'After it was finished, Shah Jahan visited the Taj only twice.' 'There is a letter from Aurangzeb to him after a visit, reporting that the dome was leaking and needed to be fixed.' 'Shah Jahan wasn't bothered: He had moved on to designing his next project, Shahjahanabad,' reveals Aakar Patel.
'She dwarfs every known politician of recent times with her imperious aura, iron will, tremendous drive, dauntless pursuit of goals she set before herself, ability to capture the people's imagination and unshakeable grip over her party and government,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
At the start of the English football season last August, bookmakers in Britain were offering odds of 5,000-1 against LeicesterCity winning the Premier League. 5,000-1? Now, let's put that into perspective.
Earning the coveted UNESCO tag would not only have ramped up revenues through enhanced tourism but also helped in keeping monuments and heritage buildings in Delhi free of encroachment, say experts.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
A round-up of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers played on Thursday
Livelihoods and lives are being destroyed in the name of building a 'better' India, writes Congress leader Sachin Pilot, in an exclusive column for Rediff.com.
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The past record of attacks by the Americans has been such that it would take a monumental task for them to get the rest of the world to believe in at attack on Syria. As such, in history books, this would seem another attempt by the US to emboss its unilateralism over the world and nothing else beyond it, says Sriram Balasubramanian.
'Modi and Xi can solve the India-China border problem in a single sitting by keeping the big picture before them, by sweeping away the cobwebs of the past, and by mustering a statesman-like spirit and a long range vision,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'We will have to wait till the snows melt in June/July 2016 before we can get a clearer idea of whether Pakistan intends to get serious about ending support for cross-border terrorism,' says G Parthasarathy, India's former high commissioner to Pakistan.
The Delhi high court has told the Delhi and District Cricket Association it "cannot control" what the International Cricket Council is saying over the issue of lack of completion certificate for the old clubhouse of the Ferozshah Kotla ground, which could lead to shifting of the World T20 semi-final from Delhi.
'If India is to emerge as a superpower, we must utilise our huge agricultural potential and not, as in past centuries, merely exploit our farmers,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Some of the 19 NIT scholars who spent a week at the Rashtrapati Bhawan as part of an 'in-Residence Programme' share their learnings with Upasna Pandey
Modi said Kudankulum 1, an Indo-Russian project, was an important addition to the continuing efforts to scale up production of clean energy in India.
This is ISRO's new record of launching 20 satellites, including those from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia.
'I have only this to say to those who talk about Mewar rulers and Akbar's brutality -- do you expect a king to not expand his kingdom?' 'You have entire cities named after Muslim rulers. It's time our heroes got their due.'
"Crores of Muslim women had always demanded that triple talaq should be banned, as it is also banned in Islamic countries," he said.
India have won all their six games against Pakistan in the World Cup.
The Government of India has failed Kashmiri Pandits as they are still living as refugees in their own country. The state as well as the central government has not taken substantial measures till date for the return of Kashmiri Pandits back to the valley, says Varad Sharma
Survivors of the devastating earthquake in Nepal that killed over 2,000 people had horrific tales of the nature's fury that reduced houses, temples and historical monuments to rubble as they struggled for basic necessities of shelter, food and sanitation.
Naresh Chandra -- distinguished civil servant and diplomat -- passed into the ages on Sunday, July 9. Ambassador T P Sreenivasan salutes a patriot like none other.<
Moments that shaped the world from the week that was
Racing against time, rescuers on Sunday waded through tonnes of rubble of flattened homes and buildings in Nepal to look for survivors of the earthquake.
Time unkindly has a sole endeavour: To drag the person, whose death you are mourning, further and further away from your presence, to some far edge of your falsely anesthetised mind. So your memories are drained of colour, growing faint and grainy. You are left with a more and more distant recollections of that person, their laugh, their embrace, their voice and the moments surrounding their final departure. Vaihayasi P Daniel mourns her beloved father who passed away one December morning last year.
There is something deeply disturbing about wanting to build such a large temple in what is arguably India's poorest state, a state that like many other states of India, particularly in north India, is crying for more schools, more hospitals and primary health centres, and, dare I say it, more toilets for everyone, says Amberish K Diwanji
The rise in India's relative attractions lie in the precipitous decline in safety of the more popular destinations, notes Kanika Datta.
All those peaceniks and bleeding-heart liberals spewing nonsense about 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' dialogue with Pakistan should pause to ponder the futility of talking to someone who is unwilling and unready to resile an inch from its unacceptable and unreasonable stand, says Virendra Kapoor.
The Delhi High Court on Friday said the ceremony by Jama Masjid Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari to annoint his son as his successor has no legal sanctity.
Brutal and ruthless, with terrible human rights records, these autocrats will welcome Narendra Modi to their realm this coming week.
There is mounting evidence that the Information Revolution may mean the end of large-scale vertically integrated businesses whose guiding principle, "economies of scale", was the defining miracle of the Industrial Age.
The Finance Commission has substantially increased the allocation of funds to panchayats, but a large part of it is apportioned by state governments.
His monumental achievements notwithstanding, controversies keep chasing Leander Paes.
US President Barack Obama told Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when the two met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Myanmar in November 2014, how he barely had two years left to his presidential term and so much to do. The wish list included getting his daughters to see a tiger in the wild and the Taj Mahal.
Fiscal discipline has been maintained but toxic assets worth Rs 7 crore are a massive headache
'The extended Bose family is insisting that the Japanese government must release all the information they have on Bose's ashes. It cannot be forgotten that Bose was in Japanese care when his 'death' occurred. Ultimately, it is the Japanese who hold the secret about what happened to him.'
'Olympic wrestling is like an old Nokia phone.' 'WWE is like an iPhone.' The Great Khali's academy turns pro-wrestling dreams into reality
'In 2009 we had 741 new cases of polio. This was the highest in the world. We ran the most apolitical crusade ever. We had the support of every government. We were never short of funds. The central government gave us Rs 11,000 crore a year. In 2011 we had 42 new cases. From 42 to 0 was our most difficult phase,' Mission Director Anuradha Gupta tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar in an exclusive interview about India's monumental campaign to eradicate polio.
Ivanka spoke for a good 15 minutes, gracefully, looking straight at her audience, her face wreathed often in winning smiles. She is an articulate, striking, woman who charmed her audience.
Why Dalit leaders cross over to the BJP
