Archana Walavalkar is on a mission to 'make India stylish'.
The futures of thousands of undocumented Indians who were taken to the US as children are in danger after Donald Trump's repeal of the DACA program.
AAP is arguing quietly that indifference, alienation have to go. These are symptoms of disempowerment. For AAP, the battle to empower people demands new engagements with the marginals and corporations, says Shiv Visvanathan.
'We went around with the story, but no one came forward to finance it. They would say 'Who would want to watch this?' Or they would say 'Ek to ladka dal do is me.' We said no, we didn't want to compromise.'
'Biometric Aadhaar-based surveillance is not only about violation of privacy, but also about the treasure hunt for unprecedented financial surveillance and economic intelligence in the economic history of mankind,' asks Gopal Krishna.
Are you staring at a mid-career crisis? Here's help!
'We have made no effort in recent years to build a national opinion on Kashmir amongst political parties.' 'At least we should speak as one country.' 'It has been a failure of our foreign policy that we have not been able to convince world opinion that something needs to be done about Pakistan.'
Reason must triumph over blind faith, says Praful Bidwai in this tribute to murdered rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
'If the dimensions of the strategic partnership worked out by India and the US seem like a grand alliance targeted at you-know-who, China had better realise that it has fathered it,' says B S Raghavan, a long time observer of China.
'When the youth population is so large, in a globalised world, they look for opportunities. Are there enough opportunities for the youth in India?' 'The idea of affirmative action has to be creating capability. All individuals have potential. Unfortunately, there is capability deprivation because of the State's inaction.' 'Nation building has been a disaster in India mainly because we lacked the work ethic compared to the US and European countries.'
Why has a nation created on strong secular principles slowly chipped away those essential values? Why are so many Indians willing to compromise their freedoms and those of their compatriots for the cause of economic progress and to see a shining India,' asks Aseem Chhabra.
The roots of the problem lies in the alienation of the tribals. Extreme sensitivity is required to tackle the issues involved. Rough and ready methods of using force may prove counterproductive in the long run, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
On Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 91st birth anniversary on September 30, we bring back excerpts from a Rediff interview with the brilliant filmmaker, just after the release of his last film, Jhoot Bole Kauwa Kate.
While the state's decision to take the road to Prohibition has been given a communal twist, there are several political imperatives of the move
'Modi is a master of convergence. By his ability to converge and add new features to a non-star idea, he is able to sell it. Like how he has turned Kutch into a tourist destination by selling the salt desert of the Rann as a flat snow desert of the night and roping in Amitabh Bachchan to sell it. In one stroke this has ensured economic returns to the people and on the other hand it has taken care of the national security angle in the sense that the border population in the Rann, which is almost entirely Muslim, is feeling better as now they are much more connected with the mainstream.' Ahead of the launch of his book on the much-debated Modi model of governance, journalist Uday Mahurkar speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
'Modi's campaign has been strikingly devoid of anti-Muslim rhetoric. After the kutta pilla incident, it has been several months since he said something horrible about the Muslims of India. It is the result of democratic constraints. He has to make compromises... He's trying to reinvent himself. He will politically hurt himself if 2002 becomes the definition of Mr Modi again', says political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
'The blood that runs in the veins of our family can never be anti-national.' 'They called Kanhaiya a traitor for questioning the Indian Army. Do they know that our cousin was killed by militants in Manipur while serving with the CRPF?' Archana Masih/Rediff.com travelled to the land of Lal Salam, Lal Sitara and comrades to find out what moulded India's most talked about student leader, Kanhaiya Kunar.
'He was believed to finish his own work in an hour and spend the remainder of the time walking from one office to another, sitting down with the harried junior staff and helping them sort out the problems they were working on.'