New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) A lawyer-turned-politician will be as staid an introduction for Arun Jaitley as a cricketer-turned-commentator for Sunil Gavaskar. A brilliant strategist and one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's most trusted colleagues, Jaitley was far more than an accomplished lawyer and many notches above his contemporaries in politics. The overcrowded grand stage of Delhi's intoxicating power elite has paused. It has lost one of its main protagonists, who passed awa

Ninth grader Vamshi Voggu at the automatic weather station on the school premises in Kothapally, India, on July 31, 2019. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Roli Srivastava   A weather station monitored by students - part of a range of water-smart innovations - has turned around a parched village   KOTHAPALLY, India August 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The village school in Kothapally, in southern India, has only a handful of amenities - blackboards, desks and chairs,

Actress Emma Watson at the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Beverly Hills, California, U.S., 04/03/2018. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok   Watson, Murad and women's rights leaders from more than 20 countries have identified nearly 80 'good practices' in gender equality law   NEW YORK, August 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Actress Emma Watson and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad will join other women's rights activists on Sunday to urge powerful world leaders at the Gro

New Delhi, August 23 (IANS) Just who was Sunanda Pushkar? A businesswoman par excellence, a socialite or a high-profile politician's wife. Just like her death in a hotel room in the national capital on January 17, 2014 has raised more questions than have been answered, there is no easy way to define the Sunanda that lived. "There are undoubtedly many who will still remember and sorely miss her, but with time, the memories have been packed and stored away in the deep recesses of

New Delhi, August 22 (PTI): Amidst raging controversy about the end of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, his daughter Anita Bose Pfaff on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure DNA tests are done on the ashes kept at Renkoji temple in Japan to "bring out the truth" and alleged that certain people in the previous governments had "neglected" the matter as they "never" wanted the mystery to be solved.   Lauding Modi for his efforts to solve the mystery surrounding his

By Lt-Gen Harwant Singh (Retd)  IANS   The proposal for appointing a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has been doing the rounds since the time of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister and Lord Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy in India. In response to a communication from Lt.Gen M.L. Chibber, former Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Mountbatten wrote in 1977: "Last time Nehru stayed with me here at Broadlands, before the Chinese invasion, I u

By Shubha Singh  IANS   Prime Minister Narendra Modis two-day visit to Bhutan was aimed at re-engaging with the Himalayan neighbour during his second term in office as part of his ‘neighbourhood first policy. The visit had added significance since Bhutan has been changing under its new government and India-Bhutan ties had to be reoriented to the new winds blowing in Bhutan. In 2014, Thimphu had been the first foreign capital Prime Minister Modi had visited shortly

By Mohammed Shafeeq  Hyderabad, August 19 (IANS) Since its emergence on the global information technology map in late 1990s, Hyderabad grew as a key economic hub over the last two decades and is currently seen as one of the cities with best entrepreneurship and start-up eco-system in the country. However, entrepreneurship was impacted by various developments over last few years, especially demonetization in 2016 and introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime a year

Kashmiri woman washes clothes in an alley during restrictions after the scrapping of the special constitutional status for Kashmir by the government, in Srinagar, August 14, 2019. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)   Srinagar, August 18 (PTI) From dawn to dusk, and sometimes from dusk to dawn as well, the hours pass by in wakeful alertness for paramilitary troopers tasked with ensuring law and order in a land that is many hundred miles from home. In the long hours of

BY D.C. PATHAK  IANS | August 18   Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightly began his Independence Day address by declaring that the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A, approved by the two Houses of Parliament with a two-third majority, had restored 'One Nation, One Constitution' for India. In a play of domestic politics, however, the developments relating to Kashmir are producing a political fallout at home in which the principal opposition strangely is showing up as the

By Amit Kapoor  IANS | August 17   In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the issue of population explosion in the country and the need to address it. He added education as a means of both moderating the trend of rising population and making them productive as well. Development trends throughout history have shown that as literacy levels go up, fertility rate falls and economic growth is easier to achieve. The latter is due to the fact

New Delhi, August 15 (IANS) On I-Day eve, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking exclusively to IANS just days after his government's decision on Article 370 noted how he was troubled and saddened by the fact that the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution pertaining to Panchayati Raj institutions did not apply to Jammu and Kashmir. He said that in the last few years, panchayats in Jammu and Kashmir got more powers to work towards peoples progress and various subjects transferred to p

Devi making phenyl and at her home in Nedumalai village in Tamil Nadu, India July 14, 2019. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Anuradha Nagaraj   The artistic mapping project has helped more than 5,000 women earn a sustainable income in six districts of Tamil Nadu   TIRUCHIRAPPALLI, India, August 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Outside her house in south India, Maria Victor embarks on a decades-old morning ritual that has turned into a key planning tool for impoverished

By Sandeep Bamzai    New Delhi, August 13 (IANS) One of the biggest decisions taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the first 75 days of his government is undoubtedly the unshackling of Jammu and Kashmir so that there is better integration and mobility and the faux concept of dual citizenship is scrapped once and for all. In what was not just a political but a diplomatic masterstroke as well, the PM, who has been obsessed with resolving the Kashmir imbroglio, hit his

New Delhi, August 13 (IANS) The Global Kashmiri Pandits Diaspora (GKPD) has rejected a petition submitted by 64 citizens including Pandits, Sikhs and Dogras condemning the abrogation of Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir. GKPD is a Kashmiri Pandit civil society movement of volunteers drawn from all major Kashmiri Pandit organisations across the globe, along with several friends from Jammu and Ladakh. A statement issued by the GKPD congratulated Prime Minist

By VISHAL GULATI    Jammu, August 12 (IANS) Caught in the law and traditions, liberation for the women in real terms came with Jammu and Kashmir becoming the unions territory. A section of women feel that for them freedom has come 72 years too late, after the countrys Independence following the decision on Article 370 on August 5. "We got freedom in the true sense now," an elated Radhika Kerni, a local resident, told IANS on Monday. She said earlier women wer

By Akhil Bhardwaj  IANS | August 11   What started as a demonstration by 12,000 citizens against a proposed legislation for extradition of criminal undertrials to China has escalated into a daily assembly of over two million protesting against Chinese ainterference' in Hong Kong, an examination of police brutality under the gaze of international press and a demand for full democracy. Meanwhile, Chief Executive Carrie Lam's counter-mobilisation strategy is reduced to ma

By Sandeep Bamzai    New Delhi, August 11 (IANS) New emergent facts pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir and its Constitutional status from Dr S.N. Busis' laborious six volumes on B.R. Ambedkar -- "Framing the Indian Constitution" -- once again reiterate how Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru moved ahead with his idea of making the erstwhile Princely State his shop window for secularism given that the new democratic dispensation was headed by a Muslim in a Muslim majority

By Deepika Bhan  IANS | August 11   The question is why did Modi chose ‘now to do what he has done with Article370? There was no big election in sight so as to create a build up for electoral gain. Neither was there any major crisis or any embarrassing situation for the government to find a succour in Kashmir. Perhaps, this was the best time to enact the best of action story for the Modi-Shah Combine. The ‘now' time had several elements going in the favour of th

By Anand Singh   New Delhi, August 11 (IANS) The spectre of a split in the country's oldest political party was looming at the Congress Working Committee meeting on Saturday as leaders got emotional at the mention of a non-Gandhi to lead the Congress. It had to be a Gandhi, and no one else. Some leaders even threatened to sit at home rather than attend party meetings under a non-Gandhi. That decided the matter, and party seniors, including Ahmed Patel, approached for