Opinion: Why 'Goods And Services Tax' (GST) Is Harmful To India?

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

The Goods and Services Tax will destroy governance and end incentives for states to attract businesses, harming the country in the long run.

It finally happened. Late on Wednesday, the Rajya Sabha approved a bill that will change the way India collects taxes.

The Goods and Services tax, which aims to get rid of the current patchwork of indirect taxes and to improve tax compliances, has been in the headlines for some time now.

How a 56-Year-Old Siddi Woman is Transforming Her Village, One Initiative at a Time?

By REX KHAN | INNLIVE

From education to entrepreneurship, Hirbaiben Lobi’s efforts to improve the socio-economic status of her community is proof that obstacles like illiteracy and poverty are easily overcome in the pursuit of rural empowerment and upliftment.

Hirbaiben Lobi was born in 1960 in Jambur in the Junagadh district of Gujarat. A member of the Siddi community, she was orphaned as a child and was raised by her grandmother.

Is This The BJP-RSS Idea Of Inculcating Education And Protecting Children?'

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Congress says restore girls to parents, CPI(M)’s Brinda Karat says arrest those involved in trafficking racket.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ took a beating today in the light of the Outlook cover story on RSS affiliated organisations trafficking tribal girls from Assam under the garb of educating them.

The Congress came down heavily on the Modi government today. It questioned the government, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar on whether trafficking children in the age group of three to eleven from five border districts of Assam, is the Modi government’s fulfillment of ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’.

Opinion: Kashmir Youth On Fire: Common Man Call The Shots

By SEEMA MUSTAFA | INNLIVE

They come out in large mobs at any time of the day. Even at night, when they march through the localities in Kashmir carrying candles and shouting slogans. And defying curfew without fear. 

They are within the age group of 7-25 years. And listen to no one.They have no leader except the dead Burhan Wani. The parents cannot control them or keep them at home, even though several worried mothers have tried in vain to do so.

Modi’s India: Justified Hopes, Unjustified Fears

By LIKHAVEER| INNLIVE

A look at Modi’s India through a lens that could do with some balance.

Goh Chok Tong as Prime Minister of Singapore in the mid-1990s was the author of a ‘mild India fever’ that gripped the island-country and led to the first substantial economic engagement between the two countries, even though Lee Kuan Yew was initially sceptical about Goh’s initiative.

Adivasis: Cheated Of The Constitution

By MOHAN GURUSWAMY | INNLIVE

Tribal people who account for 8.2% of India’s population can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people. The Central Indian Adivasis belong to this grouping. 

PM Modi Adopted First Village Is In Shambles, The Second Is On The Warpath

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Sarpanches of both villages have complained that the quality of infrastructure projects was poor, and that they are being bypassed and victimised.

All is not well in the two villages adopted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi under his flagship rural development project, the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna. Both lie in Modi’s constituency of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

Vote Bank Politics: Why Modi Is Silent On The Attacks On Dalits In Gujarat?

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

No leader angers his core supporters to keep floating voters happy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the atrocities committed on Dalits in Una, Gujarat, illustrates vividly that he is still caught between a rock and a hard place. As long as he remains rooted there, it will always be his dilemma whether to speak or remain silent on issues of social conflict.

KFC Is Ditching Indian Vegetarians To Do What It Does Best: Sell Fried Chicken

By NEWSCOP | INNLIVE

Two years after Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) announced that it will sell more vegetarian burgers in India, it is looking back at chicken in a big way.

As competition in India’s burger market heats up, fast-food chains are returning to what they know best—in KFC’s case, tubs of fried chicken—leaving the vegetarian menu as it is, for now.

“The food scenario in India has evolved really quickly since then. Consumers are well-travelled, exposed to global trends, willing to try new food, and seek food that is authentic,” Lluis Ruiz Ribot, chief marketing officer, KFC India, said in an interview.

Superstar Rajinikanth, Star Cricketer Tendulkar, Star Politician Modi: Are Indians Prone To 'Celebrity Worship Syndrome'?

By NISHI KHAN | INNLIVE

The euphoria of epic proportions surrounding Kabali, which was released on Friday, poses one important question: Why do Indians have such an astonishing penchant for idolisation? 

Be it Rajinikanth or Sachin Tendulkar or Narendra Modi-or Indira Gandhi in the past-Indians, especially those who live south of the Vindhyas, stretch their adulation for their icons to extremes.

Shocking Revolution: India’s Dalits Strike Back At Centuries Of Oppression By Letting Dead Cows Rot On The Streets

By NEWSCOP | INNLIVE

India’s growing band of cow-protection vigilantes and their political bosses may have learnt a lesson in the past few days: Bullying can boomerang.

Politics over the cow, deemed holy by many Hindus, has roiled India for years. In recent times, it has turned nasty, with Indians lynching or humiliating fellow Indians on mere suspicion of having killed cows or eaten beef.

In the latest instance, four young men skinning a dead cow, along with another aged person, were mercilessly thrashed by a group of cow-protection vigilantes in Gujarat’s Una on July 11.

Exclusive Interview-'Ready To Return Whenever Govt Wants Me': Dr.Zakir Naik

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Controversial preacher Zakir Naik has said he is wil ling to return to India “whenever the government or the agencies want me“. Last week, Naik had cited “travel plans“ and said he would come to India only next year. In an interview to INNLIVE from Jeddah, Naik said he was ready to face action if he had broken any law and challenged anyone to show he had attempted to disrupt harmony in India. 

In This Village, A Muslim Is At The Heart Of All Things Holy To Hindus

By VIMAL APTE | INNLIVE

"The only real binary is humanity and inhumanity." In a display of religious harmony amongst the communities, Muslim residents celebrate birthday of Lord Ganesha in Maharashtra.

Since the Gujarat riots in 2002, Raees Kasbati, a Muslim philanthropist, has become an integral part of all things holy to Hindus in Raslod village of Sabarkantha district, located just over 100 kilometers from Ahmedabad.

Actor & Politician Raj Babbar Appointed As A New Congress Chief In Uttar Pradesh: A Close Look At His Political Career

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

Fortune favours the brave, goes the adage. And how befitting it is to veteran actor Raj Babbar, who was appointed as the Congress chief of Uttar Pradesh, ahead of the state's Assembly polls in 2017. Not too long ago, Babbar was a star campaigner in the Assam Assembly election this year, which saw the end of the 15-year-old rule of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi, making way for the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in North East India.

Why Indian Army Needs To Abandon The Colonial Concept Of 'Martial Races'?

By SURJIT RANA | INNLIVE

It is time to reform recruitment to our armed forces and bring the values of the Constitution into this venerable institution.

In 2012, IS Yadav, a doctor from Haryana, filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of “caste based recruitment” to the Indian Army.

Indian Govt Is Targetting NGOs Yet Again, Claim Non-Profit Workers

By AREFA JOHARI | INNLIVE

Office bearers of non-profit organisations will now be considered 'public servants' under Lokpal, and have to declare all their assets publicly.

Should board members and trustees of non-profit organisations be treated as “public servants” if they are partially funded by the government? If NGOs receive foreign funding, should their office bearers be made to declare their assets to the public?

Indian Muslims Battle Hostile Attitudes As 'Islamic State' Seeks To Spread Tentacles

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Midnight knocks are not alien to 35-year-old Mohammed Maqueemuddin Yasir. Having spent over four years in Indore jail till September 2012, on charges of having helped a SIMI leader from Karnataka, acquittal from the lower court has not meant freedom from the suspicious gaze of the security agencies.

Being the son of Maulana Naseeruddin, a feisty cleric in Hyderabad, means that in the police book, Yasir is a radicalised youth, with many shades of grey, if not black. In his sermons, the 66-year-old Maulana exhorts the Muslims to adopt an eye for an eye approach against aggressive Hindutva. He spent five years between 2004 and 2009 in Sabarmati jail in Gujarat, accused of plotting to kill Haren Pandya and Narendra Modi. 

The Forgotten Story Of Hashimpura, May 22, 1987: One Of India’s Biggest 'Custodial Killings'

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE 

‘PAC personnel had rounded up dozens of Muslims from riot-torn Meerut and had killed them in cold blood.’

Time heals, indeed, but sometimes it drags some dark nightmares from the recesses of our past into the present; nightmares whose repercussions are felt in the future too. Still weighing heavy on my conscience is that horrifying night of 22 May in the humid summer of 1987. And the subsequent days, similarly, are etched in my memory like as if on stone – it was something that overpowered the cop in me. The Hashimpura experience continues to torment me.

Success Story: This Indian E-Commerce Startup Has Reached Over A Million Indian Villagers

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

While logistics is turning out to be one of the biggest challenges for e-commerce companies across the country, a Bengaluru-based e-commerce startup is trying hard to tap into the rural customer base.

Meet StoreKing. Founded by Sridhar Gundaiah in 2012, the company has harnessed the power of vernacular languages to introduce e-commerce to over a million villagers in the last three years.

Gujarat's Ageing Villages: How Distress Migration In Drought-Hit Gujarat Is Leaving The Old Behind?

By AREFA JOHARI | INNLIVE

With no jobs and deep in debt, those who haven’t migrated are selling their land, gold to repay loans and buy seeds and fertilisers for the new sowing season.

Jiviben and Deviben are wrinkled, stooping and hard of hearing. They both say they are around 80 years old. They are neighbours and live in similar decrepit huts on the margins of Vijarkhi village in Gujarat’s drought-hit Jamnagar district.