View Articles

It’s January. To book-lovers and readers all over West Bengal and especially Kolkata, this signals the start of the Kolkata Book Fair – the largest annual secular public fair in India. More than two million people throng to it every year, making it the world’s largest book fair in terms of attendance. Chennai Book Fair has about one million footfall. In this measurement, the readers are central. You can put the bania at the centre and that makes the Frankfurt Book Fair the largest in terms of the number of publishers attending.

Peace and development in India is possible, if there is peace and stability in the immediate neighbourhood.. India, being the major economy in South Asia is of course the main driver of growth in the region with its output of about 70%, but the performance of other countries in the region is the contributing factor.

BHOPAL: There is every reason to believe that RSS is paying special attention to Madhya Pradesh, which is always regarded as a citadel of the organisation. RSS in the past one year has held several camps in various parts of the state. One such camp has concluded on January 19. This camp was held in Sagar town which happens to be the most important town of Bundelkhand, besides the oldest university of Madhya Pradesh is also located in Sagar. Sagar University was founded by Late Dr. Hari Singh Gaur, a legendary figure of this area. Gaur gave all his life's income estimated to be Rs. one crore and established the university.

For decades, the ruling groups of the subcontinent have duped its peoples into submission by using so-called ‘national security’ smokescreens and various other whipped-up concerns. This should not come as a surprise. The word ‘con’ is right there in the middle of the subcontinent.

New Delhi is all decked up to give a red carpet welcome to the American President and this year’s Republic Day chief guest Barack Obama this weekend. This will be the first time an American president will grace the occasion. The Obama couple will watch the impressive parade when India showcases its achievements by way of floats representing different states and its military might from a special enclosure along with Indian President Pranab Mukherjee.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The crisis bedevelling the Congress-led United Democratic Front(UDF) Government has reached the flash point with more damaging disclosures against Finance Minister and Kerala Congress(M) chief K. M. Mani in the bar bribery scam.

If ascendance of Jitan Ram Manjhi as the chief minister of Bihar was not an unusual political development, his jibes at the upper caste and awakening call to the mahadalits, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes were strictly in conformity to the script handed over to him by the director. With fairly a long innings in Bihar politics, Manjhi was the best actor to portray the character of the mahadalit crusader.

However laudable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Swachh Bharat or clean India may be, the mission seems to be destined to flop for want of a down-to-earth approach that touches millions of stakeholders who live, sleep and thrive on dirt and wastes by railway tracks, roads, canals, rivers, sea and air ports, industrial town and pre-gentrification locations across the country.

The Haryana education minister, Ram Bilas Sharma’s categorical announcement that the state is going in for the saffronization of the education system is one of the boldest and most uninhibited declarations of intent made by the BJP in recent years. Usually, it softens the blow by claiming that it is only undoing the Leftist biases of the previous regime. But, the party’s success in the parliamentary and assembly elections appears to have emboldened it more than at any time in the past.

The people of Sri Lanka have made the cause of democracy proud by handing a humiliating defeat to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, ending 10 years of authoritarian rule. Mr Rajapaksa called an early election, and lost to his former health minister Maithripala Sirisena—despite his last-minute attempts to rope Bollywood stars into his campaign and desperate appeals to vote for the “known devil”.