News and Views

The Indian power-line engineers kidnapped in Afghanistan over the weekend are now being held in the Taliban-controlled village of Dand-i Shahabuddin on the northern fringes of the town of Pul-i Khumri in Afghanistan’s Baghlan, highly-placed sources in the country’s government have told The Quint.

Using a committee of village elders and clerics from Dand-i Shahabuddin as mediators, local authorities have begun negotiations with Qari Bakhtiar – a Kunduz-area ethnic Pashtun who serves as the Taliban’s deputy chief for the Baghlan area – in an effort to secure the release of the men, the sources said.

International response to India’s first nuclear test of May 1974, though declared a ‘nuclear implosion’ for peaceful purposes, was quite severe. The world ganged up against us, as it were.

Six major countries – the US, UK, Soviet Union, France, Germany and Canada – formed what was initially called the ‘London Club’ and met in November 1975, and declared a technology embargo on India.

I was amused to read about Amit Shah’s recent faux pas. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alter ego, the Bharatiya Janata Party president told an election rally that the Yeddyurappa government (2008-2011) was one of Karnataka’s most corrupt.

Shah’s tongue may have slipped, but will the BJP, raring to rewrite history, repeat it? The ruling party badly needs to establish a beachhead in southern India. It is willing to pay any price for power.

“Better late than never. The Congress party feels that there is a tremendous opportunity here to start the process of cleansing of the campaign funding issue,”

Minor survivors and their families continue to shift aimlessly from one court to another, year after year, waiting for a respite from the wait.

Tinder is largely reliant on Facebook for profile information of its users, and most importantly, to sign up on the app. Is Facebook a threat to Tinder?