A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
'We should hope and pray that the PM's sentiment is not held ransom by machinations and craftiness of a few junior babus who throw in an imaginary impediment at every welfare measure and snigger and giggle at the sidelines every time a soldier is ill at ease,' says Major Navdeep Singh on the one rank one pension debate.
Coming as it does only months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Chennai meet could provide the launch pad for a national alternative to the BJP-NDA, and MK Stalin may be given the credit for getting it going, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
The BJP assessment -- or at least that of some of its leaders -- is that the Congress in Gujarat has peaked too soon, having already fired all its weapons and has nothing new to say.
In the midst of a raging row over the conversions in Agra by Hindutva outfits, the Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Friday favoured a strong law to stop forcible conversions.
A member of the financial watchdog committee at soccer's ruling body FIFA has been charged with fraud, money-laundering and breach of trust by police in the Cayman Islands.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on Friday explained to his supporters the circumstances behind him being in jail even as his party launched a mass contact programme over the issue to strengthen its support base with an eye on assembly elections in Delhi.
He also appealed to everyone to light a lamp this Diwali in the name of Lord Ram.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan dashed off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention for repealing the measure. He said the Centre's decision amounts to an "intrusion" to the rights of the states in the country's federal structure.
'The diplomat's arrest has led to a major diplomatic spat, the likes of which I have not seen in my nearly three decades of covering the US-India relationship, says Aziz Haniffa. 'The knee-jerk reaction by the powers-that-be in Delhi was myopic to say the least.'
Biju Janata Dal members had staged a walk-out while NDA ally Shiv Sena did not participate in the voting.
The largest athlete's village in the history of the Games is a visceral monument to now-faded optimism. Planned when Brazil was booming, its harnessing of private sector wealth was meant to set the gold standard for a sustainable Olympics. Instead, the worst recession in generations pushed the luxury apartments out of reach.
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.
If the people of Tamil Nadu stop deifying their leaders and start evaluating them more objectively, the political masters too may change their wayward behaviour, argues Sudhir Bisht.
After days of adjournments, the Rajya Sabha unanimously passed the crucial Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill along with two bills on supplementary demands for 2015-16, within minutes without any debate.
A group of students carrying placards and raising slogans protested in the tense University campus on Wednesday morning.
Anil Swarup, who conceived the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana -- a scheme the United Nations Development Programme and the International Labour Organisation recognised as among the finest -- speaks to Anjuli Bhargava.
"Will anybody want a servant that who is on vacation when needed at home? And nobody knows where he is," he continued.
Five months since her conviction by a Karnataka court and being forced to step down as Tamil Nadu CM, Jayalalithaa has not been out of her house. However, she continues to run the Tamil Nadu government with the help of a few retired bureaucrats reports R Ramasubramanian.
The Enforcement Directorate has managed to sniff out over Rs 9,000 crore as suspected haul from money laundering in a decade, but it has yet to link those against anyone successfully in a court.
'The nominations were not meant to last permanently, but depended on the government of the day.' 'There was no question of revoking it during Congress, Janata Dal or even Vajpayee's NDA rule.' 'But Modi is different.'
'Terrorism has no place in our religion, society or in our daily lives.'
The Aadhaar Bill passed during Budget session last month, overruling amendments moved in Rajya Sabha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on range of issues -- from Rafale deal to Ram temple and triple talaq.
While it took the Congress nearly a half century to earn the hatred of other political outfits, the BJP appears set to reach there in around six years, says Arun Bhatnagar, former secretary to the GoI.
'In the last 55 years India and Pakistan have gone to wars, but nobody spoke about scrapping the Indus Waters Treaty.'
'The control of the Church over Christian people regarding politics has become weak...' 'People have started to think independently and it is not for sure that they will obey whatever the Church asks them to do.'
The last session of Parliament started off on a noisy note as pro and anti-Telangana MPs sparred with each other on the floor of the two houses.
If the Congress lost in Tamil Nadu in 1967, never to return, or the DMK and the AIADMK have kept their place in power and electoral politics since then, it owes not to their love or hatred for gods or for one religion over another. Instead, they had always been linked to performance and incumbency/anti-incumbency factors. There may be something in such constructs for Rajini's strategic team to consider, especially if the superstar is to enter direct politics by around this time next year. But then, they would need to brush up their homework more than at present, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Though the RSS honours Sardar Patel, who actually banned it, the real hero in the story of its rise is Jayaprakash Narayan,' says Vir Sanghvi.
Moving from pricing control to a free market means stiff competition.
Modi and Shah's next focus will be South India, and the Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections. Shah is unlikely to abdicate control over the party even after he joins the government. Modi and Shah both know only too well that the party makes the government, and not the other way round.
A glance back at some of the important ups and down Indian Inc faced in 2018.
After a week-long washout, Lok Sabha transacted some business on Monday as two bills were introduced and another taken up for consideration even as Congress and some other parties continued their vociferous protests, along with display of placards.
Right from the beginning, the State abdicated its responsibility in fixing the blame for the Hashimpura massacres or getting justice for the victims.
Several of Modi's actions reflect political courage.
Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami was on Wednesday sentenced to death by a special tribunal for his role in the killing of thousands of people during the nation's independence war against Pakistan in 1971.
The IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters has announced its 2013 "Nobel-class" Citation Laureates on Wednesday, which names 28 researchers representing 22 distinct academic and research organisations, and six different countries.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday
