'Some Indians take the extreme view that everything was known to our ancients, but others go to the opposite extreme and consider everything Indian was superstition and rubbish.' 'Indian science was perhaps more rational than the European science of the time.'
'The Congress-JD-S alliance will be intact for the next three years, for sure.'
'The India-Canada relationship has suffered benign neglect. Its full potential has not yet been realised,' says Rup Narayan Das.
India has suffered the brunt of terrorism, including that of the cross-border variety, he said.
"Reform is not an end in itself. Reform for me is just a way station on the long journey to the destination. The destination is the transformation of India," he said.
'Learning by doing is in our genes.' 'We are applying the wrong method by making our children sit in a classroom for eight hours, listening to someone talk.'
'For years, the RBI has been warning banks on probable frauds in bank guarantees and advised them to exercise due care.' 'PSB staffers feel their jobs are secured, hence there is no need to be vigilant and exercise financial prudence.'
Successor Anandiben Patel isn't having an easy time, with a protest movement by her own community and new challenges in keeping the mandate
'It should be of concern that some youth in Kashmir have started raising Daesh flags along with those of Pakistan.'
In this May 2014 interview with Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com, the politically conscious Karnad spoke of why he is concerned about Modi coming to power.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
Chinese observers believe the Sino-US relationship will be impacted by issues in North Korea, Japan, India, Ukraine and Iran and that conflicts with these 'third parties' will without exception ultimately become conflicts between China and the US, points out former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
'If credit is not available, people will postpone buying. That's what has happened.'
'India had nothing to gain by the talks except for some brownie points from the US for being reasonable. Pakistan desperately needed the talks to get arms and money from the Americans,' says T P Sreenivasan.
Exemptions, and the fact that farm income is outside the tax net, ensure that India's tax-GDP ratio stays low.
Private firms' offer to print Aadhaar details on plastic card a breach of law
'Most likely scenario is Modi comes back with either a much smaller majority and no majority at all and a coalition.' 'Very hard to imagine him doing better than he did last time.' 'He will then be a weaker prime minister,' the author of The Billionaire Raj tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College at Tilonia in Rajasthan, was awarded the Clinton Global Citizen Award at a ceremony in New York on September 25.
Commercial banks are also expected to be soft on loan repayments and restructure the loans, if not write them off.
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 SP-BSP have almost come to an understanding that the BSP will take the larger share of parliamentary seats and take care of national politics.' 'The SP in future assembly elections will take larger seats and take care of state politics.'
No one really knows what proportion of the nation's wealth and income are available for defence
'We know each other for quite some time.' 'He could provide stability to the country for five years.' 'But he could not provide confidence to the countrymen that he is our leader.'
"Terrorism is an enemy of the basic human rights: of life, peace and prosperity," Swaraj said.
'Let me talk about young Indian startups with their hearts in the right place and how they are proving that innovations that represent 'affordable excellence' -- breaking the myth that 'affordability' and 'excellence' cannot go together -- is indeed possible!' says Dr R A Mashelkar, the eminent scientist, in this fascinating feature.
India said it is committed to building up Indian Ocean Rim Association in line with its own expanding bilateral ties with the members of the grouping.
'The army has been open about its determination to keep the PML-Nawaz out of power at all costs.' 'Both the military and the higher judiciary have indicated a preference for Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik e Insaaf,' says Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan Desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
Swaraj emphasised that the UN must accept it needs fundamental reform.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif continues his exhortation for US mediation in Kashmir, and harks back to his meeting with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when the latter had agreed to a resolution of Kashmir imbroglio; senior us officials assert there is 'absolutely no change in us policy' that Kashmir has to be resolved bilaterally. Aziz Haniffa reports.
The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance. This plurality of our society has come through assimilation of ideas over centuries. Secularism and inclusion are a matter of faith for us. It is our composite culture which makes us into one nation.
The niche banks - small finance and payments banks -have been set up to further the regulator's objective of deepening financial inclusion.
The notes argue that it will widen the talent base available to govt to deliver increasingly complex services to a demanding population.
Corporate affairs ministry sending notices seeking details of fund disbursal
Can we make high speed 4G Internet available at 10 cents per GB, and make all voice calls free of cost -- that too in a large and diverse country like India? Can we make high-quality but simple breast cancer screening available to every woman, that too at the extremely affordable cost of $1 per scan? Can we make a portable, high-tech ECG machine which can provide reports immediately and that too at the cost of 8 cents a test? Can we make an eye imaging device that is portable, non-invasive and costs 3 times less that conventional devices? Can we make a robust test for mosquito-borne dengue, which can detect the disease on day 1, and that too at the cost of $2 per test? Amazingly, says Dr R A Mashelkar, the eminent scientist, all this has been achieved in India, not only by using technological innovation but also non-technological innovation.
'Since Modi is walking a tightrope between two worlds -- one of the saffron brotherhood and the other of the proposed smart cities and bullet trains -- it is understandable why he is averse to scrutiny lest he loses his balance by tilting too heavily on one side or the other. But, why has Sonia Gandhi acquired the reputation of a sphinx,' asks Amulya Ganguli.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday stepped into the raging debate on intolerance by condemning the murders of dissenters and some on the basis of what they eat and said the nation is deeply concerned at the "blatant violation" of the right to freedom of thought, belief and speech by some violent extremist groups.
Amid a raging debate over intolerance, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday deplored "blatant violation" of the right to freedom of thought by "some violent extremist groups" and shared the view that it was an "assault on the nation".
Did you know that employers have to pay equal remuneration to its male and female employees who are carrying out the same or similar work?
Nothing, according to Deepak Lal. He argues that the contemporary attempts to control immigration in the US and UK are not nativist.
We're behaving like frogs in warm water. We swim around untroubled, cooled by our faith in Indian liberal democracy. We are blind to the bubbles popping around us, the bubbles warning of fundamental changes, says Mihir S Sharma.
