"You have no idea how well versed she is with Indian tradition. The way she covers her head, does aarti, listens to the shlokas... You cannot see Western culture in her." Meet Pandit Radheshyam, the priest who conducts a havan before Sonia Gandhi files her nominations from Rae Bareli. In exclusive conversation with Rediff.com's Swarupa Dutt.
As a young Congress MP hopes to score a rare hat-trick, he confronts the hope held out by a new party and its earnest candidate. Rediff.com's Swarupa Dutt reports from one of the nation's most high profile constituencies. Photographs: Reuben NV/Rediff.com
For a constituency that has voted for the Nehru family time and again, little has changed on the ground. The people of Amethi tell Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com that they will vote for the Congress, but teach Rahul a lesson.
'I know a lot of gossip, but I will take these secrets to my grave,' Majid, who owns a paan-beedi shop across the road from the guesthouse that Rahul Gandhi stays at in Munshiganj when he visits Amethi, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com
'She has kept them poor so that they spend all their time keeping body and soul together and when the time comes to vote, they blindly vote for her. Had they prospered, they would have had the time to think. She wants the mindset to remain the same. It's the perfect vote bank, but that will change,' Ajay Aggarwal, the BJP's candidate in Rae Bareli, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com
'Justice delayed is justice denied. "Move on, move on", sure, we'll move on, but first give us justice. The fabric and foundation of a democratic government is justice. You can't just move on, sorry. And that works for the anti-Sikh riots, the repatriation of Kashmiri Pandits; give us justice, then govern,' says Javed Jafri, the actor who will contest the Lok Sabha election in Lucknow for the Aam Aadmi Party. In this conversation with Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com, Jafri says he doesn't waste time listening to "enemies of the nation" and feels he is running parallel to the BJP's Rajnath Singh as far as winnability in Lucknow is concerned.
The brothers of the Delhi Braveheart are shocked at the three-year sentence for the juvenile convict, but say this is not the end of their fight for justice
It's been a year since their daughter, their sister, died of rape-inflicted injuries so brutal, that doctors treating her said they had never seen anything like it. A year that the family has spent scrambling to courts for justice. There will be no closure, they say till all the five men are hanged. Swarupa Dutt reports.
As the Delhi gang rape trial winds to a close, the family who lost their only daughter speak of their eight-month trauma and the desperate need for capital punishment for all rapists, including the five men who brutalised the Mumbai photojournalist last week. Swarupa Dutt reports
As the Delhi gang rape trial winds to a close, the family who lost their only daughter speak of their eight-month trauma and the desperate need for capital punishment for all rapists, including the five men who brutalised the Mumbai photojournalist last week. Swarupa Dutt reports
'We believe in God and I know nothing bad will happen here as long as the Congress is in power. I was born in Rae Bareli, I am the third generation of Nathans from this place,' Basil Nathan, whose mother Victoria was a member of the AICC and close to Indira Gandhi, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com
As the Delhi gang rape trial winds to a close, the family who lost their only daughter speak of their eight-month trauma and the desperate need for capital punishment for all rapists, including the five men who brutalised the Mumbai photojournalist last week. Swarupa Dutt reports
As the country awaits justice for the horrific gang rape and murder of the Delhi Braveheart, Swarupa Dutt meets the lawyers of the accused. They either blame the girl, or her friend, or both. One of the lawyers who was associated with the case even claims there was no rape, and that the girl is alive.
A small group of protestors in Delhi have kept up their fight for justice in the Delhi gang rape case. Swarupa Dutt tells their story
A small group of protestors in Delhi have kept up their fight for justice in the Delhi gang rape case. Swarupa Dutt tells their story
In a Delhi home, two brothers miss a special sister on Raksha Bandhan.
'I did get a ticket, but getting nominated isn't enough.' 'The people in Habibpur, my own party workers, are my opponents.' 'Is it possible to win?'
'The power of love is the greatest power in the world.' 'Add a smile and you can conquer the world,' Bengali actor June Maliah, the Trinamool Congress's candidate for the Medinipur constituency, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com.
The idea of India is documented by its 4,500-year-old history and as much as its tryst with freedom, was its tryst with princely states. And we are the richer for it, says Swarupa Dutt.
'Gone too soon, Astad, but I know whenever we meet in that world beyond, I will watch you dance.' Swarupa Dutt remembers a remarkable human being and a magnificent performer who left the world poorer when he passed into the ages on Thursday.
'Whether the Hindu voter will vote for us or not, we can't say, can we?'
'Tell me, one BJP policy that Mamata has opposed and is fighting tooth and nail?' Be it Article 370, instant triple talaq, be it CAA/NRC/NPR, be it notebandi, FDI, she has aligned with the BJP.'
Naxals have called a bandh in Gadchiroli and Gondia districts of Maharashtra on July 15 to protest the killing of fellow women in recent encounters.
'People say my personality doesn't have sharp edges, but politics doesn't have to be about pulling down your opponents or bad mouthing them.'
'The ground reality is that Banglar manush Didir shonge aachhe (The people of Bengal are with Didi).' 'Even as the BJP is still looking for a CM candidate, the elections will be over and we will form government with a two-thirds majority.'
'The TMC forgets that if people don't stand by you, your party will never win.'
As their parties are locked in a fierce battle for Bengal, Tathagata and Saugata Roy, siblings who belong to the BJP and the TMC respectively, answer the same questions put to them about the assembly election.
'Mamata is an emotional person, she follows her heart.' 'We loved that Didi, we still love her, but she is a changed person.' 'Why and how the change happened, who is responsible, I can't say.'
'The TMC has become a private limited company.'
'It is time to give back to this city that has given me so much.'
'The TMC did not bother telling me, a sitting MLA for 20 years, why I was not being given a ticket.'
'He was always opposed to a form of nationalism that was narrow, selfish and arrogant.' 'He will always remain a beacon of inspiration for freedom-loving people across the world and for movements of resistance against oppressive State power.'
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
'You may be an MP or an MLA; when we go to Bengal, we go as cadre.'
'At this moment, the Trinamool has an edge.'
'If the BJP thinks it is going to overnight transform Bengal into Madhya Pradesh, sorry, that's not going to happen because I have faith in our ethos and culture.'
'Our honourable CM is so shameless that she will say the state is among the safest for women.'
An advocate in the December 16 gang rape case, who courted controversy with his gender specific remarks, on Thursday said it was a "personal statement confined to his family which has been given a general interpretation."
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