India's new policy commission has received a makeover and a dream team has been formed to head the Think Tank, NITI Aayog.
'This is not a Sanjay Baru or Natwar Singh type of book. It's not a memoir. It's not a book to reveal conversations, real or imaginary. This is not a book to position myself at the centre of the world.' Jairam Ramesh on his stint as environment minister.
The overriding objective of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) must be adequate economic return, not financial return.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday gave away Gandhi Peace Prize 2014 to ISRO in recognition of its services in transforming India through the use of space technology.
The political resolution passed at the party's national executive claimed that the Modi government has created a new "history" in the direction of the poor's welfare with its bold initiatives.
'Human rights violations are there in rural areas and in cities. In rural areas it is crude and in the open. In urban areas it is well hidden.' 'Awareness has grown several fold. India has 160 national and state human rights institutions. No other country in the world has this.' 'Unfortunately the right to association, right to assembly, freedom of expression, right to protest and discuss are all being curtailed systematically one by one.'
Economy to grow by 7.2-7.5 per cent in second half of current fiscal, says FM.
There are conflicting signs on India's investment cycle.
'While the poor have little say in shaping India's intellectual or public discourse, they do have a significant role in deciding political outcomes,' points out Roshan Kishore.
'They don't always agree with our governments, their teachers or their parents, but it is the conviction of their ideas, and their determination to share them with the world that, I believe, is one of the greatest sources of hope for our planet.' 'The colonisation of space, understanding the very building blocks of matter and the universe, utilising our understanding of the human genome to conquer disease -- these are the tasks waiting for a fellowship of minds to realise new triumphs in our collective destiny.'
In the heat and dust of a Baramati rally with Supriya Sule.
There are signs of China's external behaviour becoming more aggressive in the coming years. If that happens, strategic implications for neighbours having territorial disputes with China can become deeper and imperatives can rise for the former to counteract, says D S Rajan
Dr Swarnim Wagle, the official behind Nepal's reconstruction strategy, speaks to Patrick Ward.
The co-founder of Feeding India is changing the way India deals with wasted food.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
Sharpening his attack on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Narendra Modi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused them of trying to usurp the legacy of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and recalled the Congress stalwart's description of the RSS as "a venomous organisation" which could "finish" the country.
India must do away with policy paralysis to ensure growth in agriculture.
The Modi-Shah definition of secularism is, India is a confident, resurgent Hindu, and therefore secular, country.
'This novel format of diplomacy -- the informal summit -- will not only facilitate bilateral communication and reduce miscalculations at the very top level of the two governments, but possibly open the space for China and India to speak in one voice on various issues of mutual concern,' note Feng Renjie and Ding Kun Lei
Ending open defecation by 2019 will require changing minds, not just allocating money to build latrines for people that will either go unused or not be built at all.
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
Mihir Bhat, fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Director of the All India Disaster Management Institute tells rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa that the youth of the country will swing into action to see what gets done on the ground.
'India, by virtue of its gigantic population and geography, stands at the very front line of this climate catastrophe.' 'But this is a threat that our easily distracted national mind is ill-equipped to think about, let alone plan for,' says Rahul Jacob.
The long-delayed declaration that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will be the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate for prime minister had a certain air of inevitability about it. But the last-minute drama should not take away from the plain fact that, in naming Modi, the BJP has merely acknowledged that it has in him a politician of rare skill and charisma -- of a degree unseen in national politics perhaps since former prime minister Indira Gandhi.
'The Bihar verdict has shown that the people of Bihar don't desire to go back to the mandir-masjid rhetoric.' 'Jobs, wages and development are the aspiration of the people of Bihar and we hope the next government will keep that in mind.'
'Growth is predicated on the misery of large sections of people.' 'Maybe Hindutva will be used to suppress any such unrest.'
Modi sarkar will have to undertake reforms to prove its mettle.
About 48.5 million shares, or 20 per cent of the shares on offer, are reserved for retail investors
'That is not a democratic ideal obviously, but it is a practical reality.' 'It is a consistent feature of politicians in Pakistan that their rhetoric on the army softens the closer they get to the seat of power.'
For the first time the Ford Foundation is placed under a watch.
A review of key pronouncements he made in his first Independence Day Speech on August 15, 2014.
When big offers hit the market, broader indices corrected 2-4%
'The temptation of governments, to have a finger in the RBI pie will be just too great to resist, unless extensive amendments are carried out in the RBI Act treating it almost as the fourth branch of the government.'
'A lot will depend on the first Aayog and the power it derives.'
G Sreedathan interviews Dinanath Batra, president of Siksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas and national convener of Siksha Bacho Andolan, who shot to fame after he was instrumental in getting American scholar Wendy Doniger's book on Hinduism pulped.
There is lack of scientific basis in computing the poverty line, says govt.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley explains the future of the Land Acquisition Law in India
Successor Anandiben Patel isn't having an easy time, with a protest movement by her own community and new challenges in keeping the mandate
'The execution has been 100 per cent faulty.' 'The scheme is also a stupid one, a real Tuglaq Darbar scheme.' 'This way of attacking black money is the most ineffective one.'
'Those who have seen the functioning of the Modi government in Gujarat know that the issues related to Hindutva and issues of economy and growth function simultaneously.' 'Modi's politics are based on the understanding of the middle-class consumer society which is in pursuit of material aspirations.' Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com reveals the Modi government's economic and political plans for the year ahead.
