Archana Masih frequently contributes military features to Rediff.com. You can read some of her features in the related links alongside. You can e-mail the author at archana_masih@rediffmail.com
Despite all of the PM's many strengths, it is increasingly clear that he does not necessarily have a coherent and clear worldview on matters of macro policy.
'Both my father and brother are very strong. Their spirit is unbroken,' says Dr Farooq Abdullah's daughter and Omar's sister, Safiya Abdullah Khan.
'Irrespective of their politics, people feel happy.' 'One of the best compliments I have received is that I have made it from Kashmir to Karnataka.'
'The government's job is to enable people to live together, not tear them apart.' 'It is supposed to create spaces to work, live and survive -- this country is struggling and this government is saying you have no right of being.' 'It wants to declare human beings illegal. It is the most bizarre nonsense in the world.'
There have been some benefits to the corporate sector, agreed they also need support, but the government should realise that the economy is not suffering from lowering investment -- people are ready to invest but where is the demand?
'The awareness of how big my father's sacrifice came to me when we went for the Republic Day parade and my mother received the Ashok Chakra,' Rukmini Vasanth, whose father Colonel Vasanth Venugopal was killed in action fighting terrorists, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
'War is won by team work. War is won by sacrifices,' says Subedar Sanjay Kumar, Param Vir Chakra.
Major Sheena Nayyar describes what it means for an Indian soldier to be part of the Republic Day parade.
'It is my duty to tell them about the brave soldiers who gave their lives for our land.' 'The free air of freedom that we breathe is because of men like them.'
'The protests have forced the government to announce that the NRC is not an immediate priority.' 'Even if they are trying to pursue this policy in a different guise, through the NPR, the fact that they have been forced to pause and backtrack at least temporarily shows the positive impact of the protests.' 'Moreover, various state governments have opposed the NPR which cannot be carried out without their cooperation. That is also a success of the protests.' 'The state governments would not have taken this stance against the central government if their hand had not been forced by the popular mood.'
'I chose the army over glamour,' says Major Sheena, who feels no other profession elicits the kind of respect like the army does.
'Every bit of the parade is important. Everything that is being executed, you have to be completely in it,' says Captain Tania Shergill, the first woman adjutant at a Republic Day parade.
'An all-out war affects the whole nation.'
'Dr Abdullah is fine and in good spirits,' says National Conference Lok Sabha MP Mohammad Akbar Lone.
More rural women are having babies in government hospitals. Facilities have improved, but Bihar has is a long way to go in public health.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
'The biggest danger is that majoritarianism is getting normalised, insidiously and overtly... We are bringing the worst, not the best in us... We are looking for new enemies - Muslims, urban Naxals, tukde tukde gang, some enemy or the other which keeps this majoritarian wheel turning,' says journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.
'As we reach 2022 we are creating a very new, different India where the Citizenship Amendment Act will be passed, NRC will be pushed through, Article 370 scrapped...'
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
'Trail and appeals for rape cases must end in a year. Then the Police will not feel constrained to justify encounters and people will not applaud it.'
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