Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar announced several welfare schemes, including free bus passes for students, a private employment exchange, and initiatives for youth and farmers, shortly after assuming office.
'I cannot imagine that any NSA before Ajit Doval would have given us this kind of time and this kind of engagement. They would have offered slogans, or nothing at all. That, too, tells you something.'
The Kota district administration has released new guidelines for coaching centers and hostels under the 'Kota Cares' Campaign to reduce the cost of living for students preparing for competitive exams. The new guidelines include the elimination of security and caution money, a maintenance fee of Rs 2,000, anti-suicide ceiling fans, and mandatory gatekeeper training for hostel staff. The campaign aims to attract more students to Kota after a sharp decline in enrollment due to the pandemic.
The party had won 67 seats in the 2025 assembly polls and 62 in the 2020 elections.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih issued notices to the Centre and others seeking their responses on a plea filed by the Delhi government against the December 24 2024 direction of the Delhi high court.
'A government whose policies are focused around making the life of ordinary citizens, specially the most deprived sections, richer; a government that prioritises education, health and transport, that doesn't treat its citizens as subjects who must come to it for everything, is rare in our country.' 'When such a government is thrown out, one is left stunned,' notes Jyoti Punwani.
Bill Aitken came to India nearly 60 years ago. He never returned. An Indian citizen since 1972, he tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how India changed his life forever.
The Indian students who arrived in the city of Bucharest in Romania from Ukraine said that the national tricolour helped them as well as some Pakistani and Turkish students in safely crossing the various checkpoints in the war-torn country.
When I asked Krishna Gopal Sengupta, who had travelled through Bangladesh from Chittagong to Petrapole if the interim government had made any impact at ground level, he said, "it's been only a couple of days. They will need some time." Shyam G Menon reports from Petrapole, India's entry point with Bangladesh.
Let teachers tell you what they'd like as a Teachers Day gift.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in poll-bound Karnataka on Friday sought to woo farmers, women and younger generation with a slew of welfare measures in its last budget in the current term, also earmarking Rs 1000 crore towards development and renovation of various temples and maths in the state.
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Tamil Nadu's latest budget offers path-breaking initiatives and major boost for social infrastructure, which other state governments are sure to follow in the coming years, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
He said that over the years, India has conveyed the message of friendship, cooperation, debate and discussions through the institutions of higher learning.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
The implementation of the five 'guarantees' announced by the Congress may cost the state exchequer an estimated Rs 50,000 crore annually.
As some BJP pollsters concede, the Modi leadership's sweeping success in elections 2019, especially across central India, owed not to Hindutva ideology, but to welfare schemes, all of them borrowed from Tamil Nadu, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
If Tamil Nadu voters preferred the DMK combine, it owed to the Modi-Annamalai combo's ideological battle which often crossed the line of political decency and also challenged 'Tamil pride', argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The government never asked any transport association before making this law on hit and run cases.' 'MPs only clapped to Amit Shah's new law and never questioned him about this law.' 'Are these MPs not bothered about the lives of drivers?'
The gift was given to 40 Karnataka MPs ahead of a meeting of them convened by Kumaraswamy in New Delhi to discuss state-related issues, including the Cauvery, to be taken up in the Parliament during the monsoon session beginning on Wednesday.
'The projects that the government started to bring within Goa were totally anti-Goa and anti-people.' 'Can anyone describe a project as development when it is going to cause wanton destruction of people's houses, their surroundings and livelihoods and destruction of forests?'
They just wanted their angst noticed, and as a symbol of recognition, Jallikattu, restored without the annual ritual of court cases and adjournments, explains N Sathya Moorthy.
On International Yoga Day, South Delhi-based yoga teacher Saudamini Chandra found herself shepherding the young girl students to their first taste of India's heritage that was being celebrated across the world. This is her experience.
AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal also challenged the BJP to announce its chief ministerial candidate by 1 pm Wednesday and said he is ready for a public debate with him.
'Mr Kejriwal has played it cool in distancing himself from Delhi's hotspots, adroitly pandering to the BJP's Hindu vote.' 'He neither visited the scene of JNU violence nor has he dropped by at Shaheen Bagh,' notes Sunil Sethi.
The going is not going to be easy for the DMK and its allies in Elections 2024. Despite the seats sweepstake in the 2021 assembly polls, the vote-share difference of 5.6% (DMK's 45.38% versus AIADMK-BJP's 39.72%) is not insurmountable on a bad day, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The lowering of the age from the existing 18 years means that those aged 16 and above will no longer enjoy protection under the Juvenile Justice law, under which juveniles cannot be tried under the normal law of the land that provides punishment of up to death for rape and murder.
BJP's total silence on Delhi statehood is intriguing.
The ruling AIADMK is leaving no stone unturned to win the Vellore Lok Sabha poll and push its tally to two in the state, with its candidate even donning the skull cap to woo minority votes. But the DMK's stars are clearly on the ascendant in the lone constituency that goes to the polls on August 5. A Ganesh Nadar reports.
Their families are poor and do not know what IIT is but their sons dream of IIT and working for ISRO and NASA one day. One man is helping them towards their dream. As Bihar goes to the polls, Archana Masih salutes its greatest success story.
'I have never got special treatment. My school and hostel was free for everyone, not just me. The training that I get in school is given to everyone, not just me. I want to be a sportsperson and go to the Olympics. I want to represent India there. But I am not training now.' India's youngest marathon runner Budhia Singh looks back at his success.
He had no airs about his talent, he did not intellectualise it, he just lived and breathed acting.
'Local support is very important, without it the terror attack couldn't have taken place.' 'Explosives were secured, the IED was manufactured, the boy was brainwashed and converted into a suicide bomber... it takes a lot of planning and hard work.'
At 19, he quit everything to work in a tribal village for free.
'Our network somehow saves 3,000 lives every year, but there's so much more to do, as every death due to shortage of blood is easily avoidable.'
With the CBI ruling out bus conductor Ashok Kumar's involvement in Ryan International School student Pradhyumn Thakur's murder, his wife Mamata is hopeful of him getting bail on November 16. 'I just want my man to come home, I don't want anything else,' she tells Rediff.com's Swarupa Dutt.
Rediff.com lists a few other dramatic and frightful hostage situations that sent governments and security agencies into a tizzy.
'I've seen the craze for English education even among the poorest. But that is only for their sons. Parents feel thrilled when they see their sons going to school wearing a tie. They don't mind paying for their sons' private tuitions too.' 'But daughters are sent to municipal schools, madarsas, small schools where teachers with no teaching skills are paid Rs 2,000 or Rs 4,000. That's why more girls come to my class.' Syed Feroze Ashraf, who has sent 500-odd girls (and a few boys) -- all first generation learners, children of grave-diggers, hawkers, rickshaw-drivers, tailors and watchmen -- to college, speaks to Jyoti Punwani. A Rediff.com Special.
The Union Health ministry put the number of positive cases at 82, eight more since Thursday night, which includes the woman and a 76-year-old man from Karnataka who became the country's first coronavirus fatality besides 17 foreign nationals, Health Ministry officials said.
This is the story of two youngsters from Bengaluru, who converted adversity to their advantage.
