'The CM was in Gorakhpur when this attempt to murder took place on my brother.' 'I waited for two days to see what action the police takes, but after 48 hours, the police has not even questioned Paswan.'
'Fighting terrorists is one thing. Fighting insurgents is worse. Fighting a population is worst of all,' says Mihir S Sharma.
'The involvement of policemen in either committing the crime or shielding the accused in Kathua and Unna points to a crumbling civil and moral order,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Can compassion, common courtesy or an 'emotional connect' win seats in the harsh realpolitik of UP, a state riddled with divisions of caste and religion, and confronted with a seemingly impregnable BSP-SP alliance? asks Sunil Sethi.
'All statue-building is an exercise in hubris, but Mr Adityanath's enterprise begs a question: Can a state with rampant child malnutrition and 325 children dying in a Gorakhpur hospital afford Rama's benediction?' asks Sunil Sethi.
With about 18 weeks to go for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the state is being barnstormed by one notable politician after another.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
'Our country does not need an NRC. We need to improve our economy which is in a bad condition.'
'This is obvious to everyone except those in denial; it is a national shame.' 'To that extent, blaming any particular government is an insufficient response,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
'The DM is the ultimate authority in such situations.' 'The CM could not have directed anybody to cordon off the family and restrict them from meeting the family.'
'The 2019 battle is a battle for the kind of India that we want to live in.' The Congress's long history is pockmarked with sins great and small, but Mr Gandhi has the advantage of representing a new generation with a relatively clean slate, and a chance to redefine contemporary perception,' says Mitali Saran.
Mr Modi and Mr Shah will need him if they want to win UP again in 2022 and India in 2024. This signals a Yogi Adityanath-sized change in BJP politics, even under Mr Modi, Shekhar Gupta.
Sacking Ajay Mishra would further antagonise Brahmins in UP already upset with Yogi's government.
If he doesn't win next year, it will set back the party's prospects in 2024. If he wins, it will be seen as his win as much as the BJP high command's, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'As a student of history, I am no pessimist, but regardless of which party/coalitions comes to power on May 23, the space for secularism, pluralism and minority rights has shrunk significantly,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'If you accept that situation you don't require the judiciary, the criminal procedure law, the Indian Penal Code or even the Constitution because there is somebody who decides who gets to live and who gets to die.'
'If there is any possibility, then the BJP has to accept our conditions. There should be caste census in the country, the report of the social justice committee should be implemented, the CM should be from backward caste and also the poor must be provided a uniform, mandatory and free education as well as free medical treatment.'
For the first 90 days of 2021, from January 5 onwards, one Union minister will visit one district in Tamil Nadu every week till the assembly election.
'Till the time we do not remove fear in the minds of Muslims of India, how will we achieve peace?' asks the Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Gorakhpur, Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, who says he will resign as a member of the Uttar Pradesh assembly if any Indian Muslim of his constituency is evicted from the country during the Citizenship (Amendment) Act exercise.
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
'BJP leaders might ponder the all-consuming arrogance that grips the Modi-Shah combine a year ahead of the next general election,' says Sunil Sethi.
The IAF received a total of 13 awards including five Yudh Seva Medals and seven Vayu Sena Medal.
When a university allows a small group of students to prevent classes being held; when the professor selected to hold those classes gives up and goes back to his hometown; what conclusion can be drawn, asks Jyoti Punwani.
'There are enough funds to solve this problem.'
'If Yogiji has to run this government without any problems, he has to remain in power, and if he has to keep the BJP bosses in Delhi and the RSS happy, then he has no option but to do it.'
'Across the country -- in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Manipur, Delhi, Bihar, West Bengal -- men were lynched on suspicion of being thieves by ordinary people armed with rods and sticks.' 'But none of these lynchings made big news.' 'None of these lynchings were cow/beef-related.' 'The perpetrators were unknown people, not so-called gau rakshaks.' 'So why were these instances of mob violence considered less newsworthy than cow-related lynchings?' asks Jyoti Punwani.
Cities, roads, stations rechristened in the time of Modi.
'Caste-based power politics made him think that he can get away with murder.'
'I was feeling so suffocated under Yogiji's rule.'
'When Yogi took over, in the first few months he went after the criminals.' 'Everybody thought he will do it, cutting across party, caste divisions.' 'Gradually, the situation started slipping out of his hand.'
'The central BJP has worked out an arrangement -- Yogi manages the state while Modi manages the Centre.'
Ravi Kishan, the BJP's candidate, is an outsider. The BSP-SP candidate is from the powerful Nishad community. Yogi faces a tough task in ensuring that the Gorakhpur seat, which he represented from 1998 to 2017, stays with the BJP.
The jobless armies of youthful India are getting angrier and desperate, warns Shekhar Gupta.
'There is core BJP support on the Hindutva line. It will continue.' 'Along with that, the BJP is ready to play the OBCs trifurcation card to its benefit.' 'If you see the post-Kairana result, the BJP spokespersons and IT cell have already begun talking about Hindu unity against Muslim unity, Ram vs Allah.'
'If any party talks too much about Muslims, it will lose.'
'The conception of Make-in-India, Skill India, Smart Cities, Digital India, Beti Bachao, Beti Padao and so on show a visionary breadth of mind, and Modi is almost the first political leader in India to put them into effect with single-minded zeal,' notes B S Raghavan, the former civil servant.
'What will work is not fear of the law, but of real and swift prosecution under the law.' 'That can now be a possibility thanks to the Supreme Court judgment.'
'If Mr Modi and Mr Shah have made a poisonous, polarising campaign their brahmastra for 2019, Mamata Banerjee is showing them its limitations,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'When a woman gets married, she leaves her village, her friends and family.' 'In her new home, she will make friends, but they can never replace those she left behind.'
'The sole objective is to harass me, silence me.'
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