With the Supreme Court quashing the ban on dance bars in Maharashtra, bar-owners and dancers look forward to business starting once again, reports Neeta Kolhatkar. However, some issues need to be sorted out
Diplomats agree that amid stormy relations with China and Pakistan, Modi has posted impressive foreign policy successes, notes Aditi Phadnis.
MUST READ: The speech Nayantara Sahgal was not allowed to give.
'I don't think there is a need to order a fresh investigation into the complaint against Modi & Co. As the amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran said in his report to the Supreme Court, the existing material is more than sufficient to prosecute Modi and other high-ups of his regime,' Manoj Mitta, author of the book The Fiction Of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra tells Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore.
Each story is sadder than the next, but what is most heartbreaking is to see the indifference shown towards these children by the police.
Patrick French, who profiled Nupur and Rajesh Talwar and the case against them in his book India, A Portrait, speaks to Rediff.com about their acquittal.
In the aftermath of the Sydney Test, Ricky Ponting has had much to say-- and the bulk of his statements constitute a defence of his own integrity.
So concluded a day in court that saw a woman accused of murder don a fresh role of heroine of the moment. Even Bollywood couldn't have come up with such a curious twist.
In writing to the government for a change in the law, the Election Commission has actually acknowledged the future possibility of countermanding polls to curb the use of money power, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
'Why assail the Tibetan leader at a time when many in China realise that the Buddhist monk is the best bet if Beijing is seriously trying to find a solution to the Tibetan issue?' asks Claude Arpi.
The assembly polls in the state have shown that the GenNext voters want change -- not necessarily of leaderships but of their behaviour, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Banning the film is an unfortunate response and does great injustice to Nirbhaya's parents, who have supported the film and to the brave young men and women who forced the government to set up the Justice Verma Commission.' Bollywood gets their voice across.
There are unprecedented political implications of identification based on 'biological attributes of an individual', such as employed by Aadhaar, warns Gopal Krishna.
In his latest book, Fly Me To The Moon, former member of Parliament Prafull Goradia provides interesting insights into the man who is India's prime minister.
In his last column for Rediff.com, Praful Bidwai joins issues with those lauding India's covert operation against Naga rebels based in Myanmarese territory.
Should the Karnataka high court deliver a verdict in the Jayalalithaa case on Thursday, the Supreme Court bench on Friday could pass orders in her bail extension plea that may end up staying the former ruling, reports N Sathiya Moorthy.
Anand Sharma who is at the WTO meet at Bali has been making all the right noises in opposing the peace clause. However at 9 PM on Friday, he will have to make a crucial decision.
'Manto is the only writer to grasp what the project of Pakistan would eventually mean,' says Aakar Patel, who has translated a collection of Saadat Hasan Manto's essays in a just-released book Why I Write.
The change needed to prevent violence against women in India -- and across the world -- must be systemic, cultural change, not reciprocal violence to individual acts of barbarism, says Mallika Dutt.
The Karnataka government is divided over filing an appeal in the Supreme Court against the acquittal of former Tamil Nadu chief minister. N Sathiya Moorthy analyses the possibilities
Thiruvananthapuram did not give him a resounding victory, but did not abandon him either. If he learns his lessons and avoids the pitfalls of the past, he will have a bright political future, says T P Sreenivasan.
Here's celebrating Dilip Kumar by re-visiting his best movies.
Unpredictable polling in Tamil Nadu, and criminal cases stacked against Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be two key factors to be taken into consideration when the government is formed at the Centre, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Will China's new military reforms endanger Xi Jinping's rule?
Khushwant Singh was a courageous writer. He was a superb mentor of young talent, had great generosity of spirit, was extremely tolerant and was, on many levels, a true secular Indian, says Shobhaa De in a moving tribute.
Six Kashmiri Muslim students belonging to Sarhad, an organisation which brings semi-orphans from strife-torn regions to live and study at their school and college in Pune, share their hopes for their state and their experiences outside it. Jyoti Punwani reports.
In Tamil Nadu, the alternative to one Dravidian party has been another, and for one actor-politician CM, there is another. Their initial popularity may owe to their filmi charisma, but their continued acceptance owed to their government's policies and programmes targeting the poor and the needy in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
If either faction of the AIADMK failed to muster a floor majority, then the governor would be called upon to ask MK Stalin as the leader of the opposition if he would like to try his hand at government formation.
The perception about JNU being 'radical' is one that is as old as JNU itself. But the university is more than just that. At its heart, its campus is a mosaic of ideologies that allow its students to breathe politically.
The Nobel Prize for Malala may have caused deep divisions across the globe and disturbed the peace, while the award to OPCW, though not without critics, may have served the cause of peace by eliminating a weapon of mass destruction from the face of the earth, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Fulfilling the promises made in the manifesto, a resurgent Opposition in the state assembly, impending local body polls... Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa may have made history by winning two assembly elections in a row, but the real test begins now, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
Rediff.com republishes an old interview of the cartoonist on politics
The governments at the Centre and in the state were unprepared to handle the massive response to the large numbers of people, as they were not aware of the groundswell of public admonition that was against the Establishment, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
And in the midst of it all, Jayalalithaa keeps the guessing game going, on her returning as chief minister and on calling for early assembly polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
For the AIADMK, winning the Srirangam by-election without Jayalalithaa campaigning for it, and having Panneerselvam as chief minister, is saying a lot in its favour. But again, a year and more is a long time in electoral politics in the country, and more so in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The consolation is that in recent years, the focus at the time of the anniversary has been increasingly shifting from Indira Gandhi's assassination to the plight of the thousands of innocent Sikhs who had been killed in retaliation,' Manoj Mitta, co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
If we have to elect Rahul Gandhi to rule the country because 'secularism', of all things, dictates it, we are strengthening the ugly aspects of the dynastic system of democracy that has come to infect India's body politic deeply, says Jaya Jaitly.
'While the government must be relentless in its efforts to curb unruly elements to ensure secular harmony and protect its goal of national development,it must not lose the moral high ground by giving in to the antics of the anti-nationalist lobby.' 'They must be countered and relegated to the dustbin of history,' says Vivek Gumaste.
Should Sasikala seek to follow Jayalalithaa's footsteps in the matter, and if at all she is not disinterested in keeping the twin posts together, the by-election to Jayalalithaa's constituency R K Nagar could be the starting point, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
There is a political vacuum emerging in Tamil Nadu, but can the Superstar, the state's biggest phenomenon since the late MGR, take advantage of it? Does he have what it takes to enter politics, or is he merely ensuring headlines ahead of his film's release, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
