Today humanity is churning the ocean with a thoughtless vengeance -- with toxic wastes, plastics and hazardous substances being dumped into our once pristine seas. And there is no benign Lord Shiva to rescue us from our collective greed, says Shyam Saran.
Lieutenant General J F R Jacob, Chief of Staff, Eastern Army Command during the 1971 war, reveals how, armed with only a draft surrender document and an aide, he made the Pakistani army led by Lieutenant General A A K Niazi surrender.
'Who would have thought that Brexit would take place or Donald Trump would become US president or Kim Jong-un's madness could bring the prospect of nuclear war over Asia?' 'It is the time of the unexpected; the French elections should perhaps be seen in this perspective,' says Claude Arpi.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United States President Barack Obama will meet in Washington on Thursday to chart a course for "future cooperation" in areas such as civil nuclear technology, trade, investment, defence and counter-terrorism, amid perceptions that bilateral strategic ties have plateaued.
General Bajwa, who commanded the 10 Corps that looks after Pakistan's border with India, is unlikely to change his army's and nation's policy on Kashmir,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India is all set for a mega Yoga event on June 21. But before that watch these Yoga moves played out in the most 'out there' of locations.
'If Rao had, in fact, given a word to President Clinton in 1994 that India would not test, he would not have encouraged Vajpayee to test. The note, said to have been handed over to Vajpayee by Rao with the words, 'Now is the time to accomplish my unfinished task' may not have been a reference to nuclear tests at all,' says T P Sreenivasan.
A Ganesh Nadar meets a community of Rohingya refugees on the outskirts of Chennai who are happy to have found a place where their lives are not in danger.
'At the very end of his speech, he dealt with the 'small problems' of Indian workers. But these measures did not seem to satisfy those who had expected the prime minister to find solutions for their problems. That the prime minister generally focused on broad policy issues and not on matters of detail left them bewildered,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Attempts at long-term rapprochement have been rather feeble from both sides. The primary cause of the lack of progress is that these efforts do not appear to have the support of the Pakistan army,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Immediately after India launched its surgical strikes, sources said, it had informed the US of its action.
'The interests of the United States and India are sharply aligned on the issue of Pakistan-based terrorism.'
Rediff.com digs into Parliamentary archives to gauge how the government has responded on the issue.
As many as 29 people have been injured in an explosion that rocked New York's busy and upscale neighbourhood also frequented by tourists, authorities said about the "intentional act", hours before world leaders arrive in the city for the high-level UN General Assembly session.
A national cyber crime and coordination centre meant to fend off such attacks is still awaiting approval
Ties with Pakistan and China which were on the centre stage of Indian diplomacy saw a "deterioration" in the year gone by, according to foreign policy experts who feel that the relationships are unlikely to see any forward movement in the new year.
21st century may have witnessed expansion of higher educational institutions, but who can afford it? Sushree Panigrahi & Jeet Singh look at the numbers.
The various meat bans across the country are an attempt to attack civil liberties, says civil rights activist Kavita Srivastava.
We need to know that the sources of pollution and the action to be taken are known. But what is needed is to act. Plain and simple. So, focus, on each source and each action; who has to do what and by when
Since the US, the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, has shifted in a major way to shale gas, the focus of global environmentalists' ire has fallen on India, which is the third biggest emitter, reports Darryl D'Monte.
'In the name of pluralism-secularism, the kind of politics that was pursued revealed to many that it was basically a favour to Muslim conservatism and communalism -- a politics of minority-ism, rather than of secularism.' 'This is how significant sections of Hindus have been made to loathe the very idea of Indian secularism by now,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Son of a mechanic from the Public Works Department, Ayush Sharma has not only won admission to the undergraduate programme at the prestigious American university, but also a full tuition waiver.
'They must take the bull of conservatism within their own ranks by its horns as much as they need to speak out against the fallacies of the non-Hindutva (or 'Muslim-friendly') political forces as well,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
The BRICS summit made clear that China's support for Pakistan is unwavering. China will continue to pressure India to ease tensions with Pakistan and resolve the Kashmir dispute.
Benchmark indices finished higher on hopes of economic reforms
"We often thought of terrorism as a peripheral problem for this region. The barbaric terrorist strikes in Paris, Ankara, Beirut, Mali and on the Russian aircraft is a stark reminder that its shadow stretches across our societies and our world, both in recruitment and choice of targets," Modi said in his remarks at the East Asia Summit.
'The Kashmiri wants freedom, the dignity that comes from it and the intellectual versatility that flows from the combination of the two,' says political historian Siddiq Wahid.
'If, as appears to be the case, India is on way to 'mending fences' with China, and China is equally desirous to 'reset' the relationship, this could be a self-reflexive moment in India's positioning vis-a-vis not just the Dalai Lama, but also the Tibetan issue and China as a whole,' points out China expert Alka Acharya.
India's neglect of villages shows up in many other ways.
Who were they? What led them to mass murder?
Trump's diatribe against India in his speech on the Paris Agreement is hard to explain, especially when a Modi-Trump meeting is supposedly on the cards, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Abstaining from voting on a UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka was dictated as much by necessity and self-preservation as by a desire to place bilateralism at the front and centre of New Delhi's ties with Colombo, says Ramesh Ramachandran.
Forty Indian in the in violence-hit Iraqi city of Mosul could not be contacted, the external affairs ministry said on Wednesday amid reports of abduction.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Tanzania where he held talks with Tanzanian President John Pombe Joseph Magufuli.
Some of these will make you chuckle.
20 years ago this day, May 11, 1998, India conducted its second nuclear test at Pokharan in Rajasthan. In a fascinating interview on Rediff.com, K Subrahmanyam revealed how Indian PMs reacted to nuclear ambitions.
Rescue teams from India and 33 other countries were on Saturday asked by Nepal to leave as it prepared to launch massive operations to rehabilitate millions of uprooted victims of the devastating temblor that has killed at least 7,365 people, including 41 Indians.
Ten-time Everest summiteer Tendi Sherpa tells Rediff.com contributor Anusha Subramanian why he cancelled his international climbing assignments to be with his community in the worst affected districts of earthquake hit Nepal.
'The irresistible Cuban cigars, which acquire their unique flavour as they are rolled on the thighs of Cuban women, have always been the ultimate temptation for cigar connoisseurs in the US.'
The declaration also names Pak-based terror groups like LeT and JeM.
