Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday said India should have a "youngish" vice president and supported the candidature of Shashi Tharoor for the job. "We are a young country. How about a 'youngish' vice president even if we can't have a 'young' president," he wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter. Asked by a follower to define young, Omar said the candidate should be around 50-years-old. "Fiftyish. Someone...
12:51 AM, Apr 24, 2012
New Delhi: Twitter has been around for the last six years but I joined it six months ago exasperated at colleagues speaking in a seemingly foreign tongue. 'Followers', 'trolls', 'bots' and 'DP' had become water cooler conversation. "I'm nothing if not flexible," I said to myself and signed up for hell. Today, I'm not only a junkie but also an endorser of the subaltern democracy that the micro-blogging site offers...
10:30 AM, Mar 28, 2012
New Delhi: A series of sneak peeps into new books by top Indian writers will be the cornerstone of a festival of literature, "Spring Fever", to be held March 16-24 at the India Habitat Centre. An annual feature of Penguin-Books India, the festival will preview several new titles by authors like Vikram Seth, Gurcharan Das, Shobhaa De, Gulzar, Shashi Tharoor, Amit Chaudhuri and Devdutt Patnaik, who will discuss their books...
03:36 PM, Mar 12, 2012
Kochi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday said Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was not 'sufficiently and vigorously prosecuted' as both Pakistani Government and Judiciary had taken the line of 'least resistance'. "I think he has not been sufficiently and vigorously prosecuted and the reason for that is that both government of Pakistan and the judiciary have taken the line of least...
06:21 PM, Feb 03, 2012
Jaipur: Author Salman Rushdie has accused the Rajasthan government of making up the assassination theory, just so he would stay away from the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival. The state however has hit back saying the decision to not come was taken by Rushdie alone and it was the government's duty to inform him about any possible threat. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has countered Rushdie saying that there was adequate...
09:54 PM, Jan 22, 2012
Jaipur: Two days after he decided to skip the Jaipur Literature Festival citing threats from a Mumbai don, celebrated author Salman Rushdie on Sunday slammed the Rajasthan police for allegedly inventing a plot to keep him away. Rushdie tweeted: "I've investigated, and believe that I was indeed lied to. I am outraged and very angry. Don't know who gave orders. And yes I guess the same police who want to...
12:02 PM, Jan 22, 2012
Anna Hazare said that he will campaign against the Congress in the poll-bound states. ...
09:06 PM, Dec 28, 2011
New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday came down heavily on Team Anna and the Opposition over the Lokpal Bill during the debate in the Lok Sabha. While the Prime Minister was moderate in his attack, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's speech was harsher. Attacking Team Anna, Tharoor said, "It's time to tell civil society that your views have been heard, now listen to us." "We don't need Jasmine revolutions in India....
09:36 PM, Dec 27, 2011
New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor hit out at Team Anna while taking part in the Lokpal debate in Lok Sabha on Tuesday claming that the Lokpal Bill is not a weak Bill. Tharoor while addressing Lok Sabha said, "It is time to tell the civil society, your views have been heard, now listen to us." Tharoor said India should be concerned about corruption in daily life. Praising Prime Minister...
08:00 PM, Dec 27, 2011
New Delhi: Advocating Presidential system, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that there are 'serious disadvantages' in Parliamentary democracy. According to Tharoor, time has come to revive the debate on adopting the 'Presidential system'. In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN on November 28 Tharoor had expressed his opinion on Presidential system. "I believe that the Presidential system would be far better in our country than the Parliamentary system because of the...
04:19 PM, Dec 14, 2011
New Delhi: Pointing to "serious advantages" in parliamentary democracy, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said time has come to revive the debate on adopting the "Presidential kind system" in India wherein people would directly elect their executives. Tharoor, a former UN diplomat and former Union minister of state for external affairs, said there were "serious disadvantages" in parliamentary democracy adopted by India after it attained independence in 1947. "I...
10:34 PM, Dec 13, 2011
New Delhi: Politicians and prominent thought leaders on Tuesday took to Twitter to debate Kapil Sibal's remarks on Internet censorship with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah coming out in support of the embattled Telecom Minister. Abdullah cited the dangers of inflammatory content on social networking websites. "I hate the idea of censorship but have seen for myself how dangerous inflammatory content on Facebook YouTube can be," Abdullah tweeted...
05:26 PM, Dec 06, 2011
Ahmedabad: Former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that if Anna Hazare sticks to his version of Lokpal Bill and opposes any changes in it could create problems. "I respect Hazare a lot. What he has done to shake the conscious of people on corruption is very good," Tharoor said on the sidelines of an award function at the National Institute of Design (NID) in...
08:01 PM, Nov 27, 2011
Ahmedabad: Backing Central government's decision to allow Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, former union minister Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that it would generate additional employment opportunities. "Most countries have understood from experience that FDI brings in more investments from abroad. In most countries, FDI is a way of contributing to additional employment," the former minister of state for External Affairs said on the sidelines of a function...
03:51 PM, Nov 27, 2011
New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu government has banned the screening of the movie 'Dam 999' with immediate effect. The movie is based on the controversy surrounding the Mullaperiyar dam. Writer and Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor opposed the ban and said, "I have not seen the film but a dam cannot be a reason for banning a film. A ban is a bad idea in principal. A political controversy is no justification...
11:39 AM, Nov 24, 2011
New Delhi: After a hiatus of two years, politician-writer Shashi Tharoor is back to writing a book. And this time, its about Indias place in the new balanced world. Addressing a discourse The New Superpowers chaired by Anita Anand of BBC at the Alchemist Hay Festival in Kerala, Tharoor said the book would look at Indias place in the world, not just in terms of foreign policy, but how India...
04:30 PM, Nov 17, 2011
Thiruvananthapuram: Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday filed a Rs 10 crore defamation suit against The Sunday Indian magazine for publishing an article insinuating that he has black money stashed away in Swiss banks. Tharoor, a former minister of state for external affairs, has appointed Kochi-based legal firm of Sherrif Associates to represent him. The firm has sent the defamation notice to the editor-in-charge and two others officials of the...
04:55 PM, Nov 12, 2011
New Delhi: A debut novel won The Hindu's Literature Prize in the 'Lit for Life' literary festival for the second successive year. Rahul Bhattacharya bagged the 'The Hindu Literary Prize for Best Fiction 2011' for his 'The Sly Company of People Who Care'. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh. In his book 'The Sly Company of People Who Care' Rahul Bhattacharya captures the heady adventures of...
12:50 PM, Oct 31, 2011
Toronto: India offers huge scope for Canadian firms to participate in its $ 1 trillion infrastructure development plan, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has said. "India expects 50 per cent of this investment to come from the private sector. These developments create major opportunities for both Canadian and Indian companies," Tharoor said while addressing the Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) Diwali gala dinner attended by scores of corporates from two countries in...
09:16 AM, Oct 08, 2011
New Delhi: Firing a salvo at Anna Hazare, former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor has said how can a person "who never stood for elections" claim to be the voice of the people. Asserting that laws can be made only by Parliament, Tharoor, who is a first time MP from Kerala, said, "We cannot have a small group of unelected people imposing their will on Parliament because in the long term...
05:02 PM, Sep 01, 2011
