Jayanta Roy Chowdhury reports on how the West Bengal elections are being fought by the BJP and Trinalool Congress amid COVID challenges, 'Bangaliana', and campaigns based on religion, region, and caste.
Trinamool congress MP and Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University Sugata Bose tells Kavita Chowdhury that there is a sense of fear and insecurity among our minorities.
In his pre-departure statement, he said trade ties between India and Russia can increase even further, to benefit not only the two nations but also the world.
The ISI network of spies has been operating in India for over a decade.
American intelligence agency Central Intelligence Agency had cast doubt on the reported death of Subhas Chandra Bose in a plane crash in 1945 and was tipped off that Netaji would return from exile in 1964, according to declassified documents.
Dalhousie square has close to 55 historic landmarks.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
'Rarely do you come across a leader of a free world who meets another leader of a free world and serves him tea in a suit that chants his name. Over and over again.'
The UP government transferred the district magistrate and the senior superintendent of police of Mathura following the violence in the district that left 29 dead.
The list, which is a mix of seasoned political players and greenhorns, has 17 women candidates, five more than the last elections, constituting roughly 41 per cent of the candidates.
Attlee said Great Britain had concluded that the Indian element of the army was no longer reliable and that Netaji's Indian National Army had demonstrated that. That had shaken the foundation on which Britain's Indian empire rested, argues Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
Why did the district magistrate take over an hour to order retaliatory firing on the murderous SBVS mob?
'Under the more strident Modi version of Hindutva, Nehru has almost become a contemporary political figure.' 'The ruling party knows that without total erasure and distortion of Nehru, their fantasies will always be wobbly.'
'These naval sailors should have been given due respect as freedom fighters.' 'February 18, 1946 should be as important as January 26 because that date changed everything.'
Jnanpith awardee Girish Karnad on Tuesday said 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan would have enjoyed the same status as of Maratha king Chhatrapathi Shivaji, if he was a Hindu and not a Muslim.
'The condition in Bengal is such that if you chant Jai Shri Ram, you would be put behind bars
UPSC toppers -- Ira Singhal, Nidhi Gupta, Vandana Rao and Suharsha Bhagat -- tell Rediff.com how they cracked the tough national exam.
'This is the first time when you see the story of the Azad Hind Fauj through the eyes of the soldiers.'
While Smriti Irani might bristle with faux indignation at the 'malicious' newspaper report, it is very clear that just as Teacher's Day was hijacked by her boss and a day of celebration became an assignment, the first attack on Christmas as a holiday has been made in the war on India's cosmopolitan way of life, says the Mango Indian.
At least 24 people, including two policemen, were killed as police tried to evict around 3,000 encroachers from a park in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday.
'The TMC has become a private limited company.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday termed his Japan trip as "very successful" and hoped that India's infrastructure will improve and the country will become clean with the help of $35 billion promised by Japan over five years, the highest ever amount ever.
The storm is India's strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in 20 years.
'If the BJP thinks it is going to overnight transform Bengal into Madhya Pradesh, sorry, that's not going to happen because I have faith in our ethos and culture.'
BJP president Amit Shah, while kickstarting 'Ganatanatra Bachao Yatra' in Bengal, vowed to overthrow the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in the state.
'Gandhi has not become out of date, we have.'
'We must delink religion from politics' 'Leaders with vested interests have brought religion into politics.' Netaji's grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose, the BJP candidate against Mamata Banerjee, on the campaign trail.
On the 40th anniversary of the beginning of one of the darkest periods in our history, here are six painful facts about the Emergency.
Here's the full text of address to the nation by President Ram Nath Kovind on the eve of the Republic Day 2022.
'Though she was deeply religious, she was against communalism. Whenever she got the chance, she did speak out against the communalisation of society.'
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
'Absolute non-violence is not only sinful, but immoral.' 'This doctrine of non-violence benumbed the revolutionary fervor, softened the limbs and hearts of the Hindus, and stiffened the bones of enemies.' A revealing excerpt from Vikram Sampath's Savarkar (Part 2): A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966.
'The power of love is the greatest power in the world.' 'Add a smile and you can conquer the world,' Bengali actor June Maliah, the Trinamool Congress's candidate for the Medinipur constituency, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com.
BJP leaders in the state are either lying low or criticising the CAA move in hushed tones. Chandra Kumar Bose, vice-president of the BJP's state unit, is most vocal with his opposition to the Act in the current form. "The country is above petty party politics. How can I keep quiet when I see that something is happening which is wrong in its current form?" Other party leaders aren't as vocal as Bose but clandestinely have been questioning the merit of the CAA and its impact on the BJP's prospects in the state. In fact, at a time when the BJP started making deep inroads in the state, the fear of the CAA and the NRC appears to be ruining its prospects.
Rai Mamta Kumari's first shot at politics ended before it could begin. She had gone to file her nomination with a procession of 56 four wheelers and distributed 1,800 food packets. But then something went wrong.
'At the end of the interview, as he walked with us to the elevator, he looked at me and said, "Do you think it was my karma that I should have made this film?"' Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com recalls his encounter with Richard Attenborough.
'Our honourable CM is so shameless that she will say the state is among the safest for women.'
Adding that the two leaders had shared an 'excellent personal rapport'.
'Who are these people on the streets?' 'They are youth and students who were hoodwinked, bluffed by Modi for the last seven years, with a promise of 2 crore jobs every year.' 'And Mamata sings the same tune.' 'But the youth can see that as long as there is Mamata or Modi, there is no hope.'
'Unfortunately, during this pandemic, everybody started saying that well, these are desperate times and desperate times need desperate solutions.' 'Purely out of fear, anxiety, panic, this knowledge that people started acquiring from WhatsApp University and social media, it pushed science completely to the backseat.'
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