'How many people have been skilled up and thus able to escape from needing to be in NREGA? The true success of NREGA would lie in its irrelevance -- that is, people no longer need it as a crutch.' 'NREGA should enable them to climb out of poverty and stand on their feet.' 'But this is expressly forbidden by NREGA rules. Skill development, which is what India needs more than anything else, appears to be outside the purview of NREGA,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Serving as the AG is one way of giving back to society or to the profession from which you have earned your name, fame, money and reputation. A lawyer practises for only about 50 years. I have already put in 35 years. If I put in 40 or 50 years, out of which if I take five or 10 years to give back to the profession, it's not a big deal.'
Shivade then asked if the skeleton finally came out of the ground in many parts. It was difficult not to gasp aloud at that revelation. Bhagat said that was true.
Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his 'elder brother', was among three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964.
'Did the government learn any lesson from the disasters of 2008, 1987, 1975?' 'Certainly not!' 'They are making people believe that the 2017 flood was unexpected, so no preventive effort towards reducing the loss of human lives was to be expected from the government,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com meets the shattered families of the five Tamil fishermen sentenced to death by a Sri Lankan court for alleged drug smuggling. Most feel the men are being made an example of to scare off other fishermen from straying into Sri Lankan waters.
'When the government says the army will make a bridge, what does it mean?' 'If this is not stopped here, then there is no telling where and for what all the army will be employed or deployed in the future,' says Veenu Sandhu
Scientists at the India Meteorological Department warn that not only has India turned hotter in the last two decades, but that heat waves are projected to become more intense, have longer durations and greater frequency, thereby resulting in more deaths.
'Evacuation' has been key to disaster management in Odisha. The aim is to achieve zero casualty.
Barcelona defender Gerard Pique has decried the fans who booed manager Luis Enrique and the players in Sunday's laboured 2-1 home win over Leganes in La Liga as having a short-term memory.
Iyobinte Pusthakam is a visual extravaganza where director Amal Neerad's technical skills and the brilliance of the ensemble cast win the day.
Residents of Dadri's Bishada, nurse a deep resentment over being "unfairly victimised", as visitors make a beeline to the crime spot in the village
'It is very hard to get the police to file a report against someone from an upper caste.' 'Things are so bad that sometimes we have to sit on a dharna with the body of a Dalit victim to get the police to file a complaint.'
'The previous (Congress) government at least did not veto provisions of the cattle laws.' 'The BJP is actively weakening the provisions.' 'The BJP government tried to export goats from Nagpur for slaughter to the Middle East.' 'The whole country was aghast and offended. We are a country of Ahimsa.' 'The BJP has incentivised the butcher industry so meat export has gone up, live animal export has gone up, leather export is on the rise, smuggling has gone up.'
As football fans arrive to watch Euro 2016, France's trade unions have undertaken a series of strikes to provoke a make-or-break situation. Claude Arpi encounters both Gallic beauty and ugliness in the country of his birth.
'She was once asked what the secret to political leadership was and she said it was the ability to like all kinds of people.' 'I don't think Rahul fundamentally likes people -- that's probably why he can't deal with them and it shows.' 'Sonia is a more talented political mobiliser than her son, but I think the decline of the Congress set in in 1969...'
'Varanasi has seen elections for ages, but this one is different. Different, in the sense, that it is like an invasion.'
Margaret Thatcher in a personal note to Indira Gandhi extended Britain's full support in the aftermath of the 1984 Operation Bluestar to flush out Sikh militants holed up in the Golden Temple, a media report has said.
In January 2006, King Abdullah became the first Saudi monarch in 51 years to visit India.
At 47 protests a day, the state has become the most restive in the country and investors are becoming increasingly wary
Child rights activists India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai on Tuesday said the Nobel peace prize gives them tremendous opportunity in their fight and struggle for children's rights.
The Malyalam film is complicated in parts and oversimplifies matters in others, but is worth seeing
Reports said that Adani took legal action to override the W&J people.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday allocated portfolios to the twenty-member council of ministers, including 10 of the Shiv Sena, who were inducted into his expanded cabinet.
How much do you know about Shah Jahan, Mumtaz Mahal and the Taj Mahal?
On its 25th anniversary, Sukanya Verma lists 10 things she still loves about Mohra.
106 people died on a single day on Thursday.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley more than halved the central government's financial support.
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
If Team Rajini expected Kaala to carry the superstar's political message off-screen, it may have proved counter-productive. If the not-so-infrequent presence of Muslim residents of Dharavi, including that of Kaala's ex-love Zarina, in many scenes is expected to convey a political message, it is a no-brainer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Under attack from opposition over the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party on Monday accused the media of "targeting" its government under a "conspiracy sponsored by the Bharatiya Janata Party".
Union Steel Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Friday announced that a high-level committee will be constituted to probe into the leakage of toxic gas at SAIL's Bhilai Plant in Chhattisgarh in which six people were killed and about 30 others injured.
Robbed of prey as people fled, Omar Perez came marching back and shot bullet after bullet into Prudhvi Raj Kandepi's head, thus ensuring that a man he had never met before, known nothing of, would never get up again.
MUST READ: The speech Nayantara Sahgal was not allowed to give.
'Having learnt her lesson in popular democracy, Jaya would become more populist than the DMK and more so than the imagery that mentor MGR had created in the Tamil voter's mind, both as an individual and as an elected ruler.'
Comparing a state like Kerala with a nation like Somalia shows disconnect unbecoming of a prime minister, says Uttaresh Venkateshwaran.
Most successful and ambitious business leaders feel persuaded that they have no competent successor, says R G Vilakudi.
Eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud "bang" from inside the venue.
'This wipes out the entire black money in the nation in one stroke. Ninety per cent plus of the black money is kept in Rs 500, Rs 1,000 notes. What they have done is a brilliant move.'
'It is nauseating to hear jingoists shout that this is a country that worships women as Goddesses. Leave Goddesses aside, do you treat women as human beings here?'