Expressing confidence that UPA will form the government again, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asserted that Bharataiya Janata Party's campaign "balloon" will burst like 'India Shining' in 2004 as he warned that Narendra Modi's coming to power would be damaging for the country.
Muzzling NGOs is unbecoming of a democracy. Self-confident democracies encourage, indeed applaud, the involvement of citizens' associations, including NGOs, in social and political decision-making and development planning. Instead, our paranoid government bullies and terrorises them, says Praful Bidwai.
Sree Sreenivasan recalls his encounters with the pioneer of sound who passed away on Friday and gives a sense of how many lives he touched -- in big and small ways.
A group of 'queer' and 'cis queer' women in Chennai have come together to form this space on Facebook where they can interact with like-minded girls about themselves and their day to day problems.
C Christine Fair, an acclaimed Pakistan expert who teaches at Georgetown University rebutted some of the common perceptions of Pakistan.
Few in India know that Elvis & Namrata won at the World Salsa Summit in Miami!
It was the year 'anti-national' became the 'it' gaali, and our humble haldi-doodh became the toast of the West's wellness brigade as 'Tumeric Latte.' It was the year 'cash' became unholy and 'fake news' became real. Shuma Raha looks back.
We need credible retellings of the times we have lived through, or the events in the immediate past that have shaped our today, says Mihir S Sharma
Sixty-seven years after he led India to freedom from British rule, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi would be installed in Parliament Square in London by early next year.
Nayan Mongia expresses his candid views on Haridk Pandya and also sheds light on Kohli's captaincy.
'His politics is pure power politics. It's defined by the struggle that he has gone through.' 'Like Indira Gandhi, he is always suspicious about the people who surround him, he is lonely as he does not trust anyone. And he will not allow anyone to challenge his superiority, be it individual or institutions,' says Ashutosh.
'Must every believing Hindu automatically be assumed to subscribe to the Hindutva project?' asks Shashi Tharoor.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance. This plurality of our society has come through assimilation of ideas over centuries. Secularism and inclusion are a matter of faith for us. It is our composite culture which makes us into one nation.
'Once The House Next Door becomes a hit, instead of Baahubali, this will become the reference point.' Yes, Siddharth is very confident of his latest film.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 73rd Independence Day.
'Talvar belongs to Irrfan Khan, who plays the chief investigating officer. With each new film, this very fine actor continues to surprise us and delight us.'
We reproduce an appreciation article that Sardar Patel wrote on October 14, 1949, a month before Nehru's 60th birthday, where he heaped praises on Nehru's merits and also went on to elaborate the deep ties he shared with him.
Seeking to reassert Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said secularism is a compelling necessity for a country as diverse as India.
The need of the hour, as the Supreme Court readies to rule on the constitutionality of Aadhaar, is for the UIDAI to fix the bugs, says Geetanjali Krishna, in the second and final part of her series.
A large number of rich farmers, who earn more than salaried employees in the cities, get away with paying no tax at all in view of the government's lack of will to consider an agricultural income tax
AMU has once again been pulled into a crossfire of crass political opportunism. In these post-truth times, that the university also had political stirrings not subscribing to the Muslim League is chosen to be forgotten, says Mohammad Sajjad.
All the Gujarat cadre officers have one thing in common. They do not need Modi's 'informal interactions' and advice because they are from the so-called 'Modi school of governance.' They know Modi well enough to perform their assigned roles.
'We cannot let this country be a place where the poor pay to shit.' 'That is inhuman and unacceptable.'
What makes The World Before Her stand out is that it has the courage to ask what nobody else does: who is the Modern Indian Woman? Paloma Sharma reviews the film.
Declassified US documents of the era indicate.
'The death certificate which I once read even states the date, 6 August, but I know that already.' 'Every year, we observe paath at the local gurdwara for which we need to take leave from school. The leave form always says 'attending father's death anniversary'. 'I always dread this day -- the long walk from my desk to the teacher's table with my diary in hand and in it a handwritten note dripped with sadness despite its curt language.' 'What generally follows is pity on my teacher's face, a deep sigh of sympathy and a sad pat on the back.' A moving excerpt from Gurmehar Kaur's memoir Small Acts Of Freedom.
'At the end of the interview, as he walked with us to the elevator, he looked at me and said, "Do you think it was my karma that I should have made this film?"' Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com recalls his encounter with Richard Attenborough.
The verdict in the right to privacy case is historic and of global significance because it establishes dharma, righteousness and destroys adharma.
The verdict in the right to privacy case is historic and of global significance because it establishes dharma, righteousness and destroys adharma.
How has the Indian State, in principle and practice, given shape to the essential ingredients of the secular principle and composite culture?
Indian and Pakistani movies, now in New York theatres!
Playing better and with solid purpose this clay court season, Rafael Nadal is looking to win his 19th title at Roland Garros, says Desh Chopra Gaurav Sekhri, and will ask some difficult questions of anyone he is pitted against.
Time unkindly has a sole endeavour: To drag the person, whose death you are mourning, further and further away from your presence, to some far edge of your falsely anesthetised mind. So your memories are drained of colour, growing faint and grainy. You are left with a more and more distant recollections of that person, their laugh, their embrace, their voice and the moments surrounding their final departure. Vaihayasi P Daniel mourns her beloved father who passed away one December morning last year.
'If Ruttie had been alive, Jinnah would never have turned communal.'
'Modi's campaign has been strikingly devoid of anti-Muslim rhetoric. After the kutta pilla incident, it has been several months since he said something horrible about the Muslims of India. It is the result of democratic constraints. He has to make compromises... He's trying to reinvent himself. He will politically hurt himself if 2002 becomes the definition of Mr Modi again', says political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
'All that Maharashtra can give someone whose husband has died is a piece of cloth. That was extremely tragic for me.' 'If you go back historically there is no reference to Maharashtra whereas there is complete reference to Vidarbha.'
'We want to provide data, we want to provide consultation, but we don't want to lecture.' 'The consciousness about this issue in India is starting to get quite high and if we can help contribute to solving this air quality issue in a spirit of partnership with the Indians, it would be a big achievement.'
'The AAP is likely to take root in some metropolises -- although it won't be easy to replicate the small-scale Delhi model with equal intensity or cadre-strength in a large state,' says Praful Bidwai.
'The youth associated with this movement were extremely talented.' 'But I personally believe violence cannot change anything in the world.'
