At least six African nationals had sustained injuries in the incidents. Police attributed two of the incidents to a dispute over African nationals playing loud music and other to a scuffle over public drinking.
The Centre is likely to rush additional paramilitary forces to trouble-torn areas along the Assam-Nagaland border to maintain peace and prevent the clashes between Naga and Karbi tribals from spreading.
India has voted against a UN General Assembly draft resolution calling for moratorium on the use of death penalty, saying it fails to recognise each nation's "sovereign right" to determine its legal system and punish criminals according to its laws.
'We in the Anglicised middle class are unconcerned about the vast majority of Indians. We insist on only our concerns and anxieties being debated. All other Indians are irrelevant,' says Aakar Patel.
The Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid title dispute case, the Sebi-Sahara payment row, the Aadhaar privacy issue and the Cauvery water dispute are only some of the legal puzzles he will have to deal with.
In another incident of attack on a person from the northeast in the national capital, a 22-year-old Manipuri youth was allegedly stabbed and robbed by some unidentified assailants in Mehrauli area in New Delhi in the wee hours on Wednesday.
'Those who genuinely seek justice do not differentiate between a victim and a victim or an accused and accused.' 'They demand justice for all,' says Utkarsh Mishra.
'Sriram Raghavan is mainstream Hindi cinema's greatest gift to us,' declares Sreehari Nair after watching the director's latest movie caper.
'The problem here is not that one community's deity has suddenly become another community's meal.' 'Hindus and Muslims have been peacefully coexisting with their cows for centuries now.' 'The problem here is that a section of Indians has been suddenly made to realise that it makes great political sense to degrade each one of the 170 million Muslims to a potential cow-killer, lynch a few of them to keep the heat on, polarise and win elections.'
'Gandhi turned his life into a counter-intuitive experiment in old ideas like non-violence and swadeshi.' 'He offered numerous universal ideas that talk to the human condition.' 'His ability to take risks was outstanding,' says Sopan Joshi, explaining why the Mahatma's ideas are as relevant as ever.
'100 Fayazs will bring a change in Kashmir, that's why they don't want a Fayaz.'
When an accused gets attacked on the way to court, and again within the court premises, with no intervention by a judicial officer, which space is safe, asks Jyoti Punwani.
Sanjeev Nayyar travels across India from Barmer to Arunachal to Mahabalipuram, and comes back humbled and impressed with the women he interacted with through his journey.
Anil Swarup, who conceived the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana -- a scheme the United Nations Development Programme and the International Labour Organisation recognised as among the finest -- speaks to Anjuli Bhargava.
The year threw up quite a few shockers, some rather rude one. Below are Rediff.com's 12 picks that made us sit back and think, 'Did that really happen?'
In the piece below, Roy's stepdaughter Trisha Ahmed, a second-year student at Johns Hopkins University, recounts the father she remembers and the attack she's trying to forget.
'America's withdrawal from Vietnam was an inspiring moment for all of us. We believed that it was a glorious victory of ideology and spirit and as historic as the defeat of the Nazis exactly 30 years ago,' remembers Kumar Ketkar 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War.
South African model, Rolene Strauss is the new Miss World.
An active politician for over four decades, Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday completed one year in office as a copybook President, a period that was marked by proactive steps within and outside Rashtrapati Bhavan.
As the BJP snaps at its heels, can the Communists stay relevant in the electoral game?
Lawyer and scholar Vinay Sitapati says the 'Get Modi' strategy largely misses the efforts to prosecute people evidently guilty of violence and murders in the Gujarat riots in favour of "a narrow quest to stop one man from becoming prime minister."
The transformation of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, once a naive politician, into the most elastic entities in Indian politics is complete.
'We rarely choose to fight when the threat is still a nascent threat. When we do fight, we fight when the invaders reach Panipat and are preparing to knock on the gates of Delhi.'
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.
A total of 1,203 candidates, including 109 women, are contesting for the 140 assembly seats in which a total of 2.61 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.
Deras like Sacha Sauda made the poor feel secure, cared for, loved, provided a support system and gave them dignity, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'In the 30 years since the Ayodhya movement began, the RSS has created a generation of Hindus who are the mirror image of those fanatic Muslims who take to the streets at the slightest, even imagined, 'insult to Islam,' argues Jyoti Punwani.
'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.
Under siege, Nitish plans to tweak Bihar's anti-booze law
'Patel was more in tune with the popular mood than Jawaharlal Nehru. While the principle that Hindus and Muslims should be able to live together remained central to Nehru's vision for India, the Sardar was less sentimental.' 'Nehru would angrily face down mobs himself, rushing from trouble spot to trouble spot. A veritable tent city, filled with Muslim refugees, sprouted on the lawns of his bungalow... Mountbatten feared Nehru's impulsiveness would get him killed, and assigned soldiers to watch over him.' Nisid Hajari's Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition casts fresh light on the events and personalities behind the horrific division of the subcontinent which haunts the India and Pakistan to this day.
Only the Indian elite would rather not breathe than be ordinary.
On the actor's 54th birthday on November 2, we write another tome about the boy with big dreams and a regrettable haircut, who defied incredible odds to become one of the most loved actors on the planet.
Jyoti Punwani examines the relevance of the Sairat, the hit Marathi film everyone is talking about, in today's times.
'One hopes the younger generation sees Savarkar him for what he was and does not view him through a distorted prism.' 'This is the least one could do for someone who devoted his whole life to Indian freedom struggle, elimination of caste, succour to Dalits, and instilling of strategic culture in India,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Sudha Murty has various roles -- philanthropist, author, teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt -- and she revels in each one of them, discovers Savera R Someshwar.
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?
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
In a no-holds-barred interview, 20-year-old Nikita Azad discusses the backlash she has faced after #HappytoBleed, the campaign she launched to protest a derogatory statement made by the chief of the Sabarimala Devasom Board.
In a no-holds-barred interview, 20-year-old Nikita Azad discusses the backlash she has faced after #HappytoBleed, the campaign she launched to protest a derogatory statement made by the chief of the Sabarimala Devasom Board.
Kashmir was indeed in need of a messiah that summer; 70 per cent of its population aged below 31 were up in arms against the Indian State. Every nook and corner of the land brought forth stories of youngsters with crushed bodies and an unfaltering spirit.
