Seeking a peaceful and secure neighbourhood amidst threat of terrorism and extremism, India and Kyrgyzstan on Sunday signed four agreements including one on bolstering defence cooperation and holding annual joint military exercises.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, while addressing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on "Recapturing India's Growth Momentum" in Washington on Thursday, said that the leading think tank need not launch an initiative to explore how India will vote in 2014, declaring that the Indian polity will vote the Congress back into power.
The year 2014 has been an eventful one for India. The country got a new government and a new state, broke new frontiers in various fields and of course its share of controversies.
'Modi is a master of convergence. By his ability to converge and add new features to a non-star idea, he is able to sell it. Like how he has turned Kutch into a tourist destination by selling the salt desert of the Rann as a flat snow desert of the night and roping in Amitabh Bachchan to sell it. In one stroke this has ensured economic returns to the people and on the other hand it has taken care of the national security angle in the sense that the border population in the Rann, which is almost entirely Muslim, is feeling better as now they are much more connected with the mainstream.' Ahead of the launch of his book on the much-debated Modi model of governance, journalist Uday Mahurkar speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
As India gears up to honour its pravasis on January 9 to mark their contribution in the nation's development, rediff.com presents perspectives from eminent writers on the Diaspora. Kicking off the series is Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, who points out that the change of the Diaspora policy put in place by Rajiv Gandhi following the military coup in Fiji and his decision to stand by them, was the one defining moment in India's dealings with its overseas family.
Indians all over the US are going beyond being human and are learning to be humanitarian and expand their philanthropy activities finds Ajailiu Niumai.
India's foremost architect and town planner was renowned as much for his 'breathing' spaces as for his irascible personality
'The Congress, all these decades, worked on a slow Hindi-isation and Indianisation of Arunachal tribes. The RSS wants rapid Hinduisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'India is so poor that political parties will not be able to wipe out poverty from our country in another 100 years. I am of the opinion that development can come only through corporates.' 'Tomorrow, if Tata or Birla or Reliance takes up another 500 panchayats, it will boost the Indian economy also.' Sabu M Jacob, managing director of the Kitex group whose NGO Twenty20 has just won a panchayat election in Kerala, speaks to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
'How can the BJP give Muslim candidates tickets if they don't have any good Muslim candidates?'
'Through the use of technology, the GSTN will tip the balance in favour of compliance rather than tax evasion, lowering the barriers for entry into the tax payment system while making it much harder to cheat on payments,' says Nandan Nilekani.
Five inspiring women who travelled thousands of miles to Hyderabad recently to grow their business and skills share their tales of global entrepreneurship. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel listened in.
'If robbery was their motive, they would have run away with the money.' 'After taking the money, they gang-raped the nun, desecrated the chapel, threw the Holy Communion, broke the statue and ran away with Mother Mary's crown.' 'We must not forget that vandalising churches and dishonouring Christians has become a regular affair in India in the past few months. This incident is a part of such destructive patterns.'
'As a society, we are very intolerant to failures which is contrary to entrepreneurship because all entrepreneurs will not succeed.'
'Any new technology, either before or soon after its release, will face severe criticism by one or the other segment of society. It is only after seeing the benefits of new technology for themselves that our farmers accept it.' 'The arable land in India is not increasing and currently hovers at around 140, 145 million hectares.' 'Today, Indian agriculture has to work towards achieving nutritional security.'
This is the joint statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
The elements are all aligned to make India a global powerhouse, says IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
'I know of at least one techie who quit his job to join the AAP in Delhi. Many others traveled to India to volunteer during the election. If you ask these volunteers why they were doing it when they can't even vote in India, they say, "We want a corruption-free India".' Ritu Jha looks back on the year that was; it was party time, she says, for news junkies like her.
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Ayurvedic expert Dr G G Gangadharan on how the ancient Indian medical practice needs to be propagated in the country of its origin
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to deliver his third Independence Day speech on August 15, he is inviting ideas from citizens on issues he should speak on
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who recently completed one year in office, has, in an exclusive interview with Smita Prakash, editor, ANI, said the opposition alleging that his government is a "suit boot ki sarkar" is definitely better and more acceptable than being labelled a "suitcase" (ki sarkar), and satirically added, that after ruling for sixty years, the Congress has suddenly remembered the poor.
Lance Naik Mohan Nath Goswami met a hero's end battling Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists in the jungles of Kashmir. His valour earned him the nation's highest gallantry award in peacetime this Republic Day. Archana Masih/Rediff.com travelled to Lal Kuan, Haldwani, to find out who this hero was.
'It is in the interest of both sides that the visit of the US President is seen as being successful. Both sides have invested considerable political capital in it. This rapid exchange of visits and the decisions taken have to be justified, beyond the symbolism, which is no doubt important in itself. This opportunity to impart a fresh momentum to ties should not be missed,' says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
Nehru's sentimental attachment to the Mountbattens deeply vitiated the Kashmir issue. It was certainly the most important factor for the failure to find a solution in the first years of the conflict.
The tragedy is that, at least on social media, the narrative that was being lapped up by many Indian Muslims was that Yakub Memon was being victimised. The purveyors of this poisonous line of thinking of course want this sentiment to grow since communal polarisation is the primary pillar of their political strategy, says Sushant Sareen.
Sudheendra Kulkarni pays tribute to friend, poet and Dalit activist Namdeo Dhasal who passed into the ages on Wednesday.
'Gau rakshaks portray themselves to be bigger than the chief minister and Prime Minister Modi.' 'We have lost business of Rs 4,000 crore in UP alone since the BJP manifesto was released.'
A special episode of the Prime Minister's radio broadcast Mann ki Baat featuring US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aired on Tuesday night. The 35-minute special broadcast of 'Mann Ki Baat', which marked the rapport between Modi and Obama, touched on issues ranging from public health and personal inspirations of the two leaders, both of whom have come up from simple beginnings to assume to top positions of the respective countries. What follows is a transcript of the Mann ki Baat episode.
Social activist Nalini Sekhar has worked to improve the working conditions of the waste-pickers of Bengaluru for the last four years and describes the her work as being rife with "occupational hazards which energises her to work with more vigour".
as the trial proceeds, Peter is beginning to look more and more haggard while Indrani by contrast is blossoming. Khanna appeared exhausted and more down and out than usual at this hearing.
'Let's talk a bit about minimum and overtime wages, since that is a topic so dear to everyone's heart. After all, critics say that heartless Devyani paid poor Sangeeta neither the minimum wages nor overtime wages and since "in this country we don't do it this way," she deserves to go to jail. But the FLSA itself makes several occupations exempt from either payment of minimum wages or from overtime wages or both. Disabled people need not be paid minimum wages under FLSA. Seamen on American vessels have to be paid minimum wages but seamen on other than American vessels need not be. So how fair is the Fair Labor Standards Act,' asks Sharmista Khobragade, diplomat Devyani Khobragade's sister.
A review of key pronouncements he made in his first Independence Day Speech on August 15, 2014.
With Sundar Pichai becoming the CEO of Google, India has one more reason to cheer its prowess in the global IT sector.
The real estate sector is set to enter a progressive phase in 2015.
T P Sreenivasan was India's high commissioner in Fiji in 1987, when Sitiveni Rabuka toppled the Indian-dominated government there. Ambassador Sreenivasan stayed on for two years after the coup, fighting for the rights of the people of Indian origin before he was expelled by Rabuka. 'Meeting Sitiveni Rabuka, who had overthrown a democratically elected government, discriminated against the Fiji Indians, brought untold humiliation and suffering to them, tried to disenfranchise them, ordered me out of Fiji and closed down the Indian high commission was a difficult decision to take even after 25 years,' notes Ambassador Sreenivasan who eventually caught up with Rabuka over a game of golf.
For his 60th birthday in December, which he called his third 20th birthday, Mallya flew in Enrique Iglesias to perform at his villa overlooking the beach in Goa.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has to deal with 3 powerful enemies: the media, the political establishment, and business houses.
