'How can Hindus protest efforts to ban an edition of the Gita in parts of Russia, and force a publisher to withdraw an academic critique of Hinduism, all in the same breath? It makes the Hindu community seem petty, self-serving, and hypocritical. Episodes like this allow Hinduism to be "owned" by the most conservative, intolerant, extremist voices. These people do not speak for me, and they certainly don't represent the form of Hinduism I practice and love," Princeton University's Hindu chaplain Vineet Chander tells Rediff.com's Arthur J Pais.
This is the joint statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
In anticipation of a verdict to be delivered by the International Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Tuesday, China has orchestrated a worldwide campaign to defuse its findings.
Winners of the Stree Shakti Puruskars share their stories on how they are empowering women. Upasna Pandey/Rediff.com reports
The first woman chief justice of a state in India Leila Seth talks about her career and how she went on to fight male bias and discrimination.
Princess Shivranjani of Jodhpur is breathing new life into dead forts and quietly changing the house of Marwar.
'Modi's campaign has been strikingly devoid of anti-Muslim rhetoric. After the kutta pilla incident, it has been several months since he said something horrible about the Muslims of India. It is the result of democratic constraints. He has to make compromises... He's trying to reinvent himself. He will politically hurt himself if 2002 becomes the definition of Mr Modi again', says political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
Purvi Patel is the first woman in America to be sentenced to prison for foeticide. Chaya Babu/Rediff.com reports on the verdict and the ripples of shock and fear it set off.
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.
We present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's full speech as he addressed the country on the occasion of 66th Independence Day, from Red Fort, Delhi.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, while addressing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on "Recapturing India's Growth Momentum" in Washington on Thursday, said that the leading think tank need not launch an initiative to explore how India will vote in 2014, declaring that the Indian polity will vote the Congress back into power.
'J&K continues to have the highest concentration of military personnel anywhere in the world and the alienation of the Kashmiri has increased in the last ten years than ever before.'
'Put cricket, first and foremost, at the centre of every decision you take.' 'The bottom line must always be the sport that we love.' Rahul Dravid as eloquent as always in his M A K Pataudi Memorial Lecture.
The entire selection process of the IOC chairman was shrouded in mediocrity and mystery.
'The unique achievements have been made by engineers from small towns who have had a non elite upbringing and who have grown with the programme,' says R Aravamudan, one of the pioneers of the Indian space programme.
Full text of Rahul Dravid's Pataudi Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.