Assembly elections are due in the summer of 2016 in five places: Assam, West Bengal in the east and Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry in the south
India's rank in the World Bank's ease of doing business index cannot get better unless more attention is paid to bringing about procedural reforms in the way states run their governments and provide various approvals for trade and industry, says A K Bhattacharya.
The Sindhis are a lesson in perseverance. Once uprooted, they've started all over, often reinventing themselves
Pompeii is one of those rare films for which I am glad that a 3D format was used. If cheesy, overdone, masala flicks are your kind of fare, this is your kind of film. For the rest of us, Pompeii just blows, rants Paloma Sharma.
'As he has no executive track record, so far, he is all talk and hence essentially a braggart and a bigot.' 'That he is described as the 'Trump of the tropics' should give a shorthand summary to what he stands for on issues in general,' points out Ambassador B S Prakash, India's former envoy to Brazil.
Business houses don't think twice about blacklisting a newspaper.
'It is not that he has not committed any mistakes; he has.' 'But people were willing to forgive you if you were honest.'
'How can the police, especially the Gujarat police, earn their laurels if they stick to the rule book?' asks lawyer Susan Abraham.
Sources reveal that Modi's first choice to contest Lok Sabha election from the 'safest' Lucknow constituency could have affected BJP president's personal plans, who was getting increasingly uncomfortable in Ghaziabad. Sharat Pradhan reports.
'Of course, I would like a world in which candidates don't ask for my vote on religious (etc) grounds.' 'But will we ever live in a world free of such appeals?' 'More important, will a Supreme Court verdict, by itself, ever deliver such a world?' asks Dilip D'Souza.
How has the Indian State, in principle and practice, given shape to the essential ingredients of the secular principle and composite culture?
The Modi juggernaut is all set to paint the five south Indian states in saffron colours, writes R Rajagopalan.
Many anticipate that by the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP may come to power, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'The PM should have spoken out much earlier and I would urge him to act, since speaking is not enough.' 'What we are demanding is action.' 'Immediate orders have to be issued by state governments to officials that such incidents should not happen.'
'If ISIS was popular, they don't need to use violence.' 'The strategy of violence is a false interpretation of Islam.' 'The main victims of ISIS violence are Muslims.'
Walter Lohman, director of Asian Studies Centre at the Washington, DC and former policy aide to Senator John McCain, said India's role in America's effort to maintain its commitment to ensuring the peace, security, prosperity, and freedom in East Asia was relatively minor.
The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dr M Ponnavaikko, vice chancellor, Bharathidasan University explains why the Indian education system requires needs to be revamped.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided that 10 per cent of the government's stake in Coal India Ltd would be sold. Similarly, the sale of five per cent of its stake in ONGC and 11.4 per cent in the hydropower public-sector unit, NHPC, has been cleared.
'Bangladeshi Muslims want to increase their population in India.' 'They have made colonies in India.' 'Rohingyas are doing the same.' 'This has to stop.'
If November 9 ushers in a Hillary Clinton presidency, you can bet your last dollar that Huma Abedin will be back at POTUS' side.
'The strange thing about the Karnataka election is that the BJP looks more like the Congress of the past and vice versa.' 'Siddaramaiah has been able to out think the BJP almost every single day on every single issue.'
Prasanna Zore/ Rediff.com talk to members of the Patel community to find out why they are dissatisfied with the state of affairs.
'The government has to take effective steps to strengthen democracy, rule of law, maintain communal harmony and safeguard the security of the country and its people.' 'The government has to carry all sections of the people with it irrespective of their race, caste, community, region or language,' and try to unite them by promoting fraternity among them,' says legendary Constitution expert P P Rao.
The third Bonjour India is coming to 33 cities!
Well done, Team Talvar. Savera R Someshwar applauds the film.
Further deterioration of the US-Saudi relationship will have geo-economic and geopolitical effects, says Nitin Pai.
Start-ups have begun looking at ways to conserve cash.
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton apologised on Thursday to former US tennis star James Blake, who was arrested after being wrongly identified as a suspect in a fraud ring and said he is concerned over how much force is used.
The suspect, a 29-year-old man identified as Saifullo Saipov, of Uzbek descent, was shot in the stomach before being arrested.
When the bench asked Sibal 'shouldn't we hear the matter', he replied, 'Yes. You shouldn't.'
'Those who follow the workings of the establishment believe that Indian diplomacy has managed more by the individual flair and brilliance of a few individuals than its systemic strength or organisational excellence.'
Incisive Editor, brilliant scholar on Islam, and now BJP leader, M J Akbar is at his intellectual best when he dissects the Muslim world and its problems, and offers up a solution from his unique perspective, as he did in this recent speech at the 10th R N Kao Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.
About 2 million head of cattle are smuggled into Bangladesh annually.
West Ham bade farewell to the Boleyn Ground after 112 years with a pulsating 3-2 victory over Manchester United to leave the visitors' top-four hopes in tatters on Tuesday.
The HC would also give a ruling on the 'drunken' state of Salman Khan on the ill-fated day.
'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.
'Unity in diversity is a dated notion as India, today, is more unified and cohesive and yet more pronouncedly diverse than ever in its history,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'Freedom of expression is not a freedom to abuse those who do not agree with you.' 'It is also about being liberated from prejudices and intolerance.' 'To me, freedom is the right to be who I am and what I am without hurting the same rights of others.'
The market could be influenced by events elsewhere in the world and regardless of what happens to India's economy
