhu
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances