Hitting out at actor Kangana Ranaut for describing India's Independence in 1947 as bheek or alms, the Congress on Thursday said her remarks amounted to 'treason' and demanded the government take back the Padma Shri bestowed on her recently as she has 'insulted' the country's Independence movement.
Stating that providing reservation was no solution to development concerns of Muslims, Najma Heptulla, who took charge as Minister for Minority Affairs, said the new government will ensure progress of all communities, with special stress on education facilities for minorities.
"The situation has become irretrievable", Azad, 73, said in his parting shot to Sonia Gandhi, whose trusted confidante he remained right from the time of Sitaram Kesri's unceremonious exit as the party's chief in 2000.
Deepa Malik became the first Indian woman para-athlete and the oldest to be conferred the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award
Gandhi also hailed as 'an important idea' the party's decisions to give more representation to the youth and empower them, and added that there should be a 'healthy mix of youngsters and seniors'.
In an unprecedented move, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, the country's highest sporting award, will be conferred on four athletes this year. The Sports Ministry announced on Monday that Olympic medalists P V Sindhu and Sakshi Malik will be honoured alongside trail-blazing gymnast Dipa Karmakar and ace shooter Jitu Rai.
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh terrorists have entered West Bengal to carry out subversive activities.
Paralympic gold-winners Avani Lekhara, Sumit Antil, Pramod Bhagat, Krishna Nagar, Manish Narwal were also given the Khel Ratna at a dazzling awards ceremony on Saturday.
The Border Security Force has been put on high alert along the India-Bangladesh border in Assam and Tripura following intelligence inputs of Islamic terrorists planning to infiltrate the country.
''This body is mine. And bearing its burden has become quite a task,' Dilip Kumar once told Subhash K Jha.'
Paying tributes to Bhimrao Ambedkar, the architect of Constitution, the prime minister said he would be happy to see that India has strengthened and empowered its democracy in the last 70 years.
It is largely due to his vision and efforts that we have almost quadrupled our per capita milk availability in the last 40 years, points out Shailesh Dobhal.
Chidambaram said that of the total 17 lakh (1.7 million) registered service tax payers, only seven lakh of them were paying the levy.
Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad during his retirement speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday summed up his more than four-decade-old political career in few Urdu couplets and a brief speech.
It is for the first time in the history of Independent India that not a single Muslim is part of the Union Cabinet.
"Telling the story of the birth of a nation is never easy. Especially if that nation is as big and diverse as India," said Shyam Benegal about 'Samvidhaan -- The Making of the Constitution of India'.
Former Union minister Farooq Abdullah on Thursday said India will not be able to keep Kashmir if the forces who see Muslims of the country with suspicion and pit the minority community against the majority are not reined in.
This was due to the fact that they had already won the Khel Ratna, the country's highest sporting honour.
The Centre pleaded in HC that it is waiting for responses from various states over UCC.
The colour has been rendered to activities that would have astonished Swami Vivekananda, says Sunanda K Datta Ray.
Remembering Maulana Azad and Acharya Kriplani on their birth anniversary, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that there are historical figures who have been erased from public memory just because they did not belong to a particular family.
'I have stopped going to college and instead come here to protest.' 'What is the point of going to college when you are unsure about your citizenship?' 'I am here to protest and save my future.'
'Intolerance is in our blood. Every person has some level of intolerance. One can't get rid of it, but one has to check and control it for the sake of a peaceful society and country,' says actor Tam Alter.
Highly critical of Karnataka government's decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti to "appease" minorities, an article in 'Panchjanya' described him as 'Aurangzeb' of South who "forcibly" converted lakhs of people.
Saluting Tom Alter, who passed into the ages on September 29.
'Although Narendra Modi had no direct participation in the Ayodhya agitation, he would not have been in the dominant position he is now had it not been for the Ram Janambhoomi agitation.'
The 47-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family will face the daunting task of restoring lost glory to the party whose fortunes have been dwindling in the recent past.
Of the 15 people who led the 132-year-old party post independence, four have belonged to the Gandhi-Nehru family.
'The osmosis between Hinduism and Islam that really gave birth to the Hindustani or Indo-Islamic civilisation was due to the conversation between Muslim mystics and yogis.'
'To love all Indians is to love India in reality.' 'To love the lines on a map is to love a symbol,' says Aakar Patel.
'Gujaratis, among all Indians, are supposed to be born businessmen, but if more than 80% of them do not have the ability to do basic arithmetic, the future is grim.' 'The big issues are in society and they cannot be changed by an HRD minister no matter how brilliant she may be or think of herself as being,' says Aakar Patel.
The great Indian election is over and now the wait for the results is shrinking with every passing moment. Though exit polls hint at a cakewalk for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his National Democratic Alliance, there are some battles which will be keenly observed on the result day.
Who are the NGOs in India with maximum funding in India? Which are the countries funding them? How many NGOs are registered under the law? Vicky Nanjappa finds out.
A 91-year-old top leader of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami was sentenced to 90 years in jail on Monday by a special Bangladeshi tribunal for masterminding atrocities during the 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.
The BJP's panicky return to basic-instinct majoritarianism in Bihar has pushed Muslims back into the 'secular' basement, says Shekhar Gupta.
Glimpses of I-Day celebrations across India.
'Muslims are depressed and disillusioned.' 'The safety valve is that we still have a multicultural mosaic in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.'
'Why isn't the BJP ready to give reservations to Muslims despite the high court telling it to do so?' 'A K Antony said the Congress lost the 2014 election because of Muslim appeasement. Antony should have gone to the jails of Maharashtra and found out how many Muslims were arrested during Congress rule. I don't know what kind of appeasement this is.' 'We reposed faith in so-called great secular leaders and they deceived us.'
'The summer of 1857 saw violence, perpetrated by the Indians and the Britons, on an unprecedented scale.' 'Never before and never after in the history of British rule in India was there violence at the level that 1857 witnessed.'
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