Hamid Anasari's was not talking of reservation for the whole religious community to which he too happens to belong. Yet, sections of media chose to put words into his mouth and then subject him to the criticism he never deserved. This does not augur well for our media or democracy, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Arun Jaitley and Janardan Dwivedi have rewritten the rules of politics in the Age of the Internet and its young and restless user base, reports Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Transcript of the political resolution adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its national executive meeting in Panaji, Goa on Sunday.
'...even if they have profound differences. We discuss within our party and with each other, but not openly. We just reminded the BJP that they too, should follow this dharma.'
What is Narendra Modi like? What is his politics about? What will he do? What are his priorities? Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com speaks to Swapan Dasgupta to find out more about the man of the moment.
Dhananjay Desai has been allowed to spread his poison to young men in Maharashtra and Goa over the last five years, by a 'secular' Congress-NCP government. The 23 cases pending against him have not stopped him. He and his supporters must have thought they were immune when they lynched a bearded Muslim at night. Neither Desai nor his followers, nor the police, nor their 'secular' political masters, must have expected the nationwide furore that followed, says Jyoti Punwani.
If Myanmar's election demonstrates reasonable transparency and fair process, it would go down in history as the first free and fair one in the country in more than two decades, says Dr Rahul Mishra.
'In India, China's capacities to conduct new types of warfare is critically underestimated,' says Claude Arpi.
'I do not require validation from a hostile media. My conscience is clear.'
Pranab Mukherjee's book The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years takes the readers through the economic and social unrest of the period leading up to the emergency, rise and fall of leaders, many splits within the Congress, while promising to offer more in the next two volumes of the trilogy, says Nivedita Mookerji.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel -- who covers the Sheena Bora murder trial for Rediff.com -- reports on a day in a Ranchi court.
'The country has moved beyond the likes of Yogi Adityanath and his medieval thinking. The results of the by-elections are early warning signals by impatient Indians. It's up to the BJP to learn its lesson or face the consequences,' says Ashutosh.
The beef ban has sparked considerable debate and confusion
'If Modi arrived like a juggernaut, he left like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were being dismantled bit by bit. It was as if India had seceded quietly from him.' Shiv Viswanathan's social science fiction about what India would be like in 2020.
'For the BJP, development is nothing more than a jumla,' says Tejaswi Yadav.
'Nehru had multiple chances to make compromises, that would have preserved a united India, and he chose not to,' Nisid Hajari tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
'We have to find a way out of this confrontational politics.'
A left-leaning centralised socialist model has created a shortage/entitlement economy. In fact one of the reasons for India's limited progress is that post-independent India is at odds with its true nature. It is something that educated right of centre Hindus are trying to correct, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The lesson Waghmare sternly received on Monday from CBI Investigating Officer K K Singh and CBI Prosecutor Bharat Badami about the way a witness must answer questions from the defence seemed to have had only a marginal effect on him. On Tuesday the timid former office boy still chose, unpredictably and remarkably, to answer many a question in the manner of his choosing. He told the room categorically that he had asked Indrani's former secretary Kajal Sharma not to forge Sheena Bora's signature on her resignation letter.
On the occasion of the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's 125th birth anniversary, Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com visits his residence of 16 years, and comes away marvelling at his enduring legacy.
With the state going to polls soon, Akhilesh Yadav needs to step out of his father's shadow and come into his own as the state's CM.
The RSS realises that with a majority BJP government at the Centre and in several states, now was the best time to undermine and perhaps outdo the Congress-Left 'stranglehold' over campuses and young minds.
'How can a State, which claims to be a responsible power, unilaterally grab a "disputed" area to build a road on it?' asks Claude Arpi.
Delivering good governance is one thing and influencing culture is quite another, and this is where apprehensions about Manohar Lal Khattar arise, says Kanika Datta
Without cash flows, one can hardly aspire to better living conditions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday cautioned against "commodifying" yoga, saying using it as some sort of business will do great damage to this world heritage.
The move is aimed at reflecting the diversity of India and highlighting the contribution of prominent personalities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who recently completed one year in office, has, in an exclusive interview with Smita Prakash, editor, ANI, said the opposition alleging that his government is a "suit boot ki sarkar" is definitely better and more acceptable than being labelled a "suitcase" (ki sarkar), and satirically added, that after ruling for sixty years, the Congress has suddenly remembered the poor.
Ms Banerjee's triumphal declaration of having attracted investments worth Rs 2.43 lakh crore at the summit, are numbers that no one but she and the enigmatic state finance minister Amit Mitra believe, points out Kanika Datta.
People elected me to fight corruption, I'm doing what they told me to do, Modi said.
A European-led boycott of FIFA or the World Cup is unrealistic.
'By resorting to divisive issues, the BJP is giving the impression that even if it is voted to power it won't do anything new to give Bihar a facelift. It will repel voters with the belief that the BJP can't do anything without communal polarisation as its core ideology. This is sad and unfortunate,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
If an elected government had been sworn in, Jung's tenure and the government would have been more or less co-terminus and Jung would have been just the ceremonial head of Delhi. Now, he will run Delhi, pending another round of assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.' Former RA&W official Jayadeva Ranade explains what China's military reforms mean for the world.
The absence of a clear underlying economic ideology in the Budget was quite evident, say experts.
Rediff.com republishes an old interview of the cartoonist on politics
'Until India fully absorbs the fundamentals of international relations, it will continue to get evil for good,' says Brahma Chellaney.
'Muslims in India have been suffering in many ways. Yet, they are proud Indians and love India as much as any other Indian community.'
Job creation was mentioned 13 times in the BJP's 2014 election manifesto, yoga only twice. Has yoga taken precedence over jobs for the Modi Sarkar, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'The new generation voter is hyper-nationalistic, but it isn't essentially illiberal.' 'They will find the rants of Adityanath as laughable as Irfan Habib's. They will also find the BJP's polarising approach to vote-gathering unacceptable if it fails to deliver jobs and growth,' says Shekhar Gupta.
