'We should not use and confuse the word Right to define Hindutva.' 'Doing so blurs the issue because it gives the BJP attributes that it does not have and does not even want,' says Aakar Patel.
In a background briefing arranged by the Prime Minister's Office, a government official last week suggested that Atwal's presence was arranged by "factions within the Indian government who want to prevent Prime Minister Narendra Modi from getting too cosy with a foreign government they believe is not committed to a united India," the paper said.
The government is by far the largest employer; job security is guaranteed for government employees, and their wages are set through once-in-10-year Pay Commission.
The vote on a critical resolution against Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva has been postponed to Tuesday, as Colombo stepped up efforts to garner international support ahead of the voting which is being seen as an acid test for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Kicking off his four-day visit, General Suhag met General Li Zuocheng, the head of China's ground forces which have undergone major restructuring in the last three years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has bestowed special honours on a PLA battalion posted in Tibet close to Arunachal Pradesh for its "outstanding performance in safeguarding borders".
It is unconscionable to choose between Sardar Patel, who united India physically, and Indira Gandhi, who gave meaning, content and pride to the unity of the nation and became a martyr at the altar of national unity, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
A Bangladeshi court on Thursday handed down the death penalty to 14 people, including the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami and a top leader of India's separatist outfit United Liberation Front of Asom, in the country's biggest ever weapons haul case, nearly 10 years after the seizure took place.
'In India foreign policy is generally handled by the prime minister.' 'One can clearly see the Vajpayee stamp on all this.' 'Only a person with poetic imagination can weave such a complex web,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Those advocating a similar raid in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, for instance, need to have a reality check on the applicability of the same template on other borders, says Nitin Gokhale.
'The general perspective -- certainly on Capitol Hill and Congress -- the love for India, the positive feeling for India still focuses on India as a democracy.' 'The more that Indian democracy and its pluralistic features is called into question by Indians, the more that same debate will replay back here.'
His view will be shaped by his perception of US world interests and India's economic performance relative to China.
Indian ranks fifth in the world according to a report that ranks the strength of 20 countries according to weaponry, including tanks, aircraft, helicopters and submarines.
Says India stands to gain by setting up a level playing field instead of creating trade barriers
Will Indian democracy benefit from the potential that Shashi Tharoor stores in his mind, spirit and intellect? Or will it be the saga of another leader who promised much but delivered too little, asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Brushing aside opposition from the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam and other parties in Tamil Nadu, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa but did not give him any assurance on which way India will vote on a the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution for an independent international probe into rights abuses during the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
'Silencing citizens has become a major institutional process under this regime.' 'The anti-Indian argument is a bogey -- meant to silence independent thinking people in India and turn us into goats and sheep.'
After another round of talks with the Central government today, the faction of the militant United Liberation Front of Assam led by its 'chairman' Arabinda Rajkhowa hopes for an early solution to the problem as the 'talks are progressing along the right course'.
Internal strife and tribalism is endemic to Afghanistan, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The CJI, who hails from Assam, said that NRC is neither a 'new or a novel idea' as it found expression as early as in 1951 and the current exercise is an attempt to update the 1951 NRC.
71 districts reported Covid case positivity rate of more than 10 per cent in the week from June 23 to 29, the government said, adding that the second wave of COVID-19 is not over.
Very few today realise that without Brigadier John Dalvi's courage, we would never have known what really happened during those tragic days of October/November 1962, reveals Claude Arpi.
Notwithstanding the demise of the mercurial leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Velupillai Prabakharan, who was killed by the Sri Lankan security forces over a year ago, , the pro-LTTE lobby in the United States has remained active, particularly in the US Congress.
The Union Home Ministry has decided to conduct a fresh census on the Rohingya Muslims following reports that terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba has taken up the cause of the community, which is fleeing the current wave of ethnic cleansing by the ruling Buddhist majority in Myanmar especially in the Arakan region.
With the two armies again in a face-off at multiple points, there is apprehension of renewed clashes.
Critical of the hurried clearance of the food security ordinance, Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh said on Thursday the United Progressive Alliance government was just doing a "political gimmick in a hurry" before the 2014 general elections.
The ministry's year-end review is silent on the continued occupation by Chinese troops of territory that India has always claimed and patrolled.
Insurgent groups like ULFA and NSCN-K have been using Myanmar as safe sanctuary and have set up bases there, despite that country's repeated assurances not to allow its territory for activities inimical to India, Government said on Tuesday.
India, Australia, Japan and the US on Friday pledged to work together for ensuring peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific and the world, as top leaders of the Quad grouping announced a slew of new initiatives to take on common challenges, amidst muscle flexing by an assertive China in the strategic region.
Sarma said his government had prepared a dossier on PFI and would be taking action against the outfit in the state.
India's freedom, its rambling but working Constitution, its parliamentary democracy, its lumbering administrative machinery all have many a father, but its greatest claim to fame, especially today, that of being a modern state, is due to but one person: Its first and longest-serving prime minister, Nehru, says Shreekant Sambrani.
Defence and strategic experts on Monday said that China's posturing in the Indian Ocean will disturb stability and peace in the region.
Out of 18, four personnel were critically injured but they are responding to treatment and are stable now, people familiar with the matter said.
'The killings are a worrisome escalation of tensions, but little is known about the immediate causes or results of the fight in Galwan and it is not possible, at this point, to assign blame'
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
Ashwani Kumar, in a lecture at the prestigious Trinity College, Dublin, said the recent incident of "oppressive enforcement" of the colonial law of sedition against students protesting in university campuses has raised several questions about the future of India's liberal democracy.
Have the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh and ULFA's Paresh Barua faction joined forces?
'General Secretary Xi Jinping has greenlighted a brutal campaign of repression against Chinese Muslims, a human rights violation on a scale we haven't seen since World War II. Now, the PLA has escalated border tensions with India'
Ajit Balakrishnan on how Indian society and the polity need to be carried along.
Exploiting the killings to ratchet up the tension in the region and harden negotiating positions with the central government serves nobody, least of all the people of Nagaland. The peace process must not be stalled because of this incident or distracted by calls to repeal the AFSPA, argues Vivek Gumaste.