Invoking the legacy of B R Ambedkar on the eve of the first phase of Bihar polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday categorically ruled out scrapping the reservation system and assailed "a group of liars" for the false propaganda that it is under threat.
China on Tuesday said that the Dalai Lama can improve ties with it only by giving up wish for Tibetan independence and publicly announcing that Tibet is an inalienable part of the country.
In a candid conversation Indrani Mitra, educationist Sunanda Sanyal explains why many intellectuals like him are disillusioned with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
In a strong warning to those disrupting border peace, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said the country will not hesitate in retaliating if someone fires first and asserted the government is ready to talk to Pakistan over PoK and not Kashmir.
The newly-formed common forum of Northeast insurgent groups based in Myanmar has posed a renewed threat to security and peace in the troubled region.
As Modi completes a year in office, his cuts in federal welfare spending on the poorest of India's 1.25 bn people are coming in for sharp criticism.
More than two decades after the then Janata Dal disintegrated, six of its constituents merged on Wednesday to form a new party which will be headed by Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav celebrated his 75th birthday by cutting a 75-foot-long cake at midnight at a grand event in Rampur.
A 75-year-old Indian-origin Maoist cult leader was on Friday found guilty of rape, child cruelty and falsely imprisoning his daughter for 30 years by a British court.
'It will be interesting to see how Dr Patel handles gadflies with the maturity of egregiously petulant three year olds.' 'That Dr Patel does not, in so far as we can tell, cause society matrons to gush like hormonal teenagers can only be a good thing for him.' 'Look where their febrile imaginations and breathless prose took his predecessor.'
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
"We are actually shocked. The prime minister did not even take into confidence chief ministers of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, who are directly affected. Here is another show of arrogance of this government," Gandhi told media persons.
'I served the Indian Army and I am an ex-serviceman.' 'I look at this as a battle I am fighting after I left the army.' 'I will not leave till I get her back as my daughter Akhila, and I believe it will happen one day.'
This Budget signals a shift from a hand-out to a hand-up economy.
Xi, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, called the progress China had made under his watch "truly remarkable
Swaraj also called on Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw and held discussions with him on issues of mutual interest.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the 'Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana' on Saturday, an ambitious village development project under which each MP will take the responsibility of developing physical and institutional infrastructure in three villages by 2019.
In the event of a triangular contest the winning party will need about 40 per cent of the votes polled. And it is here that the votes of the numerically smaller communities will come into play.
''We have a very difficult period ahead of us.' 'Fortunately we have a popular government and a popular leader who is ideally placed to take us into confidence,' says Aakar Patel.
In a boost to the United Democratic Front ahead of assembly polls in Kerala next year, the Congress candidate K S Sabarinadhan on Tuesday won the Aruvikkara assembly by-poll by a margin of 10,128 votes defeating his nearest rival M Vijayakumar of the Opposition Left Democratic Front.
The need for co-ordinated policy between Centre and states was likewise foreseen and assigned.
Brushing aside opposition from the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam and other parties in Tamil Nadu, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa but did not give him any assurance on which way India will vote on a the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution for an independent international probe into rights abuses during the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Rediff.com tries to recap the debate and presents the highlights from the event.
Critics say Modi scores high on oratory but has delivered on few of his election campaign promises.
Vice President Hamid Ansari said that there is no shift in India's foreign policy and asserted that it is participation that matters as it is "not a conference of Prime Ministers".
Voted to power with an absolute majority for the first time in nearly three decades, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, considered as an able administrator, promises "a fresh engagement" with the United States, a latest Congressional report has said.
Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been trying to shrug off the 'communal' tag, has fielded nearly 40 per cent Muslim candidates in Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls under its ambitious 'Mission 44 plus' to wrest power in the state.
'You can never say never in politics.' 'We may still see the return of AAP, but hopefully not of the same abusive politics again,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Much of the Socialism that we attribute to him actually came during Indira Gandhi's time,' says M J Akbar who believes that Nehru's convictions helped shape modern India.
Criticising various provisions in the proposed GST regime, Moily said it will be a "technological nightmare" and the anti-profiteering provisions in it are "far too draconian."
'Is Xi's China stable?'
'No one can say whether the regime will fall all at once or if its leaders are devising a new solid and competitive -- anything but democratic -- model.' A fascinating excerpt from Francois Bougon's Inside The Mind of Xi Jinping.
At these 'relief camps' people had nothing to sleep on except for a piece of cloth and men and women, boys and girls all cramped together. Factor in the fact that Kakching in the 2011 census had a population of 28,746 people and that about 90 per cent of that population has been affected by the floods now, and one can work the math of the crisis at hand.
Rijiju said the central government will rehabilitate all Indian citizens in the Naga group if they abjure violence.
'My heart weeps for Vajpayee, the prince among poets, the king among politicians and the emperor among statesmen,' says Sudhir Bisht.
'As he has no executive track record, so far, he is all talk and hence essentially a braggart and a bigot.' 'That he is described as the 'Trump of the tropics' should give a shorthand summary to what he stands for on issues in general,' points out Ambassador B S Prakash, India's former envoy to Brazil.
I am sad Kundan Shah is no more. I am sad he couldn't make the kind of films he wanted. But I am also grateful. He made me laugh. He made me cry. He made me believe in Hum Honge Kamyab and the power of a shooting star. Sukanya Verma salutes Kundan Shah.
'If you put colour-coded internal security maps of India in May 2014 and now, the picture won't be flattering to Modi.' 'Failures on internal security are now piling up and can break Modi's momentum,' says Shekhar Gupta.
In the Inner Manipur constituency, which goes to the polls on Thursday, the Communist Party of India candidate is backed by the Bahujan Samaj Party, Shiv Sena, et al. Nitin Sethi reports
Although India has sought inputs from the Myanmar army since most of those involved in Thursday's ambush would have sneaked across into Myanmar, the fresh operations would smoke out insurgents based in hideouts on the Indian side along the border.
A towering figure in the world of letters, Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy, who died in Bangalore on Friday, was modern in his sensibilities and intellectual underpinnings in his literary works questioned many deeply-held beliefs.
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