Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric who was a surprise winner in the recent elections, took oath on Sunday as Iran's seventh president at a ceremony attended by a galaxy of world leaders, including Vice President Hamid Ansari, with which he has pledged to expand ties.
The entire campaign in Lucknow is based on Narendra Modi -- there is little mention of the BJP candidate, a certain Rajnath Singh. Some locals wonder, 'Rajnathji is not coming to campaign in Lucknow. How will he take care of this city after he wins?' Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com reports from Lucknow.
'Yogi Adityanath will prove to be the most popular and effective chief minister, overseeing a regime of peace and justice, harsh on wrongdoers and rabble rousers, encouraging those who work for India,' says Tarun Vijay.
Hemal Trivedi, a Hindu filmmaker originally from India, and Mohammed Ali Naqvi, a Muslim from Pakistan have made one of this year's most talked about films.
A case of assault and threatening to murder has been registered against the parents of the 22-year-old girl who was at the centre of the 'love jihad' controversy and has gone back on her statement that she was gang-raped and forcibly converted.
Most incidents of triple talaq are eloquent examples of the failure of Muslim society to instil in its men the teachings of the Quran; instead, they end up relying on the Quran's interpretation by local maulanas, says Ziya US Salam.
Senior ministers of Pakistan's ruling Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz party on Wednesday rallied in Parliament in support of embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and dismissed demands for his resignation by protest leaders Imran Khan and Tahir-ul-Qadri.
The perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack, who shot dead 166 people, had confessed to details that should have been enough to hang him, but Pakistan enjoyed his anti-India rhetoric and let him spread his tentacles. A revealing excerpt from Khaled Ahmed's Pakistan's Terror Conundrum.
'Genuine secularism cannot be built on the backs of Hindus alone.' 'In a pluralistic society every religion is duty bound to respect the rights and sentiments of the others.' 'Vande Mataram was a casualty of minorityism. Bharat Mata Ki Jai cannot be allowed to go the same way,' says Vivek Gumaste.
"I am not giving false assurance. If I had confirmation that they were killed, then definitely, I would have sought apology from their families the with folded hands and said they were killed. Their killing in such a situation in Mosul in Iraq would not have been blamed on me.
Pakistan's political crisis deepened on Monday with cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri giving a fresh 48-hour ultimatum to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down after a former top election commission official backed protesters' allegations of rigging in last year's polls.
We bring you some of the memorable quotes from the speech as he called for united action against violent extremism:
'To re-establish the writ of the State and resume governance, frayed tempers in the streets and in the media need to be calmed.'
Sukanya Verma looks back at the trend's most memorable incarnations in recent times.
'When the first Islamic State flags appeared, it was called an aberration.' 'When videos appeared, they were termed exceptions!' 'It is high time we accepted that the global jihad is here.'
'Even if Akhilesh Yadav opens up the entire state treasury for us we will not vote for the Samajwadi Party... ''...I don't want to return to my village, my head will be chopped off. They want me to press the button on the lotus.' Caught between an aggressive BSP cornering Dalit votes and the BJP cornering other Hindu votes, the Muslims of Muzaffarnagar have nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt presents the grim situation on the ground in western Uttar Pradesh.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan has said that his supporters will put up a grand show on Saturday to celebrate completion of one month of anti-government protests seeking ouster of embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The 'secularists'are more adept at the politics of intense and alarmingly exaggerated fear-mongering, as this kind of politics provides easy votes of Muslims without making them answerable for the concrete issues of poverty, unemployment, lawlessness, and of basic needs like roads, electricity, etc, which is exactly how Nitish Kumar was defeated in the elections, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'While we may aspire to be a democratic if smaller version of China, we may only manage to become a larger, more accomplished Indonesia,' says T N Ninan.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan talks CNN's Becky Anderson.
Determined to oust Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, tens of thousands of protesters on Friday marched towards the capital in two separate convoys as clashes erupted with opposition leader Imran Khan claiming that ruling PML-N activists fired at his vehicle.
The party claimed it has the support of the independent candidates also.
Instead of repealing Section 295A of the IPC, which criminalises speech that offends the religious, India intends to further criminalise offence against religion, says Mihir S Sharma
While there was no official communication about the closed-door meeting, speculation was rife that the Kanchi seer had been sent by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with some secret formula for an amicable settlement to the centuries-old dispute that had triggered several incidents of communal violence across the country in the past.
With the traditional proximity between Lucknow's Shias and the BJP being no secret, speculation is rife that the issue over which tension was heightened by the Shia community leader and cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawaad, was uncalled for at a time when the Id festival is just round the corner.
'The innate fascism of the RSS is overshadowing Modi's development programme,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Pakistan's law minister Zahid Hamid on Monday quit as the government "surrendered" to hardline religious groups, who called off their violent protests in Islamabad that had left six people dead and hundreds injured.
Opposition leader Imran Khan on Sunday again demanded that Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif quit for 30 days to allow an independent probe into alleged rigging in last year's polls, hours after the government outrightly rejected the proposal to end the crippling political deadlock.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday decided to meet opposition leader Imran Khan in an effort to end the anti-government protests seeking his ouster, as Pakistan's powerful military called for calm and asked all stakeholders to resolve the impasse through meaningful talks.
In any institution that has a passionate ideology, the moderate is always vulnerable to the person who is more extreme, because that is what the supporters want.
'The army has been open about its determination to keep the PML-Nawaz out of power at all costs.' 'Both the military and the higher judiciary have indicated a preference for Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik e Insaaf,' says Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan Desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
The nine meetings offer an interesting window into Shafi Armar's efforts to try and group together what after all were excitable keyboard warriors into an actual terror group, capable of handling weapons, organising recruits, cooking homegrown explosives, selecting safe training areas, safe houses and finally, committing strikes against Indian targets.
'Saeed has been freed as the government decided not to detain him in any other case,' a top Pakistan official told PTI.
'The BJP politics of appropriating icons from its ideological adversaries could only be a desperate attempt to extend the Jat-Muslim divide in Uttar Pradesh. Why this desperation when it can comfortably get votes on the plank of economic development?'
'Its internal economic rot and corrupt political elite have made the resurgent supremacy of the military establishment more invincible,' says Sunil Sethi.
Nath, 72, reached Bhopal late in night to be greeted with chants of 'Jai Jai Kamal Nath' by his supporters.
The Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court heard that the attacker, Karl Anderson, had 25 convictions for 37 offences, including football-related violence, the BBC reported. The 29-year-old will pay a 100 pound ($134) fine.
Mounting pressure on embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, opposition leader Imran Khan on Sunday vowed to fight till death and asked Pakistanis to rebel against the illegal regime after two persons were killed and about 450 others injured in police crackdown on protesters.
Ajit Balakrishnan envisions a flag to capture the spirit of the impending conflicts of the Information Age.
The level of preparedness of Daesh sleeper cells is evident from the fact that it took just four days after Salah Abdelslam's arrest to execute the Brussels attacks, says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
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