'The corporate world and the private sector economy take notice of the monstrous and apartheid like division that exists in our offices. The jobs we so casually take for granted in the upper class have come to us on the back of denial to others,' says Aakar Patel.
'One minute and 45 seconds of that clip are on Modi praising gauraksha.' 'In the last 30 seconds he speaks about violence, but says only that killing is unacceptable.' 'We don't need the prime minister to tell us that.' 'We need him to tell us why the killing is happening and what he will do to stop it,' says Aakar Patel.
'The desire to force others to act according to the way we want the world to be is strong in our parts. This is particularly so because we have not fully internalised the idea of individual liberties. The fact is that our moralism will get us into trouble,' says Aakar Patel.
'It seems to me that bringing Rahul in now would be like throwing petrol on the flames consuming Congress,' says Aakar Patel.
Very few people have access to the granular detail of what options are available to India and what their costs, consequences and benefits are. While Modi considers all of this, he would do well to do one thing. And that is to ignore the media.
'The BJP has bent. Pakistan has not changed a single thing. It is the BJP and its supporters who have changed. And this is a very good thing,' says Aakar Patel.
'The media, particularly the national media and especially the English media, do not report these stories any longer.' 'They have no interest in crime or human interest stories that do not concern the wealthy,' says Aakar Patel.
'In a nation where safety standards are the lowest in the world, why make compliance expensive?' asks Aakar Patel.
It is the voter who has corrupted politics, not the politician, says Aakar Patel.
'He was carrying his Indian passport. This seems like a very different sort of spy than the ones we see in movies, who carry fake passports and are highly trained,' says Aakar Patel.
'Many of the players in IPL are the sons of men and women who are in ordinary jobs and not well off.' 'These players are the first in their family ever to move into another social class.' 'I think it is a very fine thing that young men from ordinary backgrounds get exposed to fame and money, and playing with legends from abroad and India,' says Aakar Patel.
'Why do visas require the intervention of India's Union ministers? Does any civilised nation assure visas like this over Twitter?'
'There appears to be no relation between a government with a majority and GDP growth as the stock market and its analysts seem to fear.'
'I am only slightly puzzled by why the childishness has not left the minister. It is easy to be prejudiced and closed-minded when one is in one's teens. But adults should view the world as adults, not as squabbling and petty schoolchildren,' says Aakar Patel.
'This influence of anchors like Arnab Goswami is mostly negative because their focus is on issues that concern upper class anxieties.' 'Those that affect the majority of people, hundreds of millions of Indians, like health, primary education and nutrition, are not discussed,' says Aakar Patel.
'They have earned their money and their fame. They could have earned our respect by behaving in more public spirited fashion, but they have chosen instead to be unconcerned on that count,' says Aakar Patel.
'The Congress in 2017 stands for nothing positive, not even secularism.'
'The Indian middle class ignores the conflicts areas in Jammu and Kashmir, in Central India and in the North East.' 'The violence does not touch us at all and so we are able to easily look away from the underlying reasons and grievances.'
'He selects certain portfolios that he has personal interest in, and he does not give them to a senior leader. The responsibility is given to a junior minister who then directly reports to Modi or to the small team of bureaucrats working with Modi.' 'I noticed this first in Gujarat where Modi worked mainly with two ministers, Saurabh Patel and Amit Shah,' says Aakar Patel.
'For such prices you could get a place inside New York City and inside London.' 'Rs 7 crore is a million dollars and will bring you a handsome place in any city in the world.' 'The truly strange thing is that the conversion of the rupee's actual value makes India's real estate even more expensive,' says Aakar Patel.
'The only forum for resistance and dissent has become the university.' 'Free thinking is the right our brave students have been demanding.' 'As another round of violence and hatred against 'anti-nationals' begins, all of us, whether or not we agree with their views, should support and defend them,' says Aakar Patel.
'The project of a united Europe has constantly been made and remade.' 'The national borders have changed many, many times and so have the languages.' 'Britain's exit is only the latest episode in this long history,' says Aakar Patel.
'Why exclude those who are curious about our faith but not born into it, to experience the temple?'
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
India's ODI specialist Ambati Rayudu announced his retirement from first-class cricket to focus on One-Day Internationals and T20s.
'China's development is on a different scale from India's. They are very far ahead.' 'I don't think it will be possible in the next 30 years for us to catch them,' says Aakar Patel.
'Those who were first at the site of Gauri Lankesh's murder scene noticed that the place was still open for people to casually walk in and out.' 'No forensic evidence of value can remain in such places,' points out Aakar Patel.
'The tax avoidance in India is done as much by the wealthy as the lower class.' 'There is no difference in ethics and culture and morality, and no difference in tax-paying behaviour between various Indian classes, whether educated or not,' says Aakar Patel.
'I did not bother to collect my diploma certificate because the course was a waste of time and more or less useless. It would be instructive for me to describe it because manufacturing is seen as the way out for India's great unemployment problem. It is? I do not think so,' says Aakar Patel.
It seems the Congress just does not have the energy and vitality to break through even in the states where it has a ground presence and the wind of anti-incumbency on its back, says Aakar Patel.
'We are in the middle of the biggest self created crisis of this government.' 'A crisis which involves and includes citizens and affects the way we go about our lives.' 'It is a crisis that is being managed poorly by the government and, it is absolutely clear, even more shoddily by the Opposition,' says Aakar Patel.
'The idea of moral responsibility is not particularly strong in our parts. Showing that people are corrupt or immoral through stings doesn't have the required effect in such a culture,' says Aakar Patel.
The Aam Aadmi Party and talks about next Lok Sabha elections seem to be hogging the limelight when it comes to discussions around India at the World Economic Forum's annual talk-fest of the rich and famous from across the globe.
'My status in society as an auto driver could never have brought me this glory; it is my writing that has taken me across the seas and brought me fame.' M Chandrakumar shares his success story.
'Which one of us would give up our flats for development?' 'We insist that others, who are unwilling but weak, make all the sacrifices on our behalf and then we are puzzled when there is violence against the State,' says Aakar Patel.
'Today, when Kailash Satyarthi is being honoured with the most prestigious global award, reports appear to the effect that many millions of Indian children are in 'slavery'. This is hardly the reputation that India should have when we are basking in the glory of 'Mangalyan',' says T P Sreenivasan.
'The most important issue for Indians, the only way in which to get them quickly out of poverty, is sustained high growth.' 'If we are not doing that despite a strong government and a leader with clarity of vision and purpose, we are facing big trouble.'
'In our media and general population the idea of 'strong posture' was successfully sold by Modi. This is now a liability for him, as he has discovered,' says Aakar Patel.
Trump said he is very close to a deal on DACA.
'Afzal Guru was convicted of supporting the attack on India's Parliament. The Supreme Court said "the collective conscience of society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded" to Guru.' 'Till we can think up similar justifications for hanging non-Muslims, I do not think we can delink terrorism from religion in our minds,' argues Aakar Patel.
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