The furore over the release of the RJD strongman from Siwan has now reached the apex court through various petitions.
Witnesses in the cases that controversial Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Shahabuddin has been facing have been "bumped off", the Supreme Court said on Monday, rejecting his claim of facing "media trial" in a murder case and his vehement plea for more time to prepare for his defence.
A promising young actor suffering from depression has had his life laid bare for the grubby public to paw through. An ordinary family has been pitched into the middle of a nightmare of an investigation and arrested for no reason discernible at present. And a young actress has had her reputation, and probably career, destroyed so that TRP ratings can soar, notes Sherna Gandhy.
Complaints of electronic voting machine malfunctioning poured in from several booths on Tuesday during the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha polls which saw voters turning out in large numbers to cast their vote in 116 seats, including all constituencies of Gujarat and Kerala.
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
Slamming Narendra Modi for his charge of 'criminal negligence of security' at his rally, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday dubbed his Gujarat counterpart as an "expert in cultivation of falsehood" and said terrorists in a way helped the Bharatiya Janata Party in its "otherwise flop" rally.
This is the fifth consecutive day that coronavirus infections have increased by more than 15,000. There has been a surge of 3,38,324 infections from June 1 till date.
Nearly 40 years after the then railway minister Lalit Narayan Mishra was killed in a bomb blast at a function at Samastipur Railway Station in Bihar, a Delhi court on Monday convicted four persons for the charges of murder and criminal conspiracy.
'The horrific episode of January 18 in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is quite different from what happened in Muzaffarnagar, UP, in September 2013. The Akhilesh Yadav-led administration in UP and riot-mongers among our political formations need to learn lessons from the response of the state and society in Bihar's Muzaffarpur,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
On Monday, prosecution had sought death penalty for all the 24 people convicted for the gruesome killings.
'In UP, the CM actually announced that his administration would 'take revenge' against rioters.' 'That must have been music to his police force's ears for it substantiated what the police always do: Take revenge on an entire community for the violence of a few,' points out Jyoti Punwani.
Mohammad Sajjad raises important questions about the response to lynchings.
'What will be achieved by the prime minister's condemnation of each and every unfortunate incident? Will just the PM's condemnation bring about closure to these cases,' asks Sudhir Bisht.
India is in the midst of its biggest crisis since Independence. It is a national emergency and begs to be dealt with. Politics can wait. Lives need to be saved. We need to vaccinate India at a pace faster than any country in the world, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Why are the 'secular' parties silent about the lynchings on our streets? Are they so busy forging political alliances that they ignore the numerous distortions of Constitutional values?
Asaduddin Owaisi opens up to T S Sudhir on his party's plans for the elections in Uttar Pradesh next year and why he thinks both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party have vitiated the secular atmosphere in the state.
Some within the BJP see Amit Shah's entry into the Rajya Sabha as the party's succession plan for 2025 when Narendra Modi turns 75.
'If PM has some concrete information against gau rakshaks then he must disclose it, otherwise we will take legal action against him.'
If only Aamir Khan had resisted spoon-feeding his audience...
'Indian nationhood is indeed at the cusp of alarming redefinition -- hate-filled, and exclusionary.' 'Nations are not built this way, instead these are the ways of liquidating nations.' 'We must pre-empt it.' 'Can we?' asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Under attack from opposition over the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party on Monday accused the media of "targeting" its government under a "conspiracy sponsored by the Bharatiya Janata Party".
Sujit Kumar, Upendra Kumar Prasad, Nisha Kumari and Kajal Kumari are some of the many children who fell sick after consuming a meal laced with insecticide in their school at Gandaman village in Bihar's Saran district on July 17.
'The prime minister has merely paid lip service condemning these crimes instead of launching a massive crackdown against such brutalities,' argues Professor Mohammad Sajjad.
'There is core BJP support on the Hindutva line. It will continue.' 'Along with that, the BJP is ready to play the OBCs trifurcation card to its benefit.' 'If you see the post-Kairana result, the BJP spokespersons and IT cell have already begun talking about Hindu unity against Muslim unity, Ram vs Allah.'
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said there was "some amount" of intolerance in the society which has to be identified and dealt with firmly, instead of generalising it.
Driving a Tata Nano covered with banners about his son's killing by the Mumbai Police, Kundan Prasad Singh is fighting his first election to get justice for a dead son.
He said the "countdown has begun for Narendra Modi," citing the results of Rajasthan by-polls in which the ruling BJP faced an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Congress which won two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly segment.
Kidney scouts roam around the labour markets in the poorest districts of Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi in search of potential donors.
From President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit to Rahul and Varun Gandhi, at least 50 parliamentary constituencies will be contested by 'sons and daughters' of politicians of various parties during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Is the Bharatiya Janata Party back to its hackneyed Hindutva agenda? The question is being raised following the party's decision to entrust the leadership of the party's campaign for the forthcoming state bye-election in Uttar Pradesh to the saffron clad rabble-rouser Mahant Adityanath.
'Even the mafia has certain ethics and follow certain rules, but Abu Salem was so ruthless, so inhuman, there was no ethics at all. He had no basic humanity in him.' India's foremost crime writer S Hussain Zaidi on the dreaded gangster.
The State is trying to curb the students movements, therefore, there are suspicions against some of the Subramanian report on education's recommendations, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Back in 2007, Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt had profiled Yakub after he was sentenced to death by the Terrorist and Disruptive Actives (Prevention) Act court for criminal conspiracy and financing air tickets to send co-conspirators for arms and RDX training to Pakistan.
Back in 2007, Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt had profiled Yakub after he was sentenced to death by the Terrorist and Disruptive Actives (Prevention) Act court for criminal conspiracy and financing air tickets to send co-conspirators for arms and RDX training to Pakistan.
'It's a joy working there.' 'It's good work and when you come back it gives you pleasure.' 'On returning you take a shower and look at the day and say, "Ah! Nice scenes we did!"' 'Here sometimes you are doing nothing in the day, but you are there for the shoot.' 'You come home and it can be very frustrating, with that frustration the tiredness does not go, you know.' 'Good work gives you that strength and kick.'
The collapse of an under-construction 11-storey building in Chennai which claimed 11 lives should serve as a wake-up call for the housing sector to have a regulatory mechanism for the construction industry, says N Sathiya Moorthy
Amit Shah is the man of the moment. The architect of the BJP's stunning transformation in the Hindi heartland during the Lok Sabha elections is all set to emerge as the CEO of Modi's political dreams and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's cultural passion, says Sheela Bhatt.
The Marxists are heading for their worst debacle in many elections. How will May 16, 2014 affect India's Communists? T V R Shenoy surveys the landscape.
'To be complimented for a fantastic performance after just viewing the trailer! This never happened to me before.' 'If you have given a party a mandate for five years, stop blaming it for everything under the sun.' 'My kind of films do not make stars. Now we, the actors, after years of struggle, have created a parallel industry where we have made a name for ourselves. But stars we are not nor can we be.' 'For a boy coming from a remote village of Bihar at the Indo-Nepal border where no transport was available to commute to the nearest town, even coming to Delhi and then Mumbai and finally watching himself on the silver screen was a huge thing!'
As the year 2014 draws to an end, we at Rediff.com take to look at some of the ridiculous remarks made by some blundering politicos.
