Trump also announced the appointment of Gina Haspel to head the Central Intelligence Agency -- the first woman selected for the agency's top post.
'This was the worst phase yet in the state's human rights history.' 'Notorious interrogation centres were set up, large numbers died in firing on civilian mobs.' 'This is what today's generations might identify better as the Haider phase in Kashmir's history,' says Shekhar Gupta.
A series of bypoll losses has pushed the Modi government into panic mode. Uncharacteristically, it's letting events dictate its actions, says Shekhar Gupta.
The International Cricket Council paid rich tribute to former Australia captain and broadcasting legend Richie Benaud, who passed away at the age of 84 following a prolonged illness.
The portraits -- painted by African American artists -- will shake up the assumptions of visitors to US presidential galleries.
'Though not religious in everyday life, his Hindu-Indian identity was an irrevocable influence on his writings,' observes Vivek Gumaste.
Mr T V R Shenoy, who contributed columns to Rediff.com from its birth, passed into the ages on Tuesday evening. As we grieve and mourning his passing, Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar bids adieu to an unusual human being, a sage for our times.
"He's a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience," said Trump of his new appointment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated a memorial in London dedicated to Dr B R Ambedkar over two months after India acquired the bungalow where the Dalit icon and architect of India's Constitution lived as a student in the 1920s.
'Here was a man who played a major part in helping the Bengalis of East Pakistan create a new nation, secured the merger of Sikkim into the Indian dominion and built R&AW into a formidable outfit, comparable to the best in the world.' Rameshwar Nath Kao shunned the limelight, hated to be photographed and preferred to work behind the scenes. A revealing excerpt from Nitin A Gokhale's much awaited book, R N Kao: Gentleman Spymaster.
Historian Stanley Wolpert, author of several books on India, passed into the ages recently. We remember Professor Wolpert with Rajeev Srinivasan's March 1997 interview published on the occasion of his controversial book on Jawaharlal Nehru.
'You can ignore someone's passion, but how can you taunt someone for being obsessed with achieving greatness in her/his chosen field?'
The longest immersion process is that of Mumbai's Lalbaugcha Raja which lasts for 24 hours.
President Ram Nath Kovind said he was 'a determined champion of democracy during the Emergency' and would be missed by his readers.
Here are photos from his life and career as India's pre-eminent defence scientist and one of the country's most popular president
The 15-nation UN Security Council had last week voted for Guterres by acclamation and forwarded his name to the General Assembly.
Jared Kushner, the 35-year-old, played a key role in the presidential campaign and his new White House job will cover both domestic and foreign policy.
Before unveiling the giant 'Adiyogi' bust, Modi lighted the 'Maha Yoga Yagna' and released the book Adiyoga: The source of Yoga, which deals with yogic sciences.
'For a working actor in Bollywood, it is nearly impossible to criticise its reigning deities.' 'Besides, due care ought to be taken when speaking of the dead too.'
The story does not have any subtlety, everything that the director wishes to convey has been overtly pronounced by the actors through their dialogues.
Gender diversity is important to the success of companies,he said.
Mohammad Sajjad profiles Professor Riazur Rahman Sherwani, 94, versatile mind, intrepid intellectual.
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.
Naresh Chandra was most certainly among the greatest patriots two generations of Indian strategists have seen.
As the Modi government completed two years in office, Singh also made it clear that not allowing an the National Investigation Agency team to probe the Pathankot terror strike will amount to "betrayal".
Don't believe us? Then listen to the expert. Harish Rao dispels myths about Ola and Uber's dynamic pricing model and explains why government interference in it finally hurt us, the rider.
What happened in Uttarakhand is a national tragedy. Why couldn't Dr Manmohan Singh announce that he was forming an Uttarakhand Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, with himself as chairman but inviting Narendra Modi to become the deputy chairman, asks T V R Shenoy.
'No civilised nation can thrive if it is possessed with the spirit of Hindutva.'
'Tilting at the Government in English in front of India may make him feel like Joan of Arc, but without a feel for Bharat he will merely be Don Quixote,' says S Muraleedharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
"I can't believe I'm saying a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women," Obama said.
'The BJP, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are celebrating their biggest ideological and philosophical victory in some time,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The defence minister has 20 months to learn the military's ethos, culture and to publicly bat for an organisation that feels increasingly marginalised and underappreciated.
'I am only slightly puzzled by why the childishness has not left the minister. It is easy to be prejudiced and closed-minded when one is in one's teens. But adults should view the world as adults, not as squabbling and petty schoolchildren,' says Aakar Patel.
'I cannot conceive of any reason than my unsparing criticism of government policies that the government picked me to send a message to many who dare to take it on.'
'I think my mom's fear came from the fact that I would be compared to her.' 'She was worried about the comparisons because she would say, "I have done 400 films and this is your first, but they will compare you to my 400 films".'
Celebrated novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who has just won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature, spoke to Arthur J Pais of Rediff.com in 2009, recalling his wonderful association with Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf and chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, who had just won a special award.
The writers, artistes, thinkers and academics had gathered for a "resistance" meet (Pratirodh) against what they described as "attack on reason, democracy and composite culture".
'The Pakistani defence minister talks of throwing a nuclear bomb on India. And if someone throws ink on your face, you call it violence?'
Downplaying the allegations made by the Congress and former French President Francois Hollande's statement that the Indian government played a role in finalising Reliance Defence as Dassault Aviation's offset partner, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that some statements are made to create controversy and these do not have credibility. In an exclusive interview to ANI, Jaitley added that circumstances and fact prove these statements wrong.
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