The President had been moved out of his residence on Friday, in anticipation of Saturday's protests.
'Whom do I want to marry and what decisions I make for marrying the person I love are totally personal decisions, in which neither the State nor the courts have any right to interfere.'
The West has always preferred a timid, half intelligent and a dependent India rather than a decisively independent and self-reliant one. A pliable Indian leadership suits the West best, says Tarun Vijay.
The foreign minister said he has other engagements in Bangladesh while the home minister cancelled the visit due to ongoing protests against CAB.
'He needs to control his foot soldiers by taking either stern action against the over enthusiastic members of his group or convince them to stop causing him this embarrassment.' 'We know that most of these leaders are not going to be prosecuted by Indian authorities. So we are seeking alternate means to bring them to justice,' FIACONA President John Prabhudoss tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com
A cartoon of Lord Ganesha depicting the tussle between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and Cricket South Africa has outraged South Africa's Hindu community, which termed it a denigration of their faith.
'Non-separation of religion from politics is India's most daunting challenge'
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
President Maithripala Sirisena's new Cabinet was also sworn in and Rajapaksa was named the new minister of finance and economic affairs.
The Tablighi Jamaat avoided confrontation, stayed clear of conversion of non-Muslims, abjured politics and focused only on religious attainment. >A fascinating excerpt from Ziya Us Salam's Inside The Tablighi Jamaat.
Pakistan's 'approach is one of getting even, an eye for an eye, or death by a thousand cuts.' 'The entire effort is to be the equal of India. Unfortunately, the reality is that this can never be the case.' 'India will always be the bigger, economically stronger, technologically more self-reliant country.' 'Therein, lies the dilemma Pakistan faces which leads it to perennial enmity with India,' notes Ambassador Gautam Bambawale in the Air Marshal Y V Malse Memorial Lecture 2019.
He, obviously, later said that his remarks had been interpreted out of context.
'This is a historic juncture when the US is in great need of an alliance with India to strengthen its hands in the fierce struggle with China in the Asian theatre,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Having a voice at the table means the other side has to show up to listen. It became clear that wouldn't happen,' says actor Maulik Pancholy, one of the 10 members who resigned from the US president's advisory commission on Asian Americans.
'His contributions in setting up transparent precedents of governance are still basically intact despite the cynicism of several of his successors,' notes Jamini Bhagwati.
Seven persons had been arrested in connection with the blasts.
While Congress criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government for being "insensitive", saying yoga, a great discipline of ancient India, does not belong to the saffron party, Janata Dal-United termed it as yet another attempt to "impose the communal agenda" on Indian masses.
The President talked about demonetisation, electoral reforms and disruptions in Parliament.
Shastri took the first big step to transform India's agriculture, the benefits of which his successors reaped in plenty, says A K Bhattacharya.
'We need to be in a perpetual state of aggression, and able to swiftly change the goal posts to keep Pakistan in a state of imbalance,' argues Sanjeev Nayyar.
'For a long time Pakistan dreamt that India would break up and that it would be the predominant power in the region,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'When he first came to office, my belief is that the PM's reading of the landscape was that, with a vanquished Congress and fragmented Opposition, he was looking at least at two terms in office. This reading perhaps allows for a more cautious, gradual approach.' 'It was only a matter of time before the government was forced to come face-to-face with a serious corruption scandal. This is not a commentary on the BJP, but a statement about India's political economy.' 'There is growing concern about the government's commitment to freedom of expression, religious tolerance, and an independent civil society. Thus far, the positive movement on strategic and economic matters has crowded out these concerns, but they are lingering beneath the surface.'
'When you see Modi standing there at the G20, or in New York or at the United Nations, amongst all the leaders, he stands out in the crowd.' 'He looks different, he sounds different, and he has something about his quality of presentation, his oratorical skills, which clearly set him apart from the crowd.' 'The relationship between Modi and the rest of the world and India and the rest of the world has been reset as a result of the election in 2014.'
'Many sepoys fought with distinction, winning some of the first Victoria Crosses to be awarded to Indians; and indeed, as in any army fighting under such inhumane conditions -- standing in the freezing sludge, with shrapnel tearing through bodies and being subjected to gas attacks -- some buckled under pressure.'
In Muthuvel Karunanidhi's passing, Tamil Nadu has lost the last of its Titans.
Muzzling NGOs is unbecoming of a democracy. Self-confident democracies encourage, indeed applaud, the involvement of citizens' associations, including NGOs, in social and political decision-making and development planning. Instead, our paranoid government bullies and terrorises them, says Praful Bidwai.
Transcript of the political resolution adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its national executive meeting in Panaji, Goa on Sunday.