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.
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Indian Mujahideen had plotted to target cash-rich IPL and one of its operatives had surveyed the Wankhede Stadium here from inside during a T20 match in 2011 but the plan was aborted owing to tight security, a Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad officer said on Tuesday.
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'This is for the first time that a strong, solid evidence-based investigation has happened.' 'It can meet international standards and put the onus on the Pakistanis.'
'We demand immediate release of all public representatives of mainstream political parties and innocent citizens,' the resolution said.
Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal, arrested from the Indo-Nepal border in north Bihar, is wanted in several blast cases being probed by the National Investigation Agency and state police forces. His name had come up in connection with the explosion outside Delhi high court on September 7, 2011 in which 12 people were killed.
NIA officials told rediff.com that they have intimated both the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing to seek more information from Bangladesh regarding the operational capabilities of an outfit named Hizbut Tahrir, which since the past three years has been working closely with the Indian Mujahideen.
'From the evidently pre-selected questions to the promotional slides on a screen redolent of the official audio-visual department, the choreography was palpably intended to present the prime minister in as good a light as possible in a 'safe' environment insulated from uncomfortable questions,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'What does the nation get out of the CBI's fabulous infrastructure? Very little that is useful.'
The future of the Make in India campaign looks bleak with a generation of ill-educated jobseekers -- and especially dark if they are cannon fodder for caste riots or put behind bars for breaking India, says Sunil Sethi.
A home ministry official said while 9,000 Tablighi Jamaat members and their primary contacts have been quarantined till now across the country due to "massive efforts" to check the outbreak, the Centre has written to all states and union territories that "the lockdown measures should be implemented in letter and spirit".
The startling story of how a bitter ex-girlfriend helped capture artifacts raider Subhash Kapoor.
'Narendra Modi is a beginner on the national scene. Intelligence and security will be new for him on a national scale. He will succeed if he crosses the bureaucratic barriers. If he entangles himself in these barriers, then I highly doubt he will succeed,' former R&AW agent R K Yadav tells Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa.
'The desire to force others to act according to the way we want the world to be is strong in our parts. This is particularly so because we have not fully internalised the idea of individual liberties. The fact is that our moralism will get us into trouble,' says Aakar Patel.
'Many fresh faces have come before him on both sides, and every sort of individual -- liberal, conservative, hardliner, dictator -- has come and gone.' 'I think we just seem to be happier when we hate one another,' says Aakar Patel.
'So you wonder, couldn't he have combined these two qualities: His love of his own voice, and his acting talents, to voice concern about the Kathua and Unnao rapes?' asks Jyoti Punwani. 'His supporters are siding with the accused in the first case, and are the accused in the second.'
The calculated playing up of confidence by Amit Shah and his team obviously means that the BJP has a strong counter-strategy in place to turn the tables on the Congress before the monsoon session is over, reports Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
'Once you set up a tweet-storm of vilification, labelling individuals anti-nationals, traitors, blasphemous, and foreign agents, you are creating enough justification for somebody with a gun to kill, or for a mob to lynch,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
Modi, while speaking at a poll rally in Gujarat on Sunday, had sought to link the dinner meeting hosted by Aiyar for Pakistani dignitaries and attended by Manmohan Singh, among others, with the ongoing assembly polls and a conspiracy against the BJP.
Don't forget to make your pick for the newsmaker of 2015.
It has been said that by 2025, India could become among the top five economies in the world. If India does become a $5 trillion economy but gets all its rivers polluted, food chain poisoned and genetic pool depleted and biometric database of Indians sold or stolen at the behest of commercial czars, will it not be a pyrrhic economic victory, asks Gopal Krishna.
Opposition on Monday picked holes in various government decisions like demonetisation and surgical strikes as well as allocation of funds for MNREGA, agriculture sector and Scheduled Castes, saying it has failed on all fronts despite which it is trying to "fool" the people.
Indian intelligence agencies have often claimed that left-wing extremists are trying to make inroads in the militancy-hit regions of north-east to foment further unrest. But Jaideep Saikia, noted terrorism and conflict analyst, claims, "People who speak of Maoism taking roots in the north-east have not read history".
'The starting point of the Udta Punjab casting was that we didn't think stars would do a film like this, so we'd take non-stars. As the names kept rolling in and we had Kareena Kapoor and Shahid and Alia Bhatt, I was like yaar yeh ho kya raha hai?'
Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were suspended from the Indian Premier League for two years for betting activities of their key officials, Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra, during the 2013 season of cash-rich Twenty20 cricket tournament.
