With an eye on the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly election, BJP's national executive will begin its two-day meet in Allahabad on Sunday which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah among others.
Yakub Memon, who was convicted for helping finance the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 in which 257 people were killed, was hanged at the Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday morning shortly before 7am.
'He is still compulsively an operations man. Just a whiff of a live operation, and he is back in the field, at least in his mind. That is why the immediate decision to send the NSG to Pathankot.' 'But there is a difference between classical intelligence or counter-terror operation and dealing with a larger threat to a place as sensitive and sprawling as an air force base. This is what led to confusion and mix-ups,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Rediff.com presents a selection of the year's most enduring moments year from around the world
'Naik is an outcome of an image-centric Islam, which is linked to the technological changes introduced by new media.' 'English educated upper middle class Muslims embraced Naik's image-centric Islam in the 1990s.' 'Television converted him into a religious object.'
The incident became grist for media attention for people scanning 'cow' along with a Muslim name, regardless of the fact that in Manipur Muslims occupy a specific socio cultural and political positioning with the community having assimilated with the majority Meiteis, says Chitra Ahanthem.
'The blood that runs in the veins of our family can never be anti-national.' 'They called Kanhaiya a traitor for questioning the Indian Army. Do they know that our cousin was killed by militants in Manipur while serving with the CRPF?' Archana Masih/Rediff.com travelled to the land of Lal Salam, Lal Sitara and comrades to find out what moulded India's most talked about student leader, Kanhaiya Kunar.
The attack on a Dalit family in Faridabad days before the Khattar government's first anniversary suggests that nothing has changed.
'With folded hands, on humanitarian grounds, if she can get temporary bail on medical grounds so she can get treatment.' 'If she dies, the whole trial gets derailed.'
A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
Support for the dreaded Haqqani network across the militant group's historical stronghold in eastern Afghanistan is gradually turning into "resentment" as local leaders say the Haqqani supremo's war is for "Pakistani rupees and power" and they cannot follow him "blindly".
The next big destination for IS in South Asia could be India. In India, the SIMI-IM network can provide the logistics for an IS staging area, says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'Rich Indians don't give cash, they give gold. Why?' 'Because cash is spent by temples on prasad or doing some charitable work.' 'Gold remains intact with god,' says Aakar Patel.
This Valentine's Day, five TV actors debunk negative theories about holy matrimony.
This is what absolutely kills office culture
India isn't Israel, nor can it, or should be, says Shekhar Gupta.
Any settlement with Pakistan won't last unless it comes with big power guarantees, says Shekhar Gupta.
Mata Amritanandamayi's hospital has developed protein nanomedicines for drug-resistant leukemia and nano-structured wafers to prevent recurrence of brain tumours
You'll see that there's more to the state than just its forts and havelis!
Yami: You didn't know about this talent of mine of hiding food in my clothes? In the song Mujhko Barsaat Bana Lo, I hid a bread pakoda in my black sari. Pulkit: We had a shot, where my head was in her lap. Suddenly, just before the director said 'Action', the bread pakoda fell in my face! Yami Gautam and Pulkit Samrat, in a FUN conversation.
Tubes gone, Irom Sharmila the brand is dead. As long as she was trying to kill herself, she had value to the cynics trying to build their careers over her fast, says Shekhar Gupta.
Suicide Squad is less an actual movie and more an assemblage of moments, moments mostly to do with popular music appropriated around shots of spectacle, with every single scene trying to hit a crescendo of cool and the film, thus, failing to find any peaks at all, says Raja Sen.
'In the name of cultural nationalism, Modi wants to impose another ideology on Muslims.' 'His agenda, we feel, is saffronisation of Indian culture.'
Here are some of the best photos from around the world in the month gone by...
Vishu invokes fond memories of childhood writes Divya Nair/Rediff.com
The people who know Tibet will continue to fight the good fight. Long, hard, less than hopeful, but always peaceful.
The transformation of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, once a naive politician, into the most elastic entities in Indian politics is complete.
'If JNU students are anti-national, why do we send in the police? Why not send in intellectuals like M V Kamath to have a debate and discussion?'
What distinguishes 26/11 from other bombings in big cities, for instance 9/11 in New York or 7/7 in London, is that it remains the best-documented attack in a digitally enhanced world, says Sunil Sethi
Sanjeev Nayyar suggests 16 measures by which we can tackle our unrelenting and untrustworthy neighbour.
The assembly polls are seen as a test of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity, especially in the wake of demonetisation.
Top 21 images of all the events of the week that was.
'Modi took to the dais and said he would like to step down as chief minister over the riots.' 'Immediately, people from several sides got up and said there was no need to do so.' 'Whether it was orchestrated or not, Shourie wasn't sure.' 'But, according to him, Vajpayee felt that it was a coup.'
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 73rd Independence Day.
'As long as Pakistan exists, the situation will not stabilise and violence is bound to erupt from time to time.' 'Though not a final solution, a step that could help localise the abscess -- trifurcate Jammu and Kashmir state into three parts: Jammu, Ladakh and the Valley.'
'The issue of the larger homeland of Nagalim, the dream of the Nagas to hold sway over swathes of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, is just that, a dream.' 'The NSCN has been told categorically that the government is not going to concede on this issue.'
'It is impossible to get any of the top five movie stars in Bollywood for an honest one-on-one interview, which spans beyond seven minutes unless your media house has a marketing tie-up with the movie they are part of. Even then, they will rarely ever want to go outside their comfort zone and open up.'
At 17, Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai became the youngest Nobel laureate. She was conferred the joint Peace Prize along with India's Kailash Satyarthi at Oslo on Wednesday. Here is the full transcript of her speech.
Some stunning moments of the week that was
How many of the 354 films Aseem Chhabra watched in 2017 have you seen?
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