'Urbanisation results in heavy rainfall events.'
Finance Minister P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan has proclaimed his determination to set Tamil Nadu's fiscal house in order in five years, and Friday will show how he plans to go about it when he rises to present the Stalin government's maiden budget, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
The current crisis Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is facing is a cumulative effect of inattention to water management and the fiscal burden of populist promises, says Aditi Phadnis.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded to President Pranab Mukherjee's address in Parliament, saying that his government will fulfill the promises made in the speech. Rediff.com brings you some of the highlights of the speech.
'Modi is still immensely popular and, therefore, he can sustain any number of policy failures.' 'Modi himself has worn multiple faces so it would be naive to think that the Modi of 2021 will be the same Modi that will be campaigning for re-election in 2024.'
Two Americans, Diana Jue and Jackie Stenson, are living their dreams in India's rural heartlands...
'Having learnt her lesson in popular democracy, Jaya would become more populist than the DMK and more so than the imagery that mentor MGR had created in the Tamil voter's mind, both as an individual and as an elected ruler.'
Earlier, The Nitish Kumar government had banned sale and consumption of country and spiced liquor in rural areas from April 1 this year, but had allowed sale of foreign liquor in towns and cities.
He's promoting khadi through his swadesi clothing brand.
De-scaling of businesses, job losses and subsequent impact on disposable incomes has created negative sentiment among traders, business owners and workers alike, says Abhishek Waghmare.
In their first eight days on the job, the Irula tribesmen -- world-renowned snake catchers from India -- removed 13 pythons, including four on their first visit to Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge on North Key Largo in partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Over 3,500 police personnel have deployed as the farmers began their march from the Ramlila Maidan to Parliament at 10.30 am.
'He came back from the US only to work for his country.' 'He has invested his fortunes to build this company and is married to his work.' 'Rarely does one see such commitment.'
Start-ups in the information technology domain are quite common these days. But three young entrepreneurs have ventured into a comparatively lesser known area of food: snacks. Arul Murugan, co-founder, Chloroplast Foods, tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com, how he is bootstrapping his start-up.
The Gujarat government believe it can usefully utilise its 1,600-km coast for cultivating more coconuts in the coming years.
'The corporate sector says by 2022 they will create 300 million jobs.' 'In the last 70 years we didn't do it, how will we do it in 5 years?' 'Only agriculture can bail out the economy. Unfortunately, it is not being looked into.'
The two-day rally will be one of the largest congregations of farmers in Delhi, the AIKSCC has claimed.
'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
President Pranab Mukherjee presented five Padma Vibhushan, eight Padma Bhushan and forty-three Padma Shri awards at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
The ruling AIADMK is leaving no stone unturned to win the Vellore Lok Sabha poll and push its tally to two in the state, with its candidate even donning the skull cap to woo minority votes. But the DMK's stars are clearly on the ascendant in the lone constituency that goes to the polls on August 5. A Ganesh Nadar reports.
'Every person has two identities in India, that of his caste and nation.' 'It is understandable in a multi-caste, multi-religious society and I don't mind this.' 'What I mind is the State has failed in doing enough to melt these two identities in such a way that everybody has access to citizenship which is more important than your caste.' 'That is why people remain in the narrow identities of his caste or religion.'
A mix of industrialists and businessmen, who have inherited riches or rose from humble backgrounds and even endured boom and bust cycles, the top five MPs are illustrative of how the political stock of the wealthy is increasing rapidly.
India's per capita GDP of $5,238 in 2013 was 65 per cent lower than Iran, 54 per cent lower than Maldives, 44 per cent lower than Sri Lanka and 27 per cent lower than Bhutan, according to the Human Development Report 2015
Infrastructure stocks are once again gaining traction.
'Only the smoke is coming out now. Let us prevent the lava from coming out by taking proper measures.' 'I have told every leader that you cannot have a stable government without winning the confidence of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and the most backward castes.' 'Leaders feel that by giving a sop here and there and by symbolic actions, they can win votes. That's all they want. Votes.'
Beyond the macro data, there has been little enquiry into the profile of the indebted farmer households, says Shailesh Dobhal.
She is the first woman lawyer to enter the top judiciary directly.
The panel will also recommend a fiscal consolidation road map for the central and state governments, study the impact of GST on the divisible pool, and propose performance-based incentives for states.
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.
It is important to approach the belief of people in ancient India's achievements with a sense of proportion, balance and empathy, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'If majority of the country's population is sentimental about a certain species, why are we so ashamed to say that we want to give it statutory protection?'
Smaller cities like Pune and Noida score better than 'Vibrant' Gujarat's Ahmedabad.
The Unnao gold hunt is an exercise in softening Hindu sentiments in the bigger dig for votes in Uttar Pradesh in 2014
'The strategies outlined in Jaitley's Budget won't create the millions of jobs needed to dispel the despair and cynicism of militant youth in the Red Corridor running from Nepal to Tamil Nadu.'
'New Delhi and Washington are now on the same page, on dealing with growing Chinese assertiveness, across the entire Indo-Pacific region,' notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, Chancellor, Central University of Jammu.
Naidu was an ABVP activist during the Emergency and was arrested and jailed.
Having made farmer suicides a campaign issue, Modi and the BJP should have no complaints in now having to live with it, says Aakar Patel.
'Khadi is my passion. The only idea behind this start up is to promote and popularise khadi.'
'With the largest number of malnourished people on the planet, India is poised to be a nation that significantly under-performs as an economy.'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances