India hits back after Sharif speech, calls Pakistan a breeding ground for terrorists

In a point-by-point reply to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s address at the U.N. General Assembly, India accused Pakistan of trying to “shift responsibility” for firing at the Line of Control. “The world knows that the primary reason for firing is to provide cover to terrorists crossing the border. It needs no imagination to figure out which side initiates this exchange,” the statement, filed by the Permanent Mission of India to...

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No upper caste CM if NDA wins in Bihar: BJP

The repercussions of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s interview to Organizer, in which he called for a review of reservation, are still unfolding in Bihar, with the BJP vowing to make a backward class leader the Chief Minister if the NDA wins the Assembly polls. Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and prominent Bhumihar leader Giriraj Singh said on Tuesday: “An upper caste [man] cannot become Chief Minister of Bihar;...

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China launches 20th satellite for its BeiDou Navigation system

China on Wednesday successfully launched 20th new generation satellite which has among others a hydrogen atomic clock, moving a step closer to build its own Global Positioning System to compete with the US-operated GPS. Launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the satellite was boosted by a Long March-3B carrier rocket, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. It was the 20th satellite...

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Sharif, Modi wave at each other at UN peacekeeping summit

Reflecting a chill in bilateral relations, waving at each other was all that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif did today as they attended the UN peacekeeping summit. Assembling for the Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping hosted by US President Barack Obama, Mr. Modi walked into the conference hall first and took his seat at the right-side of the horse-shoe shaped table in chamber hall. Mr. Sharif walked...

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Brain drain can become brain gain: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that the 21st century is India’s century and attributed the sudden change in India’s fortune to the commitment, strength and pledge of the 125 crore people of the country. “For some time now, people are saying that the 21st century is India’s century,” Mr.Modi thundered in an address to a strong crowd of 18,500 Indian-Americans at the SAP Center in San Jose, which is the hub of Silicon Valley....

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Modi makes a big pitch for "Digital India"

‘Digital India’ is an enterprise to transform India in a scale unmatched anywhere in the world and it has the potential to make development truly inclusive, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today. “Digital India is an enterprise for India’s transformation on a scale that is, perhaps, unmatched in human history,” Mr. Modi said while speaking about his ambitious Digital India initiative before a gathering of Silicon Valley CEOs. Mr....

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Our march in step with U.N. vision Modi

Presenting his government’s domestic development agenda as completely in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a special summit of the U.N. on Friday that he came from a tradition that considered the entire world as one and the earth as our mother. Reiterating the Indian position on climate change, the Prime Minister emphasized the concept of “common but differentiated responsibility,”...

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After market crash, Xi Jinping finds world a changed place

NEW DELHI: Not too long ago, a packed Harvard audience, with a good many Chinese students attending, heard a keynote address on how China's rise to being the world's pre-eminent power at America's expense was pretty much inevitable and US's efforts to balance Pacific power equations weren't going to change things.  Just months later, it seems a changed world as Chinese President Xi Jinping, hailed till recently by western media for accumulating...

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Odisha girl wins award at Google Science Fair

Lalita Prasida Sripada Srisai, a class IX student from Damanjodi in Koraput district in Odisha won the ‘Community Impact Award’ at the prestigious Google Science Fair in California on Tuesday. This student of DPS Damanjodi developed a low-cost bio-absorbent based water purifier which uses waste corn cobs as key ingredient. She has won the award in 13-15 years age group. The winners of the fifth annual Google Science Fair were announced live...

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Parleys to ward off Patel protests

Hectic behind-the-scene efforts are on to ensure that the Patel reservation agitation does not cast a shadow on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States. Alarm bells in Delhi and Ahmedabad started ringing when a group calling itself the Overseas Patidar Action Committee (OPAC), and expressing sympathy with the Hardik Patel-led agitation in Gujarat, threatened to stage protests at the venues Mr. Modi was scheduled to visit. Apart...

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7/11 Mumbai train bombings death penalty sought for 8 convicts

The prosecution on Wednesday sought the death penalty for eight of the accused: Kamal Ansari, Tanveer Ansari, Faisal Shaikh, Ehtesham Siddiqui, Mohammad Ali Shaikh, Sajid Ansari, Naveed Khan and Asif Bashir Khan alias Junaid. For the remaining four, namely Majid Mohammad Shafi, Muzzammil Shaikh, Suhail Shaikh and Zameer Shaikh, the prosecution sought life term "till the end of their lives" and not less than 60 years. A special MCOCA...

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Cabinet clears $2.5-billion deal for Boeing military choppers

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S., the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on Tuesday cleared a multi-billion dollar deal for 22 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers with American aviation giant Boeing. “The deal for Apache and Chinook [helicopters] has been cleared,” government sources said. The CCS met after a Cabinet meeting, the sources said. Many in the defence sector had expected...

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In New York, India to flag external source of terror

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the U.S. to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), India is likely to tell the international forum that there are hardly any cases of Indians joining the violent “pan-Islamist groups.” Though a direct reference to the militant organisation, the Islamic State (IS), will be avoided, sources said India is likely to highlight the fact that “the source of terrorism faced by India is often outside...

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Army destroys papers on V.K. Singh’s intel unit a few days before his retirement

When present Union Minister Gen. V.K. Singh (Retd.).was just days away from retiring as Army Chief in 2012, the Army destroyed dozens of documents on a military intelligence unit that he had created and whose activities and funding had attracted widespread scrutiny. According to documents perused by The Hindu, between May 22 and May 25, 2012, the Southern Army Command based in Pune moved very quickly to assemble two different boards...

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