India in the last five-seven years did not do as well as it could to push progress.
Historian Stanley Wolpert, author of several books on India, passed into the ages recently. We remember Professor Wolpert with Rajeev Srinivasan's March 1997 interview published on the occasion of his controversial book on Jawaharlal Nehru.
'...Unless we muck up our policies.' 'We have to become a modernised economy.' 'Our institutions should be stronger. And that is most important.' 'The rule of law should prevail and contracts should be enforced.' 'Above all, we have to recognise the importance of globalisation.' 'It is in our favour at this stage. We should grow and become globally competitive.'
'Headley's confirmation of certain aspects of the conspiracy, its planning and what his role was will definitely matter.'
'Pakistan may feel emboldened to give an upswing to the proxy war in J&K, having secured a better international consensus on its strategic importance.' 'The raising of Pakistani flags by separatists in J&K is an attempt to win psychological space and more of this can be expected as we go into the summer.' 'Pakistan should remain warned that pushing India on this issue will be dangerous.'
Tripura's popular chief minister shows up the failures of the elitist central leadership of India's Left, says Devesh Kapur
'The default by the State or its agents in terms of deprivation, exclusion and discrimination (including failure to provide security) is to be corrected by the State; this needs to be done at the earliest and appropriate instruments developed for it.'
Rahul Gandhi thinks his imaginary Congress is the silver bullet; Narendra Modi thinks he himself is the silver bullet; Arvind Kejriwal seems to think that neighbourhood councils are a silver bullet. But none of them is right, says Mihir S Sharma.
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.
Hindu-American Congresswon Tulsi Gabbard coasts to a rollicking re-election victory in in Hawaii's 2nd District
In a stellar performance, Indian American US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy took on one critic after another at the Senate confirmation hearing. Aziz Haniffa reports.
Moving ahead with their new mantra -- Chalein Saath Saath: Forward Together We Go -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to deepen cooperation in every sector for the benefit of global stability and people's livelihoods over the next ten years.
A chemical engineer, Anirudh gave up his high-paying job to work for welfare of farmers in Tamil Nadu.
'An America at war with itself, groaning under a mounting debt, with woolly-headed economic policies of a neophyte president who is more feared and suspected among the comity of nations does not augur well for the world.' 'It would be well justified in asking,' says Shreekant Sambrani, '"Is this how you expect to make America great again, Mr President?"'
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list is harder to get into than Stanford or Harvard University. Meet the desis who made the cut this year.
'It is in the interest of both sides that the visit of the US President is seen as being successful. Both sides have invested considerable political capital in it. This rapid exchange of visits and the decisions taken have to be justified, beyond the symbolism, which is no doubt important in itself. This opportunity to impart a fresh momentum to ties should not be missed,' says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
A K Bhattacharya digs into the yet-to-be-public report on ways to curb black money and finds out that Modi's next moves could include action on dabba trading, hawala, and education.
'Happily,' says Ambassador B S Prakash, 'BRICS displayed new-found energy and built something real, a bank. Between needless nihilism and as yet unjustified euphoria, there are many stations for the BRICS train and we can watch its progress with renewed interest.'
'No other terror organisation has valued popular consensus as the Islamic State does -- instead of repressing people, IS wants to gain their support. This is a major innovation in terrorism,' says terrorism expert and author Dr Loretta Napoleoni in an interview to Archana Masih and Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
2014 will be a watershed election. Much is at stake and much needs to be changed. Women need their voice to be heard and they need representation with real power, says Sunanda Vashist.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's opinion piece in Canada's The Globe and Mail focuses on commercial cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector.
'The continuing crisis in agriculture, the inability of successive governments to provide secure jobs to millions of youths having varying degrees of skills, and fragmentation of politics have created a sense of despondency.'
'I think governments -- whether this one or the ones earlier -- have not understood the strength of the Indian Railways... that it can easily add 2.5 per cent to GDP.'
It is rare for communal riots to spread to rural areas. The UP riot is the first time after the September 1969 Gujarat riots that a rural area have been affected. Electoral politics which divide society in majority/minority, going on since the early 1990s, is a major contributing factor to this heightened tension between communities, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale in the first of a two part series.
Natwar Singh's book is un-illuminating, largely self-justificatory, often contradictory, and at times tendentious. He is too preoccupied with depicting himself as a victim of the Congress party's machinations, says Praful Bidwai.
The following is the full text of US President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of the Congress on February 28, as prepared for delivery and released by the White House press office.
'As of now, it seems like they want to tread the Vajpayee line, but the central government has to create trust.' 'It has to be vibrant and unambiguous.'
The average land given to the rural landless is small and falling, from 0.95 acres in 2002 to 0.88 acres in 2015 - a 7.4 per cent drop over 13 years-and a slowdown is evident in the process of taking land away from rich landlords, the RTI data reveal.
P K Nair dedicated his life to restoring and archiving films.
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
'Those who follow the workings of the establishment believe that Indian diplomacy has managed more by the individual flair and brilliance of a few individuals than its systemic strength or organisational excellence.'
Why Dalit leaders cross over to the BJP
India has reached a significant milestone on Friday (November 28) by achieving Rs 100 lakh crore or 100 trillion market cap.
'...But my strong suit will not be dancing,' Kal Penn tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com, in the concluding part of the interview.
We should be prepared for a phase of increased tensions in India-Pakistan relationship thanks to the evolving situation in Afghanistan, says Shyam Saran.
Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar examines why India's southern states register more suicides than the northern states. Shobha Warrier reports
'Growth is predicated on the misery of large sections of people.' 'Maybe Hindutva will be used to suppress any such unrest.'
This is the joint statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gone to China with a bagful of initiatives, but not all seems to have been fulfilled given China's reluctance to go the whole hog with him
'The India-France relationship has been that of the elites of two countries, who appreciate each other's philosophical traditions -- whether it is ancient Indian civilisation and Sanskrit texts or the French tradition of Rene Descartes, Albert Camus, (Jean-Paul) Sartre... This is a drawback. It doesn't create the buzz, the excitement necessary for a relationship. We need more people-to-people contact, especially among students,' says former Ambassador to Paris, Rakesh Sood.
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