Miss World 2024 will be crowned in India soon. Long before Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra, Yukta Mukhey and Diana Hayden, a beautiful woman from Bombay was crowned Miss World. In 1966. Reita Faria was India's first Miss World. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/ Rediff.com met the 80 year old in Dublin recently, still as elegant, still as attractive as she was all those years ago.
'We are very close to become a theocratic State where Hinduism is the official religion of the government.'
This year, the monsoon was above normal in almost all parts, except in North-West India, which comprises the major grain producing states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, along with states such as Himachal Pradesh, the NCR, Uttarakhand, and J&K.
'The local support from our MP is nil. He never comes to see our farms.'
The legendary actor lost a two-year battle against a rare cancer.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
This would be the second cyclonic storm in the Arabian Sea this year.
UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
The Met office had said Monday that significantly higher-than-normal temperatures may have an adverse impact on wheat and other crops.
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Ironically, rival Tamil Nadu governments expend the most on social welfare schemes, especially targeting women and youth and children, but that money comes only by selling more liquor. There is always the specious plea, which has been peddled very many times in the past, that without licensed liquor, drinkers would go after hooch and there could be more hooch tragedies and hooch deaths. No one is convinced, but no one can dispute it either, comments N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Indian Navy on Saturday said its guided missile destroyer INS Visakhapatnam has deployed a team to help fire-fighting efforts on board British oil tanker MV Marlin Luanda which has got 22 Indian and one Bangladeshi crew members.
China has signalled that it will prevent India from assuming leadership of the Global South, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Stating that the police had "reliable inputs" that Anwar "may have been murdered", Akhilesh Chaturvedi, IG, CID, said that the police were yet to recover the victim's body.
A dome-shaped mysterious object has washed up on a remote Australian beach, amid speculation that it could be from a 20-year-old Indian rocket that was used for launching a satellite.
TMC's Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose submitted a letter to the Election Commission on Thursday.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
'We need a candidate who will do our work and fight with the authorities; someone we can hold accountable.' 'Piyush Goyal is not that candidate.'
A tormenting heatwave swept through North India on Sunday with the mercury crossing 49 degrees Celsius in pockets of Delhi, while the weather office forecast some relief Monday onwards.
'I always say you really cannot own a recipe.' 'In India, where, we have been cooking for thousands of years, how can you put a finger and say, 'This is mine'?'
'Nobody really talks about the middle of relationships or the mundane parts... (When the end comes) we think, "Wow, this is the worst time of my life. This is horrible. It's never been worse". But actually, I feel the endings are what makes us who we are.'
Rediff readers tell us how they are celebrating Ganeshotsav this year.
Meanwhile, ED officers faced resistance again during the arrest of TMC leader and former Bongaon Municipality chairman Shankar Adhya on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.
As heavy rains batter several parts of west and south India, the meteorological department on Friday said isolated extremely heavy falls are very likely over Konkan, Goa and central Maharashtra in the next two days.
The T20 showpiece is also seen as a major stepping stone to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where cricket will make a comeback after 128 years when the big event kicks off on June 1.
The Odisha government has asked all the district collectors to remain prepared for any eventuality, and directed the administration to evacuate people from low-lying areas in the event of heavy rain.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
The alliance would announce a coordination committee, which could be of 11 members from principal opposition parties.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
The Indian Navy rescued an Iranian-flagged fishing vessel with 19 Pakistani crew members and a Sri Lankan trawler in two swift operations after armed pirates hijacked the boats in the Arabian Sea amid deteriorating security situation arising out of Iran-backed Houthi rebels targeting various cargo ships in the region.
The weak monsoon this year will jack up prices of primary articles further, even as the country's inflation is likely to be in negative territory for the next three months, a report says.
There were no immediate reports of any loss of life or damage to property.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
If the Congress reached 90, it would have a pretty good chance of holding the BJP below the 272 mark. A hundred seats will rock national politics, argues Shekhar Gupta.
McDonald's problems couldn't have surfaced at a worse time. Cut-throat competition, rapid expansion and a slowdown in consumer spending in the wake of demonetisation have seriously dented the overall quick-service restaurant business.
'After a longish time being on the defensive on the Muslim issue, Mamata found in the Centre's surgical strike just the kind of battle in which she specialises -- hand-to-hand combat.' 'Having routed the once formidable Marxists by her trademark, no-holds-barred belligerence, she is now ready to employ the same tactics against the BJP,' predicts Amulya Ganguli.
"The NIA categorically refuted allegations of mala fide in its Bhupatinagar blast case," an agency spokesperson said.
Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
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