Former chief information commissioner Satyananda Mishra says the Supreme Court order to frame guidelines for civil servants to insulate them from political interference is a mere elaboration of reports of committees constituted by the central government.
'The SIT did not follow up with the CD of the phone call recordings that could have helped it find who were leading the mobs and where the calls of people involved in the rioting originated from and terminated.'
'This evidence is important to solve the dispute.'
'Valmiki has not written anything about Hanuman's caste.' 'I want to clarify that Hanuman was not a Vanar, but an Adivasi.'
'The Afghans used to say that if there is any person whose name should be taken after Allah, it is Hindustani.'
Naresh Chandra, former cabinet secretary, diplomat and well-known strategic thinker, tries to explain what the Modi government is up to and assesses what will work and what may not work and why. He spoke to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com, also, on diplomatic issues.
Modi said his government is committed to ensuring probity among public servants.
'Chandra Shekhar used to say that some people may oppose such a decision from their mouth, but all will accept it from their heart as the best solution to the dispute.'
'They asked me if I was a devout Muslim and if I could recite the Kalma.' Flying Officer Jawahar Lal Bhargava knew his game was up. 'They threatened me with dire consequences if I didn't tell the truth.'
For two decades after his release in exchange for passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999, Azhar has since been the darling of Pakistan's external snooping agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
Rahul Kulkarni, journalist with a Marathi news channel, was arrested by Mumbai Police on Wednesday, a day after several migrant workers gathered near Bandra station in Mumbai demanding that they be sent back to their home towns.
Top Lashkar-e-Tayiba bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda told interrogators that he had come in contact with Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence after meeting former ISI Chief Hamid Gul in 1995 and was in constant touch with him thereafter.
'The Chinese -- up to the highest leadership -- will avoid a conflict because they know they will be badly licked.' 'The reputation they have painstakingly built over the last two-three decades of being a global power will be destroyed.'
The Supreme Court needs to step in and order an independent inquiry into the whole IPL scandal, conflicts of interest between office-holders of the BCCI, team-owners of the IPL and even members and captain of the Indian team, says KC Singh
Rajiv Chandrashekhar, Rajya Sabha MP, explains that the argument that other government servants are eligible for OROP is incorrect and the comparison is laughable.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday said the National Population Register and the National Register of Citizens were against the poor people and minorities of the country, while asserting that he will not fill up the NPR form. Addressing a press conference at the Samajwadi Party headquarters, he said, "Be it the NPR or the NRC, these are against the poor people, minorities and Muslims of the country."
India's national security strategy needs to be revised periodically since the global and regional geopolitical situation is dynamic, points out Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Protesting ex-servicemen allege they were manhandled by the Delhi police
In this weekly self-help series, mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
In a communication sent to Kumar, the EC asked him to be cautious in future while making statements.
In this weekly self-help series, mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
'Political parties have appropriated our military victories -- the Kargil war is the BJP's and the Bangladesh war is the Congress's -- what is going on?' As Uttarakhand -- where faujis number nearly 40% of the state's population -- prepares to vote, Rediff.com's Archana Masih discovers what upsets retired soldiers in Uttarakhand the most is a forgotten protest in the heart of Delhi.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson led the tributes with UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street for the National Health Service (NHS) and other key workers across care homes and public transport at 11 am local time. So far 82 NHS staff are known to have died after testing positive for the coronavirus, including many with their roots in India.
'Amid the different versions of truth on the Ishrat case, what is certain is that Ishrat's mother Shamima Kausar, who has continued to maintain that Headley's confession was nothing but an attempt by powerful people to save themselves in the case, is unlikely to find a closure anytime soon.'
'There were tears in my eyes when I parted with my medals. I thought was it for this moment did I become a soldier?' In 2008, Captain H Balakrishnan (retd) of the Indian Navy returned all his medals to the President of India to protest the government's failure to implement the One Rank One Pension scheme.
'The political leadership is not realising that it is dividing the uniform on the lines of religion.' 'This will lead to anarchy.'
'... the government provides adequate cash and kind support for the poorest of the poor for survival... ...conditional cash and skilling support for the economically poor to raise their incomes to adequate levels... ...and make functional arrangements for providing unemployment allowance to the vulnerable poor during disasters like the present one.'
'If Indian armed forces entered Pakistan and succeeded in inflicting major damage on the Pakistani army and occupied territory in the Pakistani heartland, there is reason to think the Pakistani military would use some nuclear weapons against the incoming Indian forces to compel India to stop.'
'The downslide has been rapid leading up to the number one and number two of the organisation flinging against each other horrendous accusations of bribery and tampering with investigations for personal gain, and the latest petition to the Supreme Court by the joint director of the CBI, M K Sinha, opening a veritable Pandora's Box of repulsive skeletons,' notes B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant who witnessed the CBI's birth.
Prasad, a 1983 batch IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, was due to retire on May 31. The government has recently appointed Maharashtra cadre IAS officer Bipin Bihari Mallick as his replacement.
'His essential doctrine was only the local police can fight terror.' '"You can't fire at mobs throwing stones," he said, adding one has to think innovatively, even defensively, sometimes.' Shekhar Gupta remembers the uncoventional SuperCop.
In this weekly self-help series, mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
One would not think that a Facebook status or a tweet could land you in jail, at least not in India -- the world's largest democracy. However, the reality is a lot more brutal in India, which has a shameful history of locking up its citizens for dissenting viewpoints. According to Mint, at least 50 people have been arrested through 2017 and 2018 for posts on social media. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com presents some of the most prominent cases.
'How many Indian parents, still alive, really have documents of, their parents's date and place of birth? Not more than 27% of still alive Indians have got birth certificates,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
Indrani exclaimed excitedly, her face lighting up like a little girl's: "I know him soo0o well." Sanjeev Khanna, Accused No 2, jokingly suggested to Badami: "Influencing the witness!" Badami retorted good humouredly: "She can't influence witnesses. She can only influence you and Peter."
Sarmesh Kumar is the first in his family, that comes from the community of rat eaters, to go to college. Archana Masih/Rediff.com met the young man and traveled to his village -- which Bill Gates visited a few years ago -- as Rediff.com looks at Bihar through the stories of its people.
Rediff.com's Indrani Dey digs up chilling details of the ongoing investigation in the Bardhaman blast case, which exposed the a militant network that had been operating in West Bengal since many years.
Former Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence boss Hamid Gul was brought under the radar on Monday by the Delhi police after arrested Lashkar-e-Tayiba 'bomb expert' Abdul Karim Tunda revealed that he was in touch with him.
'These ISIS terrorists want to smash Western civilisation, smash India. For the time being though, their main target would be the US and Europe.'
The Indian Spring represented by Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign, which has culminated in the Aam Aadmi Party's impressive electoral debut in New Delhi, began around the same time as the Arab Spring in 2011 but they led to different outcomes in India and the Arab world, says Ramesh Ramachandran.
