A quick scan of prime ministerial speeches at the PBD going back to 2009, another election year, reveals no political utterances by either Modi or his predecessor, Dr Manmohan Singh.
News of all that transpired on and off the football field.
'Modi cannot drag India back into a primitive epoch resembling the religious wars in medieval Europe and at the same time claim to represent the aspirations of modernity among Indians,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Curiously, Pinarayi's approach, stressing the imperatives of development, is robustly backed by Nitin Gadkari.'
'I stand next only to Gadkari, one of the few outstanding ministers in the Modi government, in applauding Pinarayi's political courage and vision,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'They (BJP) can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats'
'Modi's advent has made the mass of Indians realise that there was absolutely nothing wrong or objectionable in proclaiming nationalism as the masthead of the polity and Hinduism as its centerpiece,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Netanyahu will cap his hectic schedule by attending the 'Shalom Bollywood' event.
'Some Indians take the extreme view that everything was known to our ancients, but others go to the opposite extreme and consider everything Indian was superstition and rubbish.' 'Indian science was perhaps more rational than the European science of the time.'
Good Friday was on Friday observed across the country with special prayers in churches and the faithfuls observing fasts as a way of renunciation of earthly comfort to mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
'Think about how he would have handled Hyderabad, and JNU. He would have been very cross if he found two of his Cabinet ministers weighing in on the side of the ABVP.' 'And if Rohith Vemula still killed himself, he would have been the first to speak out in anguish and empathy rather than deny he was a Dalit.' 'And JNU, he would have simply said something like, 'let the boys speak, then they will grow up and join the IAS).' 'A good idea, when in crisis, is to apply the 'Vajpayee test' to your actions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'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.
Is it time to take a relook at our economic theories? asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
Resettlement of refugees elsewhere is not the morally correct solution to the problem for it lets the perpetrators off the hook.
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.
Will he take Modi's 'sab ka saath, sab ka vikas' route? Or will he turn UP into Egypt under Morsi, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Stupidity knows no boundaries just like smartness, oxygen, and maybe football, says Maharaj Damodardas.
'If Mr Modi continues growing as a Hindu Hriday Samrat, better that it is done by restoring ancient temples than demolishing medieval mosques,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Party's performance will also work as a catalyst in Uttar Pradesh elections.
With PM Modi's visit, the time has come for a relook at India-Myanmar ties, and elevate the relationship to higher levels, says Dr Rahul Mishra.
'Pakistan is paying the price for ignoring secularism. In seeking to be ever more Muslim to define its nationhood, it has become a terrorist haven.'
Rediff.com lists a few other dramatic and frightful hostage situations that sent governments and security agencies into a tizzy.
The work of Norman Borlaug, who helped save billions from starvation, is worth recalling, especially as opposition to gene-modified crops mount, says Shreekant Sambrani.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf on the futility of the 'who is a Hindu?' debate.
'We are completely engaged in fighting poverty; alas, our neighbour Pakistan seems only engaged in fighting us.'
Calling on the world to embrace Yoga as a discipline in everyday life, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of the International Yoga Day today, asserted that the ancient Indian art was the most selfless of its kind, as it did not discriminate, did not ask for much, but simply functioned for the betterment of mankind and brought every society together.
Today, it is modish to be part of a yoga class, to post stories on Instagram while striking an impressively complex asana in a bralette and crop-top paired with neon yoga pants, to bond over green tea and yoga bars after a strenuous session at the studio and have subscriptions to yoga studios, not ashrams, says Manavi Kapur.
JP was a People's Hero unmatched in Independent India. Archana Masih goes to Jayaprakash Narayan's village looking for Bihar's greatest son as the claimants of his legacy go to war in what is being called the Election of Elections.
Youngistaan neither says something new nor does it reinforce time-tested wisdom in a way that you actually want to pay attention to it, feels Paloma Sharma.
'How can anyone ask me to stop what I have been doing since I was 6?'
There is a reason Jodie Underhill is called 'garbage girl'. She has been dirtying her hands in a crusade against filth for the last 5 years.
'If Modi arrived like a juggernaut, he left like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were being dismantled bit by bit. It was as if India had seceded quietly from him.' Shiv Viswanathan's social science fiction about what India would be like in 2020.
Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 302 films in 365 days on airplanes, on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Hulu, DVDs and even on YouTube.
'The nicest thing is that it is not my film.' 'People bring their own stories and life histories to the film.'
'In today's India very few would, of course, stand Basavanna's test. This led Professor Kalburgi to not only take on casteist and conservative forces in general, but also some powerful conservatives among Lingayats.' 'Conservatives found him polarising and some researchers disagreed with his speculations while admiring his scholarship, but he posited that culture studies and historians have to perforce join the dots, speculate, interpret, interpolate, extrapolate and take leaps to make progress even if some of them later turn out to be wrong.' Shivanand Kanavi salutes Professor M M Kalburgi, the scholar who was assassinated in Dharwad on Sunday, August 30.
How many of these have aged well?
'Narendra Modi could be too old to change his personality. On the other hand, his attachment to the RSS could be mostly sentimental. So one must hope that if he becomes prime minister, he is able to detach himself from the RSS view of the world as completely as Narasimha Rao detached himself from the Congress's First Family.' 'India cannot be governed by the autocratic methods by which he has governed Gujarat. If he becomes prime minister he will have to learn to speak in a more civil language about his political opponents,' historian Ramachandra Guha tells Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com
Shopkeepers are losing buyers in droves to e-tailers for everything from fashion to smartphones, and are struggling to find solutions.
Indians all over the US are going beyond being human and are learning to be humanitarian and expand their philanthropy activities finds Ajailiu Niumai.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances