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Two Iconic Five Star Marshals of The Indian Armed Forces

|By Col NN Bhatia (Retd)| We have had three five star Marshals- late Field Marshal KM Cariappa known as an Officer and a Gentleman, late Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw famous for soldiering with dignity and Arjan Singh the first and the only officer...
I interviewed convicted rapists in New Delhi – and then found one of their young victims

[By Madhumita Pandey] A ten-year-old girl was recently denied an abortion by the Supreme Court of India. She was a victim of rape, which she alleges was perpetrated by her uncle several times over a period of seven months. Her pregnancy was discovere...
How much more longer?

[By Riti Sinha] Nearly five years ago, on February 9 2012, a 19-year-old, young teenage girl was returning home with her colleagues after work. All was well, except that she never made it home. She was abducted by three men in a car just a few metres...
Live: Elections 2017

Most exit polls forecast a saffron Holi in Uttar Pradesh and a close fight between the Congress seeking to return to power in Punjab and AAP, a debutant in Punjab elections. Stay with us for LIVE updates on Assembly Elections 2017. ...
Fan of Rudyard Kipling? Then you should read the hundreds of other stories he wrote

[By Sarah Lonsdale] Sixteen-year-old Rudyard Kipling returned to India after a miserable childhood, and slightly less miserable adolescence in England, to take up the perfect job for a precociously gifted but possibly unemployable son of empire. He w...
Why India’s persecuted tribes are marking their alternative independence day

[By Sarah Gandee] In the minutes before the clock struck midnight on August 14-15 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, made a now-hallowed speech to the nation on the eve of its independence: Long years ago, we made a tryst with...
India’s Cow Vigilantes

[By Shashi Tharoor] NEW DELHI – Indian politics continues to amaze and appall. The surge in cow vigilantism – a uniquely Indian phenomenon that has lately begun to flourish under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government – is no exception. Many ort...
India’s GST promises growth, reform and opportunities

[By Milind Sathye] The passing of the India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) constitution amendment bill through the Upper House is not only a shot in the arm for the country’s economic growth and a historical reform in its tax system, it also presents...
Gujarati vigilante violence on Dalits sparks protest

[By Mari Marcel Thekaekara | New Internationalist] In India, Dalits are killed over and over again. Every single day. Beaten, tortured, murdered, raped, stripped and paraded naked through the streets of their villages and towns, forced to drink urine...

Talking Points

Two Iconic Five Star Marshals of The Indian Armed Forces

|By Col NN Bhatia (Retd)| We have had three five star Marshals- late Field Marshal KM Cariappa known as an Officer and a Gentleman, late Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw famous for soldiering with dignity and Arjan ...

Bengaluru’s Tree Doctor : saving the “Garden City” one tree at a time

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Urban conservationist Vijay Nishanth, a man who is determined to preserve what is left of the “Garden City”. Commonly referred to as the “tree doctor of Bangalore” he is the founder of ...

I interviewed convicted rapists in New Delhi – and then found one of their young victims

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[By Madhumita Pandey] A ten-year-old girl was recently denied an abortion by the Supreme Court of India. She was a victim of rape, which she alleges was perpetrated by her ...

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National Affairs

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Indian schools told to junk the junk food

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[By Mari Marcel Thekaekara | New Internationalist] Some unbelievable news just broke. Move over, Jamie Oliver: school nutrition has taken a leap forward in India, at least on paper. India’s ...

Priyanka Devi had won the panchayat elections hands down with the wholehearted backing of her husband and father-in-law, who helped her campaign and told her about the rules and workings of the system.

Priyanka And Firoza Show What Governance Is All About

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[By Aditi Bhaduri] Ranchi (WFS) – Later she would hear how lovely the weather had been, how brightly the sun had shone and how the temperature had been just right ...

Sign the Petition: Urge the IPC to allow our paralympic athletes to participate in the upcoming events

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We’ve started the petition to “Urge the IPC to allow our athletes to participate in the upcoming paralympic events” and need your help to get it off the ground. We ...

Chewang Norphel : The white knight of Ladakh building glaciers to tackle global warming

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Chewang Norphel may seem like an ordinary villager but in reality he is far from the ordinary. In a place 13,000 feet above sea level, this remarkable man is taking on the global ...

Shubhada Varadkar : An Achiever In Her Own Right

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|By Sanjib Guha| Shubhada Varadkar, an Odissi exponent from Mumbai, has survived quite a few tough battles in her 51 years to reach a juncture where she can proudly announce ...

I interviewed convicted rapists in New Delhi – and then found one of their young victims

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[By Madhumita Pandey] A ten-year-old girl was recently denied an abortion by the Supreme Court of India. She was a victim of rape, which she alleges was perpetrated by her ...

Muslim village plays elder brother to Hindu hamlet

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|By Narendra Kaushik| Point Blank 7 Exclusive| Greater Noida: It is a tale of two villages. Supposed to be descendents of two Bhati Rajput or Rawal Rajput brothers, the two ...

Photo: Harsha K R under a Creative Commons Licence

Twin concerns in commercial surrogacy

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|By Mari Marcel Thekaekara|New Internationalist| An abandoned Australian baby, born to a surrogate Indian mother, has apparently caused some concern in Australia. In India, where life is cheap, one more ...

Ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, as envisioned in the Sustainable Development Goal 3 - health and well-being for all - is attainable but it is imperative that the response to it is fast tracked in the next five years. (Courtesy: UNAIDS)

Is it the end of AIDS in 2030?

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[By Syed Mohammad Afsar] Geneva – Writing on World AIDS Day a few years ago, I had shared the story of Seema (name changed), a young mother, and her daughter ...

India sells an estimated 1 million bottles of water everyday

Bottled Risk

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[By Brahma Chellaney] BERLIN – Over the last 15 years, the bottled-water industry has experienced explosive growth, which shows no sign of slowing. In fact, bottled water – including everything ...

Every boat clinic has a 16-member team, including two doctors, a general nurse-cum-midwife (GNM), Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) and laboratory technician.

Healthcare For Women In Times Of Distress

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Delhi (WFS) — Millions have been affected by the devastating earthquake that jolted Nepal on April 25, 2015. With half a million homes destroyed, and hundreds of thousands more damaged, ...

Promoted as the “pink Viagra”, Flibanserin is nothing like Viagra; it is similar to anti-depressants and affects brain chemistry, and must be taken daily, potentially for years.

What’s This Hoopla Around The Little Pink Pill

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[By Elayne Clift] Vermont (WFS) – Flibanserin – perhaps derived from “female”, “libido” and “answer” – is Big Pharma’s latest controversial innovation designed, it seems, to respond to women’s quest ...

Doongar Singh – A Pakistani Brigadier Looks Back to an Indian JCO

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|By Brigadier Mehboob Qadir (R)| It was mid 1972. We had just arrived in Ranchi from Agra, badly shaken and bruised, after a fateful train journey, during which we lost ...

Indian Prisoners Of War Holed Till Death In Pakistan

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|By Col NN Bhatia (Retd)| Capturing prisoners of war (POW) is as old as man kind and warfare. In the earliest history, men captured used to be either slaughtered or ...

Two Iconic Five Star Marshals of The Indian Armed Forces

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All They Wanted Was A Martyrdom Of Valour, Not Of Senseless Tragedy

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By Simran Brar The final journey begins for lives lost in vain; the wreath is laid with full guard of honour for Lt. Commander Kapish Muwal and Lt. Manoranjan Kumar ...

The art of being a good Indian woman

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Yamuna Matheswaran ‘listens in’ to what her country is saying about women’s place in society. Hello there, self-declared modern Indian woman. Will you survive the beast that is Indian society? ...

Women in India have stormed several male bastions but one that continues to remain unbreachable is the highly patriarchal and hierarchical police force. (Courtesy: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative)

The Force Is Certainly Not For Women

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By Taru Bahl Delhi (WFS) – Aruna Bahuguna is not a woman to be trifled with. Apart from being the first female chief of the prestigious National Police Academy in ...

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Celebrating the Spirit of Women Entrepreneurship

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It's time to celebrate the spirit of women entrepreneurship and the fact that more women are taking the plunge despite the cultural biases.

Cinemagoers, not just in India but across the world, have been queuing up to watch the performance of Kangana Ranaut in ‘Tanu weds Manu Returns’ (TWMR), a film that is entertaining, gripping and sans the conventional Bollywood hero.

The Box Office Goes Pink

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[By Surekha Kadapa-Bose|WFS] Mumbai – Is the face of the male-dominated Hindi film industry finally undergoing a much-needed change? If one looks at the hits of the year it certainly ...