Revealed: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Rawat Shuns 15.81 Crore Official Bungalow 'Because It's Unlucky'

One of Uttarakhand’s most luxurious bungalows has been waiting for its occupant for a year now.

Located in the Cantonment area in the city, the state-of-the-art bungalow has failed to attract Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who continues to live at the state government's Bijapur guest house.

Sources close to him said that the CM’s hesitation to move to the bungalow is because of the ill-luck it had brought to the previous chief ministers residing there. 

Why 'Aam Aadmi Party' Is More Like A 'Tech Start-Up'?

Arvind Kejriwal's party has the kernel of a new thought so essential for a disruptive idea: changing the way a business is done.

A conversation, factual or embellished, with a taxi driver has been the oldest ploy in the journalist's book. Sometimes it sparks new ideas, sometimes it helps to substantiate your hypothesis, and occasionally it is a farcical ploy to put in an anonymous mouth a too-clever one-liner you'd rather not utter yourself, but say nevertheless.

Education Scenario: Non-Conventional Courses A 'Hit' But Indian Universities Failing To Meet The Demand

Though universities like Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai University and Nagpur University offer some innovative courses, the attractive ones are being offered by the private standalone centres, which often lack recognition but charge hefty fee for the course.

Kshama Gandhi, a class-12 science student of a Mumbai school, is neither interested in pursuing engineering nor a medical career and has been devoting a lot of time these days surfing net to find something more "exciting" and "satisfying" than the traditional career options.

TeaGschwendner: The Distinctive Pleasures Of Tea Flavour

After many hours spent without food or drink, Muslims all over the world break their daily fast with water and dates followed by an invigorating cup of tea or coffee. A large part of the pleasure tea affords is that it gets you high but it is a “high” so gentle that we hardly notice it, yet it is for the sake of this subtle “high” that tea has been developed and constantly refined by generations of tea lovers during its five thousand year history.

In 1955, the New York Academy of Medicine held a symposium on “Pharmacological and Physiological Effects of Tea” and confirmed that unlike coffee, tea does not cause nervousness, insomnia, or stomach irritation when drunk in quantity.

Muslims In India: What Are Political Parties Fussing Over?

Snatches of information from the religion census, that was compiled in 2011, have started to surface in the mainstream media.

Though the complete findings are yet to be revealed, a report states that the Muslim population in India has grown by 24 percent between 2001 and 2011. Though Muslims now form 14.2 percent of the country's population (as opposed to 13.4 in the last decade) , the rate at which the population has been growing has shown a definite slowing down compared to the decade before that, says the report.

Focus: Why The 'Common Muslim' Is At A Crossroad?

The world has seen a series of barbaric acts of violence over the past few weeks, bombing in a Pakistan school, the Boko Haram killing people and kidnapping girls, violence in Assam, Somalia, Yemen et al and now the shooting in Paris. 

Most of the attacks had one common link among them: a ghastly and grotesque interpretation of Islam which no sane human being in the world would approve of. For this, Muslims, the whole 1.6 billion of them, are asked to answer uncomfortable questions. Questions that the person does not deserve.

Was Bengaluru Blast A 'Trail Run' For A Bigger Attack?

Was the bomb explosion outside the Coconut Grove restaurant on Church Street, Bengaluru, on Sunday a trial run for bigger strikes?

While the Bengaluru police and investigation agencies are on a multi-level probe to find the cause of attack and the men behind it, intelligence sources and experts are of the opinion that the blast could have been a bid to check the alertness of security forces.

Genocide of Hindus in India’s Backyard - The Missing Hindus In South Asia And A Conspiracy Of Silence

Civil society, media and the government of India have all remained mute spectators while this human tragedy has been unfolding right in their backyard.

Indian media has done a commendable job in covering international events, be it Arab Spring, Tahrir Square, Gaza conflicts to beatification of saints at Vatican. The only blind spot has been the plight, or rather the genocide, of Hindus worldwide, including our neighboring countries like Pakistan or Bangladesh. This is quite inexplicable given that other events in these nations that have been generously covered.

Big Worry: 'Household Debt Is Growing 10 Times In Metros'

India is slowly becoming a heavily indebted country with the average amount owed by each family jumping a whopping seven times in urban areas and more than four times in the hinterland during the period 2002 and 2012, shows a survey by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO).

In 2012, as much as 22% of urban households were indebted and the average debt per family was Rs 84,625, up from Rs 11,771 in 2002, while in rural areas, 31% of households were indebted compared to 27% in 2002 with average debt rising to Rs 32,522 in 2012 from Rs 7,539 in 2002.

Molesters Beware In Assam! The 'Veeranganas' Are Here

An all-woman commando platoon has made women feel more secure on the streets of Guwahati. It has set a model that should be emulated across the country.

It’s early in the morning. Bismita stands in front of the bathroom mirror, brushing her teeth. Her roommates are giggling and talking among themselves, waiting for their turn to freshen up and get ready for the day ahead. Suddenly, a siren wails and everyone stands still.

Special Report: 'Terror At Crossroads In South Asia'

Burdwan in West Bengal, a city about 150 kilometers from Kolkata, was the location in early October of a blast inside a house which resulted in the death of two men, Shakil Ahmed and Swapan Mondal. Another man injured in the blast was later detained with with two women who were also present at the time of the blast and reportedly disclosed that those present at the time were all members of the terrorist outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JuM-B/JMB) - and were planning to carry out attacks across Bangladesh. 

Why Kerala Is like Kuwait & Madhya Pradesh Is Like Haiti?

For its level of income, India, as well as many of its states, could do a much better job in taking care of their most vulnerable people.

American poet Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”—“Do I contradict myself/ Very well then I contradict myself/I am large, I contain multitudes”—seems tailor-made for India. Which country can India be compared to, in economic terms? Is India’s level of economic development more or less like Vietnam’s, because their per capita incomes, in international dollars and in purchasing power parity terms, are almost the same?

Kill The ‘Daayni’: Witch Hunts, Death Haunt Assam Villages

Superstitions are increasingly being exploited to settle scores and arbitrarily persecute people.

Saloki Mardi tried to escape violence but it snared her in the end. On November 18, the 45-year-old was hacked to death by unidentified men in Assam’s Udalguri district, where she had taken refuge after being declared a “witch” in her native village of Goraimari in Bongaigaon district in October.

Debjani Bora too could not evade brutality. A national-level medal-winning javelin thrower, she was branded a “witch” in her village in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district in October after the death of four people there. She was then dragged to a prayer hall, tied in fishing nets, and assailed severely.

Sterilization Deaths In India: The Undetected Affair Of Family Planning Process

The death of 14 women in Chhattisgarh following botched sterilization procedures has rightfully led to furore across the country. But a detailed, historical analysis of family planning as it has evolved, exposes an inherent and sustained gender bias in policy as well as practice.

he tragedy in a sterilisation camp in Chhattisgarh, where 14 women lost their lives post tubectomy conducted under horrific conditions, calls for a deeper look into the context. Such an exercise would reveal that this has been happening for decades ever since family planning strategies began focussing on women as targets of the government’s agenda on quantitative cutting down of population, with little or no regard to the quality of lives of the people targeted.

Crime Focus: Among top motives for murder in India: witchcraft

Personal vendetta, love affairs and property disputes are the other top reasons.

In an age in which India has sent a mission to Mars, witchcraft is still among the top 11 motives for murder in the nation, according to National Crime Records Bureau data for 2013.

Last year, the data says, there were 33,201 murders and another 3,380 cases of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Personal vendetta, love affairs and property disputes were the top reasons for the murders. Witchcraft was the motive for 160 deaths. In the last decade, 32,000-34,000 people on average were murdered every year.

Exclusive: Loyal Congressman GK Vasan quits party after 14 years: Here's why Gandhis should be worried?

The first major fissure in the Congress has surfaced, with former minister GK Vasan all set to break away from the party to revive his father’s legacy and outfit, the Tamil Maanila Congress in Tamil Nadu. Vasan’s move may have its roots in the conviction of AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa who had to step down as chief minister thereby creating a politically fluid situation in which both the ruling party as well as the opposition DMK are in a state of flux.

"This has raised hopes in other parties and leaders who think they can create space for themselves in the state which was dominated by either the AIADMK or the DMK for close to half a century. This is the best opportunity to come their way. And this includes the BJP which is stands benefit the most from the situation in the state where it wants to set up its footprint," said a Congress leader.

Exclusive: 'Invisible Strings – The IB Report On NGOs'

Anti-growth. Anti-Hindu. Movement-buster. Reactionary. Corrupt. NGOs have drawn flak for one reason or the other. While there is a clear case for cleaning up the voluntary sector, nothing justifies this attempt at muffling dissent.

The Hindu nationalist. The neo-liberal. The grassroots activist. The Leftist. Everybody, it seems, has a reason to hate NGOs.

Some, like political commentator Radha Rajan who edited a collection of essays titled NGOs, Activists and Foreign Funds: Anti-Nation Industry, have charged several NGOs with “de-Hinduising India” and sought to expose “the essentially anti-Hindu activism of some NGOs and activists… and their foreign sponsors, supporters and funders who have their own vested interests in keeping the Hindus in this state of powerlessness”.

Snub to Islamic State? Al Qaeda forms Indian wing to 'rescue' Muslims

Al Qaeda chief Zayman al Zawahiri's new tape about the formation of an Indian wing may seem like a declaration of intent against the Indian state given its timing, coming soon after the formation of the Narendra Modi government. However, there are already doubts that the terror group's chief may not be looking as much to wage war against the Indian state as prove that they are more relevant than its more brutal offshoot.

In the video tape released by the terror group last night, Zawahiri is heard describing the formation of "Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent" as glad tidings for Muslims "in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat, Ahmedabad, and Kashmir".

Illegal Immigrants From Bang'desh Is Kicking, Hurting India

By Likha Veer | INNLIVE Bureau

FOCUS The vernacular press in West Bengal is all charged up because BJP stalwarts have promised to deport Bangladeshis if the party comes to power at the Centre. Front page articles and editorials have all denounced this as a move to foment trouble in the state and create divisions between communities. Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh have become villains in the eyes of this section of the media. Those who are indulging in such commentary have either not understood what the BJP wants to do, or are twisting the remarks to create controversy.

Two Young Edupreneurs: Profits Only For Girls’ Education

By Shifa Sheena | INNLIVE Bureau

Charity begins at home and personal values can shape the future of a community. Those are the thoughts that strike me as I enter The Wild Rose Design Studio in Chennai. The store is warm and welcoming, the decor providing a muted backdrop for the artistically crafted pieces on display. An array of clocks, boxes, candle holders, gift bags, ornate dust-bins, table mats, elegant curios and mirrors stare back at me from the display shelves. There is an air of calm about this space that is refreshing.