Shobha Warrier has extensively covered the Sabarimala issue for Rediff.com. She is the author of His Days with Bapu: Gandhi's Personal Secretary Recalls among several books. You can e-mail the author at shobhaw@rediff.co.in
Dr Ashwani Mahajan, all India co-convenor of the Swadesh Jaagran Manch and an associate professor at the Delhi University, discusses the state of the Indian economy in an interview with Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
'The BJP doesn't have to do anything except nudge the AIADMK in one direction.'
'What we see here is puppetry. The string is with the BJP.' 'All the puppets here are dancing to the direction the BJP pulls the strings.'
'The number of deaths attributable to warming is likely to rise in the future.'
'The politician in him saw to it that the foundation stone was laid in Ahmedabad in the run-up to the assembly election in Gujarat in 2017.' 'But the statesman in him also wants it to be his legacy.'
'As long as there is misery, as long as people let themselves be exploited by rogues, this will continue.'
'Lakhs of engineers graduate every year in India and the IT industry used to be the primary recruiter. That is going to end.'
'There will only be an institutional solution between the board and the founders to take Infosys forward.'
'After some time, they all want to know what is happening in their companies.' 'It is better they remain board members rather than talk outside.'
'Those days, none of the leaders thought of amassing wealth.' 'All of them wanted to sacrifice their all for the country.' 'There are many who didn't have any money, but sacrificed their lives for the country.' 'There are many who spent their own money and worked for the country.' 'There are many more about whom we do not even know what they had done; they did everything so silently and selflessly.'
'I feel now we have a leader who is non-corruptible.' 'But he needs time as corruption is deep-rooted in our society, and people have no shame about being corrupt.' 'It will take at least 7 years to make some changes.'
'We do not want people who are air dropped and who fly out once the job is done.' 'Ever since liberalisation started, we keep on hearing that it's going to be jobless growth.' 'This speaks of the failure of the foreign returned policy makers.' 'When questions are raised, answers should be given and not a resignation.'
'There is no difference between the earlier government and the present government.' 'They are all following the economic policy based on the Chicago School of thought.' 'This school of thought says the government should have very little role in governing the country and the majority of the work should be handed over to the private sector.' 'This has not succeeded in the US.' 'Yet, it is being tried here by people like Arvind Subramaniam, Arvind Panagariya, Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan.'
'We are against Alibaba investing in Paytm.' 'We are against the concessions given to Paytm.' 'In fact, we want Paytm to close down because of its alliance with Alibaba.'
'India is a huge market for Chinese goods. I don't think a war stands to logic when you have economic compulsions, but then Chinese are known to do illogical things.'
Prashant Lingam and Aruna Kappagantula are changing the way houses are being built in India.
Like many such cases, this case too would have remained under wraps had the survivor not exposed the villains and the crime they had commited.
'Even if you are aping the West, if you customise the idea for the Indian market, localise it based on the Indian ethos, it will succeed.'
'What we are going to see is a large number of white collar jobs getting lost.' 'Job loss can drive people to depression, drugs, alcoholism and even suicide as there is no one to turn to when they are down.' 'There is no in-between now -- things go from a luxurious lifestyle to no lifestyle.'
'If my understanding is correct, one has to file not less than 37 returns per year for every ordinary business, and that too per state.' 'If you are doing businesses in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, you have to file 37x3 returns every year!' 'The consequence of GST will be chaos, confusion and possibly economic crisis.'
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