'If the Ram Mandir is made, it is because of the collective strength of our country.'

The Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said India is proud of its achievements and despite the scarcity of land and rainfall, it boasts of eight per cent of the world's biodiversity.

Indian claims to the Ram story and ownership could be challenged from more places than one, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Experts said the tensions have added to a sense of apprehension in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia that China will engage in more aggressive behaviour in pursuit of its territorial interests, which in turn has raised the possibility of a serious and coordinated pushback by leading global players.

'The ban on Chinese imports is a suicidal step.' 'This will result not only in economic depression, but in a chaotic situation.'

'China has gone too long as a rogue power, trashing international norms, agreements, and treaties as if they were not the paper they were written on.' 'The ill-advised attack on Ladakh may be the beginning of the end of that nonsense,' advocates Rajeev Srinivasan.

The Right needs an apparently potent and dangerous foe to keep its own followers in line. If they lower their guard, the insidious enemy may creep in, argues Amulya Ganguli.

Embargo on imports from a neighbouring country would send a chilling signal to foreign investors who look for transparency and companies with manufacturing units in India had requested the government to publish any change in port policy "to provide the business community with the visibility they need to function", says United States-India Strategic Partnership Forum.

'What accounts for the huge difference in death tolls between the most advanced countries and the relatively poorer countries?' mulls Virendra Kapoor.

'By the time the goods that were sent from December onwards reached stores in Europe, they became dead inventory as the stores there were closed by then.' 'Those that were in the warehouse there also became dead inventory. Those that reached the ports there also became dead inventory.' 'And what Tirupur produced in March is still here, and they have also become dead inventory.'

'Fear psychosis has gripped the entire world.' 'Nobody is going to enter shops freely in the next 5, 6 months.' 'Secondly, the priority has changed.' 'Now that they have seen the bottom of the economy, people will prefer to save for tomorrow.'

Labour law changes for three years may not be enough as it takes a couple of years for factories to build and operations at a proper scale start only in the third or fourth year.

Canada and Australia said they would not be sending athletes to the Tokyo Olympics if the Games went ahead as scheduled in July and August this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Here is a list of previous cancellations, boycotts and changes of venues of the Summer and Winter games.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland reached 80,735 by the end of Sunday which included 3,119 people who have died so far.

Meanwhile, India has cancelled all visas issued to foreign nationals coming from China as it stepped up efforts to combat the spread of novel coronavirus after 150 passengers were identified with symptoms of the deadly virus and sent to isolation units.

Three medical students studying at the Wuhan University, all natives of Kerala, who returned to India on their own recently and self-reported at a hospital in the state have tested positive for the respiratory virus.

In the travel advisory, the Health Ministry again asked people to refrain from travelling to China in view of the coronavirus outbreak in its Hubei province and said travellers on return from the neighbouring country could be quarantined.

'The lessons from tiny New Zealand about mobilising to prevent an environment going up in flames around us and combatting the feral Whatsapp politics of hatred are in many ways Gandhian,' says Rahul Jacob.

For 'a person who has dedicated his life to teaching students, guiding them to restoring monuments and preserving our built heritage, I never dreamt that my home will one day be demolished.'

Some of the big moments of the sporting world from 2010-2019!

'Being one of the 150 million upper middle class consumers, I can vouch that the average expenses on white goods or clothing are minimal. Indians are not consumerist by nature,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

Those in the soccer competition that started ahead of the main event beginning on Saturday have borne the brunt of the disruption.

News of all that's transpired on and off the football field

'It is entirely possible that there are many treasures of our history and our faith buried deep underground,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.

India remained winless in their qualifying campaign so far.

Indira Kannan picks Made in Bangladesh, Greed, Moothon.

It became increasingly clear that the real negotiations the government had to conduct were with Indian business which was wary of yet another free trade agreement, points out T N Ninan.

The prime minister also welcomed convergence of views between India and ASEAN for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

Surjewala said the party's 10-day agitation was formalised at a meeting in which Rahul Gandhi participated in, but neither he nor Sonia Gandhi would be participating in the state and district level programmes.

India has the fourth highest number of malaria cases in the world.

'It's pretty likely that Kissinger, Rice et al came bearing gifts (read Trojan Horses) from McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Grumman, Northrop, and all the other Military Industrial Complex stalwarts,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.

Iran handed Cambodia a record-breaking 14-0 thrashing on an historic day in Tehran as goals flowed in World Cup qualifiers across Asia with Japan, South Korea and Australia securing comfortable wins on Thursday.

Initial 3,500 tickets for female fans were quickly sold out in about one hour and as a result, an additional 1,100 tickets were released for the match at the national Azadi Stadium.

Despite presiding over scores of factories in what is today India's largest garment exporter with 105,000 employees, Ahuja is a modest man with much to be immodest about. He tells Rahul Jacob that the government needs a free trade agreement with Europe fast to ensure a level-playing field with Bangladesh and Vietnam.

Brown is transforming ideas about what the next generation is capable of

News of all that's transpired on and off the football field

A female Iranian fan died earlier this month, after setting herself on fire to protest against her arrest for attending a match.

Iranian women have been banned from stadiums when men's teams have been playing, since just after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

A gritty India survived waves of attacks from Qatar to hold the reigning Asian champions to a goalless draw to steal an unexpected point from their away match of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers.

Dr Rakesh Mohan, former RBI deputy governor, and Dr Pronab Sen, former chairman of the Indian Statistical Commission discuss the issues facing the Indian rural and manufacturing sectors and what the government must possibly do to improve demand and perk up the Indian economy