'Having dealt with security and insurgency for 15 years, I am fully convinced that the steps taken by the government in regard to J&K and the measures in force there are essential,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'Neither Modi nor the BJP have lost control over the minds and votes of their original supporters due to their tremendous political ability to play upon baser communal instincts.' 'But this buoyant support will melt away if the economic scenario remains depressing.' 'That makes 2020 an interesting year to watch out for,' notes Sheela Bhatt.
'You can't make the poor rich overnight.' 'Nor can you fly millions in planes.' 'But remember that word: Empathy.' 'Who in the BJP is speaking in that language to these millions?' 'Someone putting an arm of understanding, warmth, comfort around them?', asks Shekhar Gupta.
If Uddhav Thackeray is fazed by the BJP's attempts to build a narrative against his government in order to bring it down, he is not showing it. He has fought against all odds to remain in the CM's chair and faced difficulties with a smile, reports Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Both Doval and Jaishankar are savvy enough to know what is good for them and won't want to meet the fate of Icarus in Greek mythology,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'There was no need for opting for such an elaborately and expensively organised spectacle,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'We don't know where he will go from here and how he will conduct his government.'
'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.'
'No country or society ever prospered or remained secure by marginalising more than one-sixth of its own,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
'Till now, many political parties indulged in Muslim appeasement.' 'This is one experiment, successfully carried out by the AAP, in indulging in Hindu appeasement.'
Modi isn't going to voters on his track record but on the fear of the terrorist across the border and the Muslims within. It's a battle on his terms, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Your confidence is shaken when the government does what it does these days, but then it is the same confidence that gives you the courage to stand up to the government's high-handedness.' 'There will always be people who will not fear jails or the physical and mental torture that visit citizens protesting against the government's draconian policies and laws.' 'There will always be Indians who will not be afraid to face the consequences of fighting for their Constitutional rights.'
'The BJP was looking at one or two disgruntled guys to see whether it can destabilise the government.' 'When the BJP does not win a state, it uses these back hand methods.'
'They (the government) want to tame everything.' 'The entire systems they are trying to change.'
Indian elections are won and lost on 'negative' imageries and campaigns - but not certainly on 'negativity' as a political trait and electoral creed, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
'In today's situation, it is not going to help anyone's case if they try to politically contest with the BJP on ideological issues.' 'Instead, it is best is to swim along the tide, present the more acceptable face of the cultural Hindu, but not be a political Hindu as the BJP or Mr Modi is.'
'The handling of the pandemic, under this totally constitutional and legal three-level dictatorship, has begun to show its downside,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
'How many Indian parents, still alive, really have documents of, their parents's date and place of birth? Not more than 27% of still alive Indians have got birth certificates,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
'People want to see Mr Sinha win again because he has always been there for Patna whether he has been a leader or not.' 'Even when he was an actor, he was a proud Bihari.' 'He is not doing it because he only wants to win an election, he wants to do it because he really loves Bihar.'
'The debate, by being mostly in Hindi, lost much of its educative relevance to the southern states.' 'All the prime minister's debating skills and oratorical prowess went over the heads of the South Indian audience,' points out B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'Poor home work, and a subsequent loss of nerve.' 'This sums up the Modi government's current travails, the stall in key sectors, fading momentum, irritability,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
'The BJP will take time to come to power in Andhra.'
'Extravagant new promises can buy him time, but far from solving the problem, they compound the risk.' 'His main alternative is to stress not aspirations, but resentments.' 'He has already de-emphasised aspirational appeals: Nothing has been heard for over two years of the coming of achhe din,' points out James Manor.
'Maybe the BJP believes, in the post-poll scenario, it will have the might to foist, anybody endorsed by the RSS, upon Bihar,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
It is this new Muslim who is not burdened by the Pakistan guilt, who is ready to fight it out for the rights enshrined under the Constitution, and who is not defensive about Muslim identity that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are out to crush, argues Mohd Asim.
'Most Assamese don't understand a word like ghuspethiya and its insulting connotation.'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com lists 11 Modi flagship schemes that may have been gamechangers in the Lok Sabha election.
'These guys did not even issue an apology to me and were taken back into the party.' 'They were reinstated on the grounds that they will contribute to the Congress campaign.'
'If you are opposed to the nationwide NRC, you should oppose the NPR.'
'We are not a dictatorship. If the people do not desire some law, it is impossible for any government to implement it,' says BJP leader Chandra Kumar Bose.
'In the CBI's history, a situation like this has never ever occurred.'
India is mushrooming with Deve Gowda wannabes because being a former prime minister is better than being a former chief minister, says Shekhar Gupta.
'No one institution can cleanse it: Not the courts, government or activists.' 'And least of all the Indian Police Service,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
For this dispensation, ideas are dangerous. Those who propagate liberalism and democratic traditions are even more dangerous, observes Rashme Sehgal.
'Teaching lessons is the objective behind every school.' 'For the moment, a state seems intent to teach a lesson -- that students of Classes 4, 5 and 6 can wage war against the mighty Indian nation,' says Krishna Prasad.
'They thought he can separate the Muslim votes and win, but the Kerala mind is completely different.' 'It is a secular mind because Hindus, Christians and Muslims live together.' 'We don't like somebody coming from outside, contesting in our state, winning and going and avoiding us.'
'Wayanad has become famous because of Rahul Gandhi.'
'There's nothing in the 2019 campaign air, the chunavi hawa that tells you it's a wave election, for anyone,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'I suggest Rahul Bajaj come out in the open and give us his own white paper on the perceived sense of fear that he thinks haunts corporate India,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
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