"Our initial investigation suggests both the attacks were carried out by homegrown Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh," said the home minister.
'The test of true secularism in India is when a girl in your family decides to marry someone from another religion. If you accept her decision happily, then you are truly secular. If you don't, it means your secularism is fake,' argues Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Today, Ali Hussein Kadhim stands before the world as a rare eyewitness to the extreme brutality of the ISIS militants.
'What we are today witnessing is the final act of the Pakistani army trying to retain its turf,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'No other terror organisation has valued popular consensus as the Islamic State does -- instead of repressing people, IS wants to gain their support. This is a major innovation in terrorism,' says terrorism expert and author Dr Loretta Napoleoni in an interview to Archana Masih and Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
Both the parties had been banking heavily on the internal feud in the first family of the state
Muslim scholars on Friday trashed as "cheap publicity gimmick" and "childish" Bahujan Samaj Party leader Haji Yakub Qureshi's alleged statement hailing terrorists who truck at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and demanded strict action against him.
The attack on the Balochistan Police College, 20 km from Quetta city began around 11:10 pm on Monday night, triggering an operation by Pakistani security forces who rescued hundreds of cadets from the academy.
Hours after Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali said that Narendra Modi coming to power would 'destabilise the peace in the region', the Bharatiya Janata Party slammed Pakistan, asking it to mend its ways and saying the manner in which they have been functioning with India will not work.
'In order to achieve Pakistan's psychological isolation and pariah status, breaking all cultural, economic and people to people contacts must become a government policy with clear linkage to a change in behaviour by the Pakistani regime.'
Comey said from the investigations so far it is not entirely clear at this point just what terrorist group he aspired to support.
Taking a strong stand against the call by its ally Shiv Sena for the scrapping of Muslims' voting rights, the government today said such suggestions were not acceptable to it and that these "should not be discussed even hypothetically".
'As matters stand, Russia and Saudi Arabia, two of the world's biggest oil producers, are set for a hard landing as they didn't diversify their economies as much as they should have when the oil prices were booming.'
The Dalai Lama is a huge charmer, knowing how to say things that will please an audience in his gentle avuncular manner.
'One one hand, the BJP puts Uniform Civil Code as a goal in its manifesto, and on the other, it pushes massive discrimination against Hindus.' 'This is not sabka saath, sabka vikas. Rather it is "Haj ka saath, church ka vikas",' argues Sankrant Sanu.
'The Pakistanis were lulled adequately to provide one of the fundamental prerequisites for successful execution of such an option: Surprise.' 'The other requisite: Deception in terms of selection of areas for launch/time of offensive action,' explains Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
C Christine Fair, an acclaimed Pakistan expert who teaches at Georgetown University rebutted some of the common perceptions of Pakistan.
The Saudi-Pakistan nuclear weapons cooperation is meant to sound alarm bells in Washington, reminding the Obama administration that its overtures to Iran would have serious negative consequences in terms of its ties with its closest allies in the region, says Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad. Exclusive to Rediff.com
Iranian President Dr Hassan Rouhani Tuesday talked about the greater need for South-South cooperation, an issue closer to India's heart and expected to be addressed by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly this Saturday.
'We need to be in a perpetual state of aggression, and able to swiftly change the goal posts to keep Pakistan in a state of imbalance,' argues Sanjeev Nayyar.
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.
'Worryingly, intelligence assessments indicate that growing disaffection amongst the youth is ceding ground to fundamentalist Islamist groups like Islamic State,' reports Ajai Shukla.
A 'soft' approach must be nurtured to complement the hard-line of spending billions in physical conflict; that is the only way to 'degrade and destroy' ISIS.
There is nothing the young Purvanchali wants more desperately than to escape to a place with less hopelessness, and some opportunity, discovers Shekhar Gupta.
'The rise of IS and intolerant Wahabism are the real dangers to Indian democracy and pluralism, not the RSS,' says Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Vijay.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Swaraj is in Bahrain for a two-day visit to attend the first ministerial meeting of the India-Arab League Cooperation Forum to be held on Sunday.
Shankar Acharya gives ten predictions on key politico-economic developments in the world and ten for India.
'We have Hindu values, Hindu customs, Hindu philosophy, Hindu way of looking at all religions as acceptable.' 'These are all great assets of India.'
'The government is going to introduce legislation that would make it easy for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sikhs and Jains to migrate legally to India.' 'But looking at that list, my entire well-meaning question, as may be obvious, is: What about Muslims? They seem to have been specifically left out of this formulation,' says Aakar Patel.
Though the list of superstitious beliefs is long, often dissolving distinctions of class, caste, religion and education, Karnataka's anti-superstition bill is seen as a big step ahead.
Sanjeev Nayyar suggests 16 measures by which we can tackle our unrelenting and untrustworthy neighbour.
Two Taliban suicide bombers struck a historic church in Peshawar Sunday, killing at least 78 people, including women and children, in the deadliest attack on the minority Christian community in Pakistan's history.
Moments after a court in Delhi awarded the death penalty to the four men convicted of the rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student, a man emerged from the court and in one statement to the media, managed to deflect attention from the case that has shaken the nation, and from the issue of woman's safety, to himself.
One has to wonder what is so wrong with the European Union.
'The Kashmiri identity and its unique blend of Sufi Islam, its culture and language can best survive in a plural and secular India.' 'Neither independence nor merger with Pakistan can achieve that objective.' 'Peace will return to Kashmir only when Kashmiris realise this, else they will be part of the 1,000- year war,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
When the bench asked Sibal 'shouldn't we hear the matter', he replied, 'Yes. You shouldn't.'
Volkswagen mess costs Germany its strongest nation brand position.
'What needs to be pursued as the operations progress is a degree of reconciliation amongst the other parties, less the more orthodox Al Qaeda affiliates.'
Modi has debunked the uncontested wisdom of foreign and strategic policy remaining unchanged and running on a broad national consensus. This is clearly seen in his unhesitating embrace of the US and the clear hardening shift in India's stance on Pakistan, says Shekhar Gupta.
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