The collapse of an under-construction 11-storey building in Chennai which claimed 11 lives should serve as a wake-up call for the housing sector to have a regulatory mechanism for the construction industry, says N Sathiya Moorthy
France kick off their Euro 2016 campaign against Romania on Friday with the host nation desperate for a ray of sunshine after being hit by strikes, floods and scandals in the build-up. Protests against a labour law and torrential rain that has caused the Seine river to rise to levels not seen in decades have created a bleak backdrop to the tournament where France will start as favourites. A state of emergency is also still in force after last November's Islamist attacks killed 130 people in Paris at several sites including the Stade de France, the venue for Friday's opening game.
'Learning to learn should be given more importance than what is actually being learnt,' recommends Zaki Ansari.
Images from the football matches played across Europe on Sunday
Thanks to the increased thrust on cow protection, the enforcement of the ban on cow slaughter and the relentless crusade by cow vigilantes, the agrarian ecosystem from Haryana to Uttar Pradesh has been irrevocably altered. There's a huge spike in the number of stray cattle roaming the countryside, destroying crops. Ten cows/bulls take barely an hour to eat and destroy a bigha of crop land.
How China's all powerful Communist party bungled the response to the coronavirus crisis.
The Congress has never given India a PM who was a prisoner of his or her own image, said Rahul Gandhi at the party's MPs' meet.
Gandhi, who spent around 40 minutes with the family members, said he is "ashamed" that such incidents are taking place in India.
India's neglect of villages shows up in many other ways.
The top posts on social media from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
Buoyed by government retreating on the land ordinance, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying he has been "reduced to unedifying flip flops" and most of his poll promises were nothing more than "hawabaazi" (empty talk).
Aseem Chhabra picks the finest Indian films in the 2010-2019 decade.
From NITI Aayog to industry leaders to the Reserve Bank of India, all are apprehensive that any major increase in MSP, following the 2018-19 Budget announcements, would push up prices, if not immediately, in the next six to eight months after the decision is taken.
'A nation can take a quick decision in a fit of passion or excitement that can be damaging to itself in the long term,' says Aakar Patel.
Here's a recap of moments captured in India in the past 48 hours.
'I don't see people standing up against what is happening in Kashmir. I feel this clampdown can exist as long as the government wants it to.'
'That way, it will be helpful for India because by April, temperatures will be in the late 30s and early 40s.' 'So, if we are able to sustain these 21 days, and go to that temperature zone, it will be a way of nature protecting us.'
The job of keeping millions of soccer fans safe at one of the world's biggest sporting events would be enough to keep most people awake at night.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday targeted Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani and Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya over the suicide by a Dalit scholar saying the ministers and the vice chancellor have "not acted fairly" that forced him to take the extreme step.
In a multi-pronged attack on the government, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Surjewala alleged that it was managing headlines to deflect attention from issues such as the death of 39 Indians in captivity in Iraq.
'One can understand this prejudice in the minds of policemen against Muslims, without accepting it. But what tilts the balance disproportionately is the police's blind eye to offences committed in the name of the majority.' says Jyoti Punwani.
Fresh protests erupted on the University of Hyderabad campus on Tuesday over the alleged suicide by Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula even as members of a social outfit tried to hold a demonstration outside the residence of Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who has been accused in the suicide case.
Massive rescue and relief efforts were mounted by India and other neighbours in Nepal, as two powerful aftershocks today rattled the country, adding to the misery of Saturday's devastation in which the casualties soared to 2,400 people dead and over 6000 others injured.
Israel has found the bodies of the three missing teenagers buried in a grave in southern West Bank, just over two weeks after their kidnapping allegedly by Hamas, and vowed to make the Islamist movement pay for their deaths.
In a letter to the North Korean dictator, the US president says talks are 'inappropriate' based on the open hostility displayed in the recent statement.
Trump said his new policy would tighten rules affecting travel and sending funds to the Caribbean island nation.
India's Kailash Satyarthi received the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 on Wednesday, sharing it with Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever Nobel laureate, for their work on promoting child rights in the troubled sub-continent, where millions are deprived of their childhood and education.
Referring to Narendra Modi's speech targeting the prime minister on the Independence Day, Shiv Sena on Saturday said it hoped that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader, when he takes the top post, would "drag" fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim to India and hang him.
The effects of creating 'baiting crowds' on social media, and their use by politicians, have diluted the civilising processes of parliamentary democracy, says Deepak Lal.
'The maverick, alpha male, super suave spy, who kills as efficiently as he charms the pants off women, doing the mother of all gender-benders and trading his tux for high heels?'
Troops from 17 countries, including Pakistan and Russia, formed part of 1000 foreign soldiers who took part in China's first military parade aimed at highlighting the excesses committed by Japanese troops against Chinese in the WW II in which according Chinese historians over 20 million people were killed, eight million forced into labour and thousands of women held as sex slaves.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
'The separatist resurgence in Balochistan is thwarting Pakistan's plans to build CPEC projects to optimally utilise Balochistan's energy reserves,' points out Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
In an interview with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com, he talks about the economic policies of the Narendra Modi government and whether achche din is really coming.
Men and women, young, old all came together to save lives where they could and provide succour -- some by providing food, while others provided medicines and a shoulder to cry on.
Assam CM Tarun Gogoi accused PM Narendra Modi of not taking action against those involved in Panama scam, saying many of those involved in the case were "close to him".
In his suicide letter, Rohith chose not to chronicle the events that led him to make his decision to kill himself but instead wanted human beings to be treated as minds, "as glorious things made up of star dust, in every field, in studies, in streets, in life and in death".
'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
'With the appeal of both the Left and the Congress fading, Banerjee fears the saffron brigade's inroads into her citadel,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore and Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com travelled 650 km in Chhattisgarh's Sukma and Bijapur districts to report on the situation that exists 11 days after the Burkapal ambush, where 25 CRPF troops were killed by the Maoists.
