Now is a great time to explore these five places in India says Anita Bora as she draws up her list of personal favourites.

highlights of what Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi and senior leader L K Advani said at the Statue of Unity launch event

The main culprit in vitiating the inter community/caste/class relations has been the so called 'targeted' approach. This is nothing but discrimination on the basis of faith/caste/class. When an equally poor and deprived child is denied scholarship, despite equal merit, resentment begins to brew, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.

After suffering from severe exposure to endosulfan for decades, the villagers of Kasargod are finally moving on. But the scars remain, T E Narasimhan finds out.

A combination of laws prescribing tough retribution with training in morals and ethics at every level of education and insistence on parental teaching would seem to be the best stratagem to counter natural animal instincts, says A K Verma.

Barack Obama was re-elected president of the United States on Wednesday by defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Democratic strongholds and key battleground states. Here the full text of his victory speech.

The increasingly loud and belligerent assertion of Beijing's claims in South China has become a matter of strategic concern for many nations for diverse reasons. It comes at a time when nations with diverse interest in the Southeast Asia from the India to Vietnam to Japan and the United States are already concerned about China's growing strategic strength.

'You can identify an Indian in any group, anywhere in the world by just talking to him. His reflexes, his reactions to problems, his value system are the same, whatever region or religion he may belong to.' Dr P C Alexander in an eloquent interview to Rediff.com on the 50th anniversary of India's Independence.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report says the gaming industry he helped found in the former Portuguese colony and ruled for 40 years before the Chinese broke up his monopoly in 2001 will double its size, already twice that of Las Vegas, in the next four years.

'Tall frames, blond hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones -- some of them inherit an explosive mix of attractive features. They may come from modest backgrounds and farming families, but spotted early they can be trained and transformed into super models.'

The entire effort to artificially bury the Bhopal legacy is misguided. Unfortunately, the legacy lives on. Justice demands that it is brought to an honourable, dignified closure in a fair and transparent manner. The Group of Ministers has failed to do that, writes Praful Bidwai.

The very future of the Indian State, suddenly, is in question. And it is mostly from self-inflicted, avoidable wounds. The failure of leadership is causing India to cease to exist.

Indians have evolved as consumers...but retail design hasn't exactly kept pace. Except for a few stores

When President Chirac arrived in Mumbai in 1998, he declared: 'In India, France is not at the level where it should be.' Ten years later, it is still true. France has a role to play in India, but will Delhi and Paris will be bold enough to seize the occasion?

In the heart of India's Silicon Valley, Bruno Maddox finds a city transformed by globalisation, dreaming of the future.

Hadapsar in Pune is a resettlement colony. Rows of little houses here are a contrast to what one finds in slum settlements.

'America's latest post-Cold War tryst with neo-con global political evangelism in Iraq is nearing the end of the trail.'

The implementation of the recently unveiled Master Plan for Delhi is unlikely to provide durable solutions for the capital's multitude of housing, infrastructure and other problems.

What is it about these Indian-Americans that made India Abroad want to honour them?

Delhi will be free from the clutches of a greedy development authority

Ravi Teja Sharma studies the real-estate market of Kochi and finds that developers are excited about the town's future.

These days, there simply isn't enough housing in the area, with so many industries coming in.

The International School of Business & Media invites applications for its various management programmes.

The International School of Business Media invites applications for its two-year full time post-graduate programmes.

'If one island gets wiped out it will be the loss of an entire culture, a whole tradition.'

Australia's former British Open winner Peter Thomson says Annika Sorenstam's appearance on the men's tour shows the game is desperate for something to excite fans.

'America's survival depends on war. It requires the control of Iraq to inject new blood in its ailing economy,' Salah Al-Mukhtar, Iraq's ambassador to India.