What happened within the last 40 years that turned this society from secular democratic to Hindu right-wing that clench their collective fists of spiritual nobility against the fictional enemy that never was? The internet happened, says Vinay Menon.
If India is to follow a smart cultural diplomacy, it has unmatched advantages over both China and Pakistan, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Walking around InMobi's office, it is hard not to compare what you see here with the images one has seen of Google's global offices.
The prime minister, on his first trip to his Lok Sabha constituency in over eight months, claimed poverty alleviation measures have lacked a proper direction and they are spoken about during election time as a "tradition".
Akbar is rumoured to have once asked the navratnas of his court what the greatest pleasure in the world was. The stock answers came back: wealth, power, women, food, wine and so on, with the emperor's own contribution being hunting. Birbal was the outlier; he asserted that the greatest pleasure in the world was surely a good bowel movement.
'People on both sides of the Hindutva debate need to read and understand the texts first,' Bibek Debroy, translator of the unabridged Mahabharata, tells Kanika Datta as he gets started on a similar project for the Ramayana.
The scenic mountainous valley, which earlier bustled with presence of foreign tourists, now wear a deserted look. Kunal Dutt reports
A visit to the Palpung Sherabling Monastery where monks are free to choose their own paths.
The State is trying to curb the students movements, therefore, there are suspicions against some of the Subramanian report on education's recommendations, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 73rd Independence Day.
Business should be pleasure, not pressure, believes Thrissur-based T S Kalyanaraman.
Director Matt Brown tells Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com what it was about The Man Who Knew Infinity that made him persevere for a decade to turn the book into a film.
'It was only relatively recently that Subhash Kapoor was able to secure the sources in India, Afghanistan and Cambodia, that allowed him to get the really highest level objects, and that helped propel him in recent years up the ranks.'
Smart cities are really about clustering smart people and institutions.
Each 'adarsh village' should have piped drinking water, connectivity to the main road, electricity supply to all households, library, telecom and broadband connectivity including CCTVs in public areas. Emphasis will also be on e-governance, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
'I am quite optimistic that sooner or later, my wishful thinking would turn into a reality.' The only hitch is that the INC president's own career ambitions may be hurt if the Congress merges with the BJP,' says Sudhir Bisht.
25 winters have passed. More will pass, but the fight will go on. In spite of successive governments' unwillingness to sincerely reverse ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus and provide them justice, they will steadfastly work towards securing their rights and homeland, says Lalit Koul.
Civil rights activist Lakshmi Sridaran argues why South Asians must stand on the right side of history and resist the Trump administration's "systematic attack on the entire spectrum of the US immigration system."
'At one of the UK's best known museums, one of our greatest sculptures had been placed next to a public toilet.' 'This perception that art antiquities are better looked after in the West is one created by the cultural elite of our country.'
The race for VIP perks has pernicious consequences and is undermining the elite's authority
The court said, "The ban imposed on women from entering the Haji Ali dargah is contrary to Articles 14, 15, 19 and 25 of the Constitution of India."
'Pornography is available on every phone today. Even children are watching it' 'If there is no pornography in India, good things will happen in the country.'
Dum Laga Ke Haisha is a series of riveting moments that make you moist in the eye and chuckle with joy, says Sukanya Verma.
Though the worker strike at the Gorakhpur-based publisher of Hindu religious texts has been called off, it hints at an underlying financial crisis, says Manavi Kapur
India's beloved President -- there has been no other who has influenced the nation as much -- never stepped back from inspiring people to be the very best that they could be.
Modi, who is undertaking his first visit to China as prime minister, will reach the ancient city of Xi'an, the home town of President Xi Jinping, for a summit meeting, an unusual departure from normal protocol and seen as a reciprocal gesture by the Chinese leader who was hosted by Modi in Ahmedabad when he visited India in September last year.
Racing against time, rescuers on Sunday waded through tonnes of rubble of flattened homes and buildings in Nepal to look for survivors of the earthquake.
The US #DeepState has had a fine run, but will now discard Saudi Arabia as it is no longer useful to them, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
The collector king Sayajirao Gaekwad III, who lived a century ago, put together a fantastic world of Indian and European art for his subjects.
'The book was NOT banned. There were NO book burnings. There were NO riots. The author was NOT sent death-threats. On the contrary, the plaintiffs pursued due process. The case is a textbook example of how to proceed with civilised, democratic dissent,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'One hopes the younger generation sees Savarkar him for what he was and does not view him through a distorted prism.' 'This is the least one could do for someone who devoted his whole life to Indian freedom struggle, elimination of caste, succour to Dalits, and instilling of strategic culture in India,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The International Fleet Review, conceived as a show of the country's naval might and readiness for battle, saw as many as 100 naval ships, including 70 from the Indian Navy, taking part in the second edition of the coveted event.
Trump denied the allegations and said he would sue the NYT if it reported them.
'The Indian and Israeli rabbis were singing a small departure song for brave little Moshe, who had spent many, likely, heartbreaking but bittersweet hours at this home of his babyhood, looking at the drawings his mother had made for him, that were still up in his room.'
Have Amethi and Rae Bareli got rough treatment in the last one year? Has Varanasi become cleaner? Business Standard's Manavi Kapur finds out
Mumbai claims to have a large number of developed public and private medical facilities. It attracts patients from all over, including abroad, for specialist care. Hoardings proclaiming all sorts of 'state-of-the-art' medical facilities dot its skylines. The lack of a developed emergency medical response system is completely incongruous with all this, says Dr Sanjay Nagral.
Meet Cassie de Pecol, a 27-year-old traveller from Connecticut, United States, who visited 196 countries in 18-and-a-half months, making her the fastest person to visit every country in the world.
'I can tell you the case that hurts me the most is the one in which the little boy is forced to sign the Kohinoor over.' 'You take a mother away from a child, you surround him with grown ups speaking a different language, you tell him he must sign this over or else...'
Nathuram Godse's nephew and niece in Pune see him as a devout nationalist, not a contract killer.
As two recently declassified Intelligence Bureau reveal that the Jawaharlal Nehru government had spied on the family of Subhas Chandra Bose for nearly two decades, one of India's political mysteries takes centrestage. Rediff.com reproduces this 2006 report in which Sumit Bhattacharya reported that a website claims that Netaji, in fact, did not die in an air crash, as was being believed, and that Netaji had escaped to Russia.
