Mumbai: In a resounding statement signalling a historic shift, Gadchiroli Superintendent of Police (SP) Neelotpal has declared the district, once the dark heart of the ‘Red Corridor,’ is on the verge of becoming completely free of the Naxal menace. The SP expressed absolute confidence in the complete eradication of the banned CPI (Maoist) presence, noting that the remaining cadres have dwindled to a mere handful. “There has been a sea change in the situation,” SP Neelotpal st

A camel stands in the glow of the sunset light in Pushkar, Rajasthan on Tuesday. Employees wearing Santa Claus costumes perform during a parade for celebrating Christmas at Lotte World Adventure in Seoul, South Korea on Tuesday. A man covers his face amid deteriorating air quality on a winter day in Gurugram on Tuesday. Canoeists during a practice run on the Yamuna river at sunset in Prayagraj on Tuesday. Artists perform a traditional dance during the UNESCO Intangible Cultur

Plan early, choose wisely and invest smartly to enter FY 2025–26 with lower tax and greater financial stability. Most salaried individuals rush into tax planning at year-end, leading to poor choices and stress. With the New Tax Regime taking focus for FY 2025–26, early planning is wiser—it reduces tax, improves cash flow and clarifies long-term goals. The guidelines below provide a simple, structured approach. 1. Choosing Your Tax Regime Your first step is choosing between th

India’s colonial hangover cannot be vanquished until its democratic institutions relearn how to govern themselves. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent invocation of the need to defeat the “Macaulay mindset” has stirred a familiar fault line in India’s public life. Almost at once, the debate collapsed into its usual trenches: the dominance of English, the legacy of colonial education and the supposed invasion of foreign culture. These are easy targets, and comforting ones. T

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to a special sitting of the Lok Sabha to mark 150 years of  Vande Mataram  predictably turned into an exercise in political combat with the Opposition, primarily the Congress. Few cultural artefacts in India carry as heavy a historical charge as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s hymn. To invoke it is to summon the romance of the freedom struggle, the fury of partition politics and the enduring anxieties of national identity in a single breath.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958) Every empire produces at least one great historian who anatomises its exhaustion with a completeness that neither predecessors nor successors quite match. For Rome, it was Edward Gibbon who dissected the long senescence of the western Roman and eastern Byzantine power through six volumes in ‘The history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ with prosecutorial irony between 1776 and 1788. For Habsburg Spain, it was Fernand Braudel, whose

Mumbai : As winter temperatures go for a spin across the country, hospitals are witnessing a significant surge of around 25-30 pc in cardiac emergencies, a top cardiologist said.   According to Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Hemant Khemani of Apex Group of Hospitals, cold air directly affects how the heart functions.   “Low temperatures make blood vessels tighten. When the arteries narrow, blood pressure shoots up and the heart has to work harder to push the blood through th

Between Siddaramaiah’s grip on power and Shivakumar’s restless ambition, the Karnataka Congress is trapped in a succession spiral. Karnataka Karnataka today has two chief ministers - one by office, the other by expectation. The power tussle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, has slipped so completely into the open that the Congress’s ritual denials sound like political farce. A whispered ‘understanding’ after the 2023 victory that each would get the CM’s po

The Supreme Court’s ruling on an officer’s dismissal affirms a hard truth about military service in a plural republic. The recent dismissal of Lieutenant Samuel Kamalesan from the Indian Army has become a minor culture war in uniform. The case has been framed by its critics as a test of India’s secular soul, and by its defenders as a necessary assertion of military discipline. The question at the heart of this affair is how far can personal conscience travel inside an institu

Artists from Uttar Pradesh perform during the National Craft Fair in Prayagraj on Sunday. A 28-year-old woman married 'Lord Krishna', with her entire village turning up for the rather unusual wedding in Budaun on Sunday. Buddhist devotees from abroad during their ordination as monks at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya on Monday. Artists peform a traditional dance during the inaugural ceremony of the 20th UNESCO Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding

Why India’s bond with Russia survives sanctions, summits and shifting global power. In an era defined by broken alliances and transactional diplomacy, the India-Russia relationship has proved oddly resilient. While the West seeks to isolate Vladimir Putin over Ukraine and China tests the limits of American power in Asia, India and Russia continue to conduct business with an ease that defies geopolitical fashion. Their partnership, rooted in Cold War history but adapted to a f

Few legal asymmetries in India expose the uneasy bargain between secularism, vote-bank politics, and gender justice as starkly as the continuing permissibility of polygamy for Muslim men. While Hindu, Christian, Sikh and Parsi men have been bound by monogamy for decades, Sunni Muslim personal law still allows up to four wives. For decades, India’s political class has treated Muslim polygamy as an awkward inheritance best left untouched. That uneasy settlement is now under str

A woman’s surname is not a tradition to be surrendered—it is an identity to be honoured. AI generated image In every culture, names carry stories—childhoods, histories, places, belonging and identity.A surname is not just a word on certificates; it is a quiet record of one’s origins, the echo of generations, and the imprint of a life lived so far. Yet tradition created a strange rule: when a woman marries, she must surrender her name—as though her identity were an object to b

When kindness becomes micromanagement It started with a simple leave request.   “Hey, can I take Friday off? Need a personal day,” Meera messaged Rohit. Rohit replied instantly:   “Of course. All good. Just stay reachable if anything urgent comes up.”   He meant it as reassurance. But the team didn’t hear reassurance. They heard a rule.   By noon, two things had shifted inside The Workshop:   Meera felt guilty for even asking. Everyone else quietly updated their mental handbo

Singer Monali Thakur performs at a concert in Guwahati. IAF's Surya Kiran Aerobatic Team performs manoeuvres during an air show at Atal Sarovar, in Rajkot, on Sunday. A glimpse from the curtain raiser event for the Admiral's Cup 2025 hosted by Indian Naval Academy (INA) in Ezhimala, Kerala. Visitors silhouetted against the backdrop of the Taj Mahal during sunrise in Agra on Sunday. People during a Vintage Car rally over drug abuse and drug peddling at Vidhana Soudha in Bengal

The Goa nightclub tragedy where 25 people were burnt alive was the predictable outcome of ignored safety norms, lax inspections, compromised access and a governance system that reacts only after bodies are counted. In a tourism capital that markets excess as lifestyle, death has now joined the itinerary. The Goa tragedy joins a long roll-call of preventable Indian catastrophes, ranging from bridge collapses and train derailments to hospital fires and flooded coaching centres.

The controversy highlights Indonesia’s core dilemma — attracting investment and industrial growth without surrendering control or weakening governance. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin A privately run airport inside one of Indonesia’s largest nickel-processing hubs has ignited a national debate over sovereignty and oversight. It is alleged to have operated for six years without central supervision or the routine presence of customs, immigration or AirNav officials, raising urgent question

The Putin-Modi meet revealed that to a West accustomed to narrative monopoly, India’s independence of thought and action feels like apostasy. There is a familiar ritual now whenever India exercises independent foreign policy. Visceral outrage erupts on Western social media, with a section of their commentators, policy experts, journalists and even some historians suddenly transforming themselves from calm (and condescending) rational Western ‘liberals’ into foaming-at-the-mou

In the high-stakes theatre of ODI cricket, where India’s quest for a third World Cup title looms large—likely in 2027, but with eyes already on the 2025 Champions Trophy as a dress rehearsal—few players embody the blend of aggression, experience, and leadership quite like Rohit Sharma. The “Hitman”, as he’s aptly nicknamed, isn’t just an opener; he’s the spark that ignites India’s batting engine. With whispers of retirement post-T20 World Cup 2024 and a lean patch in bilatera

In personal finance, we often worry about losing money in the stock market, dislike the volatility associated with equities or mutual funds, or feel anxious about missing out on a hot investment tip. Yet the biggest threat to our wealth is far quieter and far more dangerous: loss of buying power. It is the invisible erosion of your money caused by inflation - a force that operates every single day, without pause, without headlines, and often without being noticed until it is