'Modi's advent has made the mass of Indians realise that there was absolutely nothing wrong or objectionable in proclaiming nationalism as the masthead of the polity and Hinduism as its centerpiece,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Shops remained closed in some parts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for a few hours and internet services were restricted in sensitive areas to check 'rumour-mongering', but normal life remained largely unaffected
'His prosecutors have no doubt turned a student union leader into a national figure - howsoever briefly - with their miscalculations and misdeeds, and have done Kanhaiya a huge favour.' 'But he will soon realise that it is a double-edged sword that he has been handed,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Addressing a meet after meeting Rajesh's kin, Jaitley condemned the dastardly attack and said that even an 'enemy of a country doesn't do this'.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
'You had earlier sent a Prime Minister from Assam (referring to Manmohan Singh) whom people do not even remember now'
Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said that Mukherjee, in his speech at RSS headquarter in Nagpur, reminded them of India's pluralism, tolerance, secularism and inclusiveness.
The BJP-led NDA government's decision to facilitate resumption of stalled work at 2000 MW Lower Subansiri Hydro Power Project being constructed by the National Hydro-Power Corporation at Gerukamukh along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh boundary has not gone down well with many anti-dam organisations in Assam. They fear a catastrophic downstream impact by the mega dam project.
On June 6, five farmers were killed as the agitation by peasants turned violent in Mandsaur.
The Jan Raksha Yatra from Payyannur will travel through the state before ending in Thiruvananthapuram on October 17.
A fresh notification prohibiting cycles and other forms of non-motorised transport along 174 major thoroughfares of the city has been issued by the Kolkata police.
'I remember the confusion over the slogan, 'Karenge Ya Marenge! (Do Or Die!)'.' 'I think this confusion arose because Gandhiji was arrested.' 'People used to wonder: What are we supposed to do?' 'How are we supposed to die?' 'How are we to fight the British?'
Generations of Indians don't quite grasp that there would barely be an India had it not been for the Sardar whose steadfastness and guile stitched together that which had been united only in philosophy and spirituality and sometimes not even then -- for thousands of years. A fascinating excerpt from Hindol Sengupta's The Man Who Saved India, Sardar Patel and His Idea of India.
While Mukherjee has received number of honorary degrees, it is first such honour accorded to him by a country.
''The Congress has forgotten how to mobilise people on political issues,' says Aakar Patel.
"I am sitting on a Satyagraha till I get a clarification on details of international travel expenses of some senior AAP leaders. It is not a dharna but a satyagraha. I would like to send out a message to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to put out the details of the foreign tours of his five AAP leaders -- Satyendra Jain, Ashish Khetan, Raghav Chaddha, Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak in public domain," Mishra told the media.
'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.'
'Generations pass by, but those fighting for justice are still not seeing the end to so many cases.'
'Never has this happened in the state's political history -- that every class of people is unhappy.'
The chief minister skipped meals and remained awake the entire night on a makeshift dais along with some senior ministers and party members.
In an era when the misguided youth of today are trying to build political careers by subscribing to divisive ideologies, they need to look to independent thinking icons such as Acharya Kripalani, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Over 60 of Mahatma Gandhi's most prized possessions, including a 'charkha' he used in Yerwada Jail during the 'Quit India Movement', will go under the hammer at a leading British auction house on November 5.
'Politics has become a toilet because we delegate everything.' 'We have to catch a bus, watch a cricket match, live our life... we feel this (politics) is not part of our responsibility.'
As we observe Martyrs' Day today, Mahatma Gandhi would have been dismayed by the number of vested interests that are seeking to carve out identities and spaces outside the Republic of India, says Shreekant Sambrani.
The PM asked people to pay school fees, buy medicines or items from fair price shops or purchase air and train tickets digitally.
Blowing the bugle for the 2014 Parliamentary elections, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday hit out at the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for dilly dallying on granting special category status to the state.
Shah said that the BJP hoped the Dalit nominee would be unanimously selected as the President.
'Gandhi has not become out of date, we have.'
Historian Stanley Wolpert, author of several books on India, passed into the ages recently. We remember Professor Wolpert with Rajeev Srinivasan's March 1997 interview published on the occasion of his controversial book on Jawaharlal Nehru.
Remembering Maulana Azad and Acharya Kriplani on their birth anniversary, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that there are historical figures who have been erased from public memory just because they did not belong to a particular family.
Activists associated with women's movements from different parts of India on Wednesday wrote an open letter to social activist Anna Hazare expressing their disappointment over the Gandhian campaigning for the Trinamool Congress Party in the upcoming Loksabha elections.
'The interesting point about the choice of the area for the surgical strikes is that it is the most sensitive part of the Line of Control,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Nehru's hegemonic politics has been responsible for many ills, which undoubtedly includes Kashmir'
The United States on Wednesday expressed concern over punitive action taken by the National Democratic Alliance government against scores of non government organisation, asserting that a vibrant civil society was important for democratic traditions and that those who act peacefully to seek change are not anti-government.
From the Aadhaar verdict to #MeToo's arrival in the country to the entry into the Sabarimala temple -- India had a newsworthy 2018. As we step into 2019, these are the top moments from the year gone by.
Articulate segments of Muzaffarpur have been at the the forefront of all anti-establishment mobilisation, which makes their silence over the atrocities in a shelter home in the town puzzling. Could it be that if those accused of horrific crimes belong to dominant castes and if the victims belong to the vulnerable groups, then the middle classes become mute, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
The Narendra Modi government on Saturday announced acceptance of the long-pending demand for 'One Rank One Pension' but the ex-servicemen who have been on agitation rejected the key details of the decision and said their 84-day long stir will continue.
They cited precedents where no picture of Mahatma Gandhi was used on such KVIC material.
Only 15 people of Indian origin have won the coveted prize. Hoping to correct this situation soon, India has embarked on the most intense dialogue with Nobel Foundation till date.
'It was a battle that took many forms, ranging from non-violent mass satyagrahas, mammoth public meetings, huge protest rallies in cities and towns to underground organisation of sabotage of communication and transport networks, an underground radio, illegal patrikas (newsletters) and the formation of parallel governments in Ballia, Midnapore and Satara.'