The work of Norman Borlaug, who helped save billions from starvation, is worth recalling, especially as opposition to gene-modified crops mount, says Shreekant Sambrani.
Anti-conversion laws are needed since thrusting the idea of a competitive battlefield of religion onto India's pluralistic traditions can only lead to greater communal conflict, says Sankrant Sanu
'I do not call the BJP or RSS as extremist groups, but some small groups all over India have started behaving aggressively after the BJP came to power.' 'These groups think they have the authority to attack anyone and impose their ideas on people.'
'If one observes a common man passing a church or gurdwara or dargah, he instinctively bows his head. It is this prevalence of polytheism that has ensured that monotheists and minorities flourish in India. This may sound preposterous in wake of the recent communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar. But it must be understood that in a county of over one billion people that was at worst an aberration,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The government has decided to ban Indian women from being surrogate mothers to foreigners to stop 'commercial surrogacy'. How will this decision affect surrogacy in India?
'We used to say two things are found everywhere: A potato and a Sikh. I think you can substitute Gujarati for the Sikh because Gujaratis are everywhere.'
'We are two countries that, as Swami Vivekananda said in Chicago more than a century ago, have sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations on Earth.' 'People are watching to wait and see if this Modi moment is going to be the moment when the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy finally capitalise on the full, inherent potential of this relationship.' Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from the State Department's lunch for Prime Minister Modi.
