Strobe Talbott's tweet that hijackers may have wanted to use the missing Malaysian flight to attack Indian cities should be seen in the context of Lashkar-e-Tayiba's long standing plans to attack Indian cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai from the skies. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
'Kulbhushan Jadhav is a very sad case.' 'I think Pakistan handled this issue very clumsily.' 'They gave too much of publicity and also said that they will hang him.' 'Now obviously, they are not going to hang him.'
Ten-man Manchester City staged a dramatic comeback with late goals from Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling securing them a 3-2 win at Schalke 04 in their Champions League Round of 16 first leg.
Even as the Union home ministry sought a report from the state government, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah says he has an 'open mind' for a CBI probe in the case.
'Hitchens asked which State Israel had most in common with -- and then answered his own question, saying "Pakistan".' 'They were both, he explained "confessional States": Founded to succour the followers of a particular faith,' remembers Mihir S Sharma.
'In the first elections, Hindutva forces got only 6% of the votes and won only 10 seats.' 'It was a great defeat for them.' 'They have held that grouse against Nehru since then.'
The destinations have a lot to offer in terms of adventure, culture and entertainment.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Sunday
Siddaramaiah seems overwhelmed by problems coming at him from every direction, reports Aditi Phadnis.
'Headley's confirmation of certain aspects of the conspiracy, its planning and what his role was will definitely matter.'
'The beef fest is about an individual's freedom to wear what he wants and eat what he wants. The students were protesting against the state interfering with their personal liberties.' 'Everybody has the right to air his or her opinion and lead a life they want. Nobody has any right to put restrictions on others. What we need is tolerance but what we see is intolerance.' Deepa Nisanth, a lecturer who backed Kerala's beef fest, on why she supported the students in their protest.
The Bihar government has always been extremely touchy when it came to the subject of terrorism and in the past two years they have made it clear twice.
Improved coordination between various security agencies and a quick response mechanism are the key to Mumbai's security in the nine years following the 26/11 attacks.
'If you are in Punjab, Modi is omnipresent as if he is going to be chief minister of Punjab.'
'If he is in Uttarakhand, he presents himself to be the chief minister of Uttarakhand.'
'When he is in UP, he is touted as the chief minister of UP.' 'There is a personality cult which is being built around a person... that he is the panacea of every democratic exercise in India, from panchayat to Parliament.' 'Modi at some point will pay the price for trying to build a very ambitious personality cult.'
'No matter how casually his characters treat sex or bare every inch of their extraordinarily fit bodies, Aditya Chopra is too much of a romantic to pull off flippancy as the face of love,' feels Sukanya Verma.
Authorities believe that Anwesha Dey, a 30-year-old doctoral student from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who went missing on May 3, may have fallen into the creek.
Saroj Kumar Rath, author of the newly-published book Fragile Frontiers: The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks, speaks to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa.
Vijay and Mohanlal starrer Jilla is your everyday Madurai-based action thriller set in the backdrop of the special bond shared by a father and his devoted foster son
'The talk in police circles is that Maria was about to crack the money transaction trail in the crime. The Mumbai police's Economic and Offences Wing had begun investigations into the money trail and Mumbai police officers had visited Singapore in this connection.'
'Overlying his idealism was a hatred of war and of all things military. He gave no deep thought to politico-military matters and this prevented him from making sound security decisions.'
'This is basically aimed at vilifying Nehruvian ideals.' 'Why?' 'Because, Nehruvian leadership is seen by Hindutva forces as the one which did not let them have their Hindu Raj.' 'The Hindutva proponents have always assumed that had Sardar become the first prime minister, India could never have become a secular State,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
32 years ago, CPI-M activists hacked both the legs of Sadanandan Master, a former party member who has moved over to the RSS. Master learnt to walk using prosthetic legs and rebuilt his life. Today he is the BJP candidate highly-sensitive Koothuparamba constituency of Kannur. He told Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com his story.
The spectacular Milky Way over the picturesque Bavarian mountain, Herzogstand, the remarkable Horsehead Nebula and the Flame Nebula, a vast cloud of gas and dust where new stars are being born; the Royal Observatory's Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2019 has once more received thousands of outstanding images. The competition, which is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, sponsored by Insight Investment and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, is now in its eleventh year and has broken the record number of entries once more, receiving over 4,600 entries from enthusiastic amateurs and professional photographers, taken from 90 countries across the globe. The winners will be announced on September 12, and an exhibition of the winning images from the past years of the contest will be on show at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich from September 13.
'It seems likely that the February 2019 crisis is over.'
The CH-47F version of the Chinook that India is buying from the United States is a high-tech marvel.
'You can't go on creating division and rhetoric of hate.' 'It comes to roost. We are seeing the first glimpses of that in the state elections.'
A group of people on Wednesday attacked the Aam Aadmi Party headquarters in Kaushambi in Ghaziabad with bricks and stones apparently to protest party leader Prashant Bhushan's remarks on Kashmir.
'We should not flatter ourselves that China is fixated on encircling India. She has greater goals, becoming the pre-eminent power in the world, and India as a major power is dealt with as part of that strategy.'
Indian intelligence agencies have often claimed that left-wing extremists are trying to make inroads in the militancy-hit regions of north-east to foment further unrest. But Jaideep Saikia, noted terrorism and conflict analyst, claims, "People who speak of Maoism taking roots in the north-east have not read history".
The Wolf of Wall Street can really please the senses. Just remember to forget your humanity for a while, says Paloma Sharma.
A round-up of our favourite photographs from the week gone by
'Children should be brought up connected to our culture and should be introduced to characters from our mythologies. What is this Baa Baa Black Sheep?'
Nearly 4,000 doctors have been on strike in various government and municipal hospitals since Monday demanding security at work place in the wake of a string of attacks on their colleagues.
Brexit will likely put brakes on the UK's growth prospects.
The Al-Qaeda and its patrons seems to have outsourced, for the time being, the achieving of that larger, civilisationally retrograde goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle-East, to the ISIS. The symptoms are all similar; the difference lies only in the expressions, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
'I never expected it to go from Golden Globes and Oscar nominations to multiple standing ovations. My story is amazing but I did not expect it to be that captivating that it would affect viewers so emotionally.' Meet the man behind Oscar-nominated film Lion: Saroo Brierley.
'To be good at the heptathlon takes at least seven years; to compete internationally and win medals takes 10 years.' 'Swapna became Asia's best heptathlete in just five years!' 'Nobody would have believed it. but she did it.'
'When you come to Delhi, you see that there are many Kashmirs here -- the Dalits, Muslims, women, bonded labourers.'
Smoke alerts were triggered inside the cabin of the ill-fated EgyptAir jet minutes before it plunged into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board.
The increase in violence along the Line of Control in the last few weeks indicates that despite the olive branch offered by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, hard-line elements in Islamabad are in no mood to become friendly with India.