From Aurangzeb to Sangh Parivar, the year 2016 offers plenty of hope in historical and modern literature.
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
Vinod Rai, the head of the Board of Control for Cricket in India Committee of Administrators (CoA), has hoped that the Cricket Board and the state associations will implement the Lodha Committee recommendations by October.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Saturday recommended former Indian women's team captain Diana Edulji for the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, an honour she declined citing her current role in the board as a Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrator (COA) member.
'The Post's coverage is not an authentic public discourse guided by unbiased Western intellectuals, but a slanted doomsday propaganda orchestrated by Indians and expatriate Indians,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
Shah said the Congress was not rooted in any ideology or principles and was sort of a "special purpose vehicle" to secure freedom.
President Ram Nath Kovind said he was 'a determined champion of democracy during the Emergency' and would be missed by his readers.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India's Committee of Administrators (COA) on Wednesday made it clear that they will not sacrifice India's interests while dealing with the International Cricket Council.
Shastri took the first big step to transform India's agriculture, the benefits of which his successors reaped in plenty, says A K Bhattacharya.
Pune police on Tuesday raided homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them -- poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, trade unionist and lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad and Chhattisgarh and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in Delhi.
Raj Thackeray issued a statement on Monday, admitting that one of his local party workers had opposed Sahgal's presence at the literary meet.
'With his stature as a playwright and actor, Girish Karnad was one of the voices of modernity for not just Karnataka but the entire country.'
'As his party's Supreme Leader, Modi has led India down the wrong road by insisting on friendship with China even as its soldiers went about claiming territory,' argues Harishchandra Dighe.
'In this season of inspired mean-spirited campaigning, it still seemed remarkable that we are more likely to learn civics lessons from school children than our leaders,' says Rahul Jacob.
Indian cricket, it seems, pays overwhelming obeisance to a vapid, old adage: The more it changes, the more it remains the same.
'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
'India's first and longest-serving prime minister created -- or at the very least imagined -- a modern, democratic nation-State of the 20th century,' says Sunil Sethi.
'Magnanimity and appeasement have no place in the world of realpolitik as India has learned the hard way,' notes Vivek Gumaste in the first of a two-part column.
On Tuesday, 49 people, including award-winning filmmakers Aparna Sen and Mani Ratnam, and historian Ramachandra Guha, wrote to PM Modi, urging him to intervene in cases of hate crimes and atrocities against minority communities.
The need of the hour is not a divisive, slanging match of accusations and counter-accusations, but a call for sanity,' says Vivek Gumaste.
An upcoming film on Mohammad Azharuddin promises to be a potboiler, though not a true biopic.
In politics, if your objective is only winning elections, just Chanakya neeti might do. For governance you need both, Chanakya neeti and Ram Rajya. You can neither beat up the farmers into submission, nor dismiss them as 'Khalistanis', asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year.
'Anantkumar Hegde will be pleased that those thousands who formed a long line to enter the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral on Christmas Eve night were both aware of their 'parentage' -- to use his insulting term -- and would describe themselves as Hindu,' says Rahul Jacob.
The legend of Virat Kohli grew exponentially with his clinical decimation of rivals in a year during which the Indian women's team finally found love and acceptance in the cricket-crazy nation after an emotionally charged World Cup While 'King Kohli' geared up for a watershed next 18 months after nine straight Test series wins, mostly at home, the last six months witnessed Mithali Raj turn from women's cricket team captain into a brand.
The star was chosen to deliver the Penguin Annual Lecture.
To look for lessons from Nehru's life to find a way out of the Congress' quagmire is probably futile, says Rahul Jacob
'I was told to go to the next room and strip -- that's when it really hits you for the first time... that you are a criminal and you are being treated like one.' 'It comes as a shock when, instead of your name, you hear, "Yeh naya Maowadi aaya hai (A new Maoist has arrived)".'
India's salvation lies in job creation by entrepreneurs, say Manish Sabharwal and Ashok Reddy.
In Shujaat Bukhari, Kashmir has lost a journalist, an activist, ambassador, a formidable voice and, above all, a great human being, mourns Athar Parvaiz.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's sage advice remains as relevant today as it was during his lifetime, says Vivek Gumaste.
'Will this communal pendulum, which is swinging towards the extreme of division and violence, ever swing back to its position of the '60s and '70s within my lifetime?' 'Or will my children, and their children, have to continue to suffer the consequences of the country, that we all love, torn apart along communal lines,' asks Najid Hussain in anguish.
'When it comes to national politics, the Modi-Shah BJP has successfully redefined secularism.' 'If a party like the Congress has to have a future, it has to move closer to the secular centre from the far Left where its Left infatuation during the UPA years dragged it,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'If Rahul wants to pick up the sacred thread where his 'daadi' left it, especially when the BJP, which reduced his party to 44 in 2014, claims monopoly over Hinduism, it's smart politics.' 'Why cede your Gods to your rival?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
Looking back, the Indians had rubbed their hands in delight at the variety of marquee events at home the sporting calendar of 2017 offered, and they now look forward, with optimism and anticipation, to a challenging 2018.
Compromise, constitutionality, pragmatism and self-respect. These were Mandela's leadership virtues. For countries such as India and South Africa, these are the qualities leaders must have, says Mihir S Sharma
The real danger in India is not majoritarianism but minorityism, a bane we have already experienced. Majoritarianism in the India context means plurality and tolerance. No one needs to fear, says Vivek Gumaste
As the 16th Indian parliamentary elections get underway, Vikas Lather profiles Sukumar Sen, India's first chief election commissioner.
Article 370 is a golden cage that keeps Kashmiris trapped in a stifling environment, deters other Indians from investing in the state perpetuating its economic penury and expressly hinders the understanding of India; all under the false premise of preserving a narrow parochial identity, says Vivek Gumaste.
Ironically, it was the members of the BJP (which the Indian press loves to dub as fascist) who resisted the assault on democracy and were jailed for 18 months. The RSS too played a stellar role in the resistance movement during the Emergency. Yet by some strange warped logic, the Indian media deems the Congress party with an established record of authoritarianism as a standard bearer of democracy while damning a true champion -- the BJP, says Vivek Gumaste
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