India has never attacked another country: Modi amid tension with Pakistan
India has neither coveted any territory nor attacked any country, but its men have made supreme sacrifices for the national cause and freedom of others, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday. His remarks came in the backdrop of escalating India-Pakistan tension after the September 18 attack at the Uri army base in Jammu and […]
US-India military relationship ‘is the closest ever’, says Ashton Carter
WASHINGTON: India-US military relationship is the “closest it has been ever” and the two countries are exercising together by air, land and sea for the first time, America’s defence secretary Ashton Carter has said. He underlined that the two great democracies have done a strategic and technological+ “handshake”. “America’s regional partnerships are growing in number and strength. The US-India military relationship […]
PM Modi dares to go where Atal Bihari Vajpayee didn’t
NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi was upbeat when a senior minister met him on Thursday morning. Reports that Army units had returned safely after hitting terror launch-pads in PoK clearly buoyed the PM, who was under attack for not delivering on his tough talk. The need to “teach a lesson” to the Pakistani establishment was […]
How Bhutan became the world’s greenest country
Carbon sinks, 70% forest cover, powered almost entirely by mountain streams—Bhutan is a poster child for green living. It is the only country in the world that is carbon negative, which means it produces more oxygen than it consumes. Bhutan generates about 2.2 million tonnes of carbon annually, yet its forests absorb three times this amount, which creates […]
PM Modi hits out at Pakistan, says India won’t forget Uri attack
India will not forget the militant attack that killed 18 soldiers at an army base in Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday, but tempered calls for a military retribution by challenging Pakistan to a war on poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. In his first public comments since the Uri attack last Sunday , Modi sought to […]
US to stay neutral as Pakistan, India prepare for UN showdown
ANWAR IQBAL WASHINGTON: As Pakistan prepares to highlight the current situation in India-held Kashmir at the UN General Assembly and India plans to counter it by raising the Baloch issue, the United States has made it clear that it will not back either side. “What we have said — nothing is changed about our view […]
Micro schools: Going beyond textbooks
Shweta Sharan Last month, Mumbai-based homeschooler Malvika Joshi made headlines for getting a scholarship for the prestigious BSc programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) without having appeared in either the 10th or 12th board exams. Joshi had won two silver medals and one bronze medal in the Programming Olympiads, though, and this caught the […]
Foreign law firms will not be allowed to litigate in India
Mahua Venkatesh Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which is keen to allow entry of foreign law firms into the country to boost ease of doing business, will start off by allowing these companies to operate in foreign law and arbitration for cross border businesses and joint ventures (JVs). In the initial phase, these law firms […]
Deciphering history, one coin at a time
Pankaj Tandon, a Harvard-trained economist, is a numismatist by calling. Poring over inscriptions and icons on old Indian coins, the academic has gathered enough evidence to put one forgotten dynasty on the Silk Route—the ancient trade route between the East and West—back on the map. And he is working on finding details about well-known dynasties […]
Muslim-Hindu men donate kindeys to each other’s wives and save their lives
Just ahead of Eid ul-Adha and Onam celebrations, these two families have set an example of friendship and brotherhood that go far beyond religious boundaries. In a private hospital in Jaipur, Rajasthan, two kidney transplants reportedly took place, but the uniqueness of the situation was that a Hindu man donated his kidney for a Muslim […]
Militants target town ahead of Eid: Policeman killed in Poonch twin assaults
A police constable was killed and five others — two Armymen, two police personnel, and a civilian — were injured after two groups of heavily armed militants attacked Poonch town on Sunday morning. Three militants were killed by the Army and police after daylong encounters at two locations. Searches were under way at both locations […]
How a responsive politician can make a difference
An Indian village named Bhaluri majority of whose residents belong to migrant Hindu families displaced in 1971 from Amarkot, Pakistan. Just 35 miles inside the international border of India and Pakistan is now an example of will and grit, after being destroyed from fire the village rose like a phoenix with initiative of EX Irrigation […]
Kashmir unrest: Hurriyat refuses to meet leaders of all-party delegation, lashes out at CM Mehbooba Mufti
After rejecting chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s invitation for talks on Kahsmir issue, Hurriyat leaders Seyd Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Sunday refused to meet the leaders of all-party delegation. Four opposition MPs of all-party delegation broke away from the group and decided to reach out to separatists by meeting them separately. CPI(M) […]
From ‘Angel of Mercy’ to ‘Fraud’: Saint Teresa was both adored and attacked
For those who revered her, Mother Teresa’s elevation to the Catholic sainthood on Sunday came not a moment too soon. The diminutive nun whose journey from a corner of the Ottoman Empire to the slums of India made her one of the most famous women in the world was regarded by many as a saint during her […]
Bangladesh hangs top Jamaat leader Mir Quasem Ali for 1971 war crimes
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami leader and media tycoon Mir Quasem Ali was hanged on Saturday night, the sixth Islamist to be executed for war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan. Ali was hanged in Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of the capital. “He was hanged at 10.35pm(local time),” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said. His execution came after […]
PIA pilots make history by becoming first pair of sisters to fly Boeing-777s concurrently
KARACHI: Two Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) pilots made history by becoming the first pair of sisters in Pakistan to fly Boeing-777 airplanes at the same time. Maryam Masood and Erum Masood are both first officers who fly different planes, PIA Spokesman Danyal Gilani told Dawn.com. They are junior only to the plane’s captain, who are […]
PM to leave for China today, but via Vietnam
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins another Asian sojourn, as he heads off on Friday afternoon to attend the G-20 summit in Hangzhou, China, making a politically important stop at Vietnam en route. Modi will also meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of G-20, months after their meeting in Tashkent before the […]
Rahul withdraws plea, to face trial for blaming RSS for Mahatma’s killing
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will have to stand trial for blaming the RSS for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination after the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to quash a defamation case against him. The Congress leader, who withdrew his plea for dismissing the case after being refused relief, will now be tried in a Bhiwandi court in […]
Parrikar off to US, will visit facility building heavy-lift choppers for India
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar will on Wednesday visit a Boeing facility in Philadelphia where the US aerospace giant manufactures its CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, which will be inducted into the Indian Air Force in 2019. The Chinooks will fill a crucial gap in the Indian Air Force’s heavy-lift capabilities as it currently operates a solitary […]
Rajnath Singh may lead all-party team to Kashmir on September 3
Home Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to lead the all-party delegation which will visit Jammu and Kashmir on September 3 even as the state continues to be on edge. As unrest in the Kashmir Valley continued for the 51st consecutive day on Sunday, the Home Minister reviewed the situation with top BJP and government functionaries. Singh went into a huddle with […]
