The finance minister is "reasonably confident" that when it comes to the crunch, "it would be extremely difficult even for the Congress party to take a contrarian view" on the GST Bill.
Mehbooba wants a congenial political atmosphere and everybody's support before taking the reins of power; hence the delay in government formation. Aditi Phadnis opines.
Both the Greek and Iranian deals are extremely imperfect and fraught with uncertainty, says Claude Smadja.
India is the world's fourth-largest importer of natural gas, accounting for six per cent of the global market.
When Obama signs the NDAA 2017 into law this week, the US-India partnership will be enshrined in US legislation, binding every succeeding administration, whatever its inclinations, to treat India as a 'major defence partner,' says Ajai Shukla.
Zahid Rasool Bhat, 19, a truck assistant had received 74 per cent burn injuries with another person on October 9 when a Kashmir-bound truck was attacked by a mob protesting against the beef party hosted by an independent MLA in the summer capital of Srinagar.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday presented the Union Budget for 2016-17.
India is failing to take advantage of its important ally, Japan as much as it should, notes Mihir S Sharma.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Sunday
Resettlement of refugees elsewhere is not the morally correct solution to the problem for it lets the perpetrators off the hook.
The storage of water in the six major reservoirs in the state was just 6.2 per cent of capacity as of April 27, 2017, reports T E Narasimhan and Gireesh Babu.
On the face of it, some clauses in the new land ordinance looks pro-farmer but in reality it is not so. The problem is two-fold. The first is the vagueness of the law itself. The other problem with this ordinance is that it is against the very ethos of judicial interpretation, says Vidhan Vyas.
Volkswagen mess costs Germany its strongest nation brand position.
'There were assurances that Jaish-e-Mohammad was being reined in as was the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, but Pakistan's security forces could not risk opening too many dangerous new fronts,' notes former foreign secretary Ambassador Shyam Saran, who has just returned from a visit to Lahore.
Launches of new homes reduced drastically this year.
Why did Chennai go under in the recent rains? R Ramasubramanian paints a familiar picture of dismal urban town planning, civic short-sightedness, and rampant development that caused the recent nightmare.
.jpg)
Modi government must push reforms at a fast pace to restore growth.
'By the time the ground dries up, considering that the homes are still submerged, winter will be here. By the end of October, it is going to be very, very cold. By the end of November, it will be freezing, and it would have snowed by mid December. So before the ground can dry up, there will be snow.' 'The anger has not receded with the water. It persists. The floods have completely finished whatever 5 per cent chance Omar Abdullah had left with the public... He is seen as someone who is highly arrogant and is coming across as one who has no feelings for his people.' A Kashmiri whose family has lived in J&K since before Partition, tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com how the government and media failed the people when flood waters turned Paradise into hell.
A case has been registered against temple authorities as permission for firecrackers was denied.
Global disinflation has finally caught up with India's high-cost economy.
Lifting the AFSPA can certainly be attempted but the provisions of the AFSPA, as an emergency law that empowers the army -- the nation's instrument of last resort -- must continue to remain on the statute books given the increasingly violent and uncertain times that the subcontinent is likely to face in coming years, says Nitin A Gokhale.
The Geneva agreement is a signal, which at least Saudi Arabia and Israel are so reading, that normalisation of relations between US and Iran is not merely about the nuclear fuel cycle, says K C Singh.
.jpg)
The buck for the Gandamal tragedy should not stop with the school-in-charge Meena Kumari. She is just the face of a deeper malaise in Bihar, says Apoorvanand.
Imagine being a part of a country, but being discriminated against by the majority community and atrocities being committed against you by the state. This is the deplorable conditions that the Rohingyas of Myanmar live in where they are cut off from their livelihoods and sources of income, unable to access markets, hospitals and schools, and have little or no access to relief aid. In order to understand the situation and the genesis of the tragedy unfolding, Rediff.com's Archana Masih speaks to Ambassador Vijay Nambiar, the United Nations' Chef de Cabinet (Chief of Staff), who had served a long stint with the UN in New York on the issue.
The industry status will help the sector access bank lending at average interest rates
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
The following is the full text of US President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of the Congress on February 28, as prepared for delivery and released by the White House press office.
'Modi's investment in the relationship with Washington is the biggest deliverable of this visit. He means business and that's fantastic!'
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
