'We kept importing educational models from outside that had no connection to our cultural and intellectual strengths.'
'People beat their chests when the Babri Masjid was brought down, not realising that it was just one event in a chain going back centuries; to look at the last link or two in isolation is absurd.'
'The idea of Hindu Rashtra is one of the most inclusive concepts.'
'It was Maulana Azad's foresight which created the IITs, UGC, science academies across the country.'
'India is a strange place.' 'On the one hand we have the most advanced science working on our origins and our ancestry.' 'On the other we are at war with ourselves over a temple to a god whom our first ancestors knew nothing of,' says Aakar Patel.
'For years American academia has used the concerns about Hindutva in India to almost completely trash the concept of Hinduism.' 'In the American debate, Wendy Doniger's point of views perpetuated Hinduphobia.' 'Americans were willing to change... Indian intellectuals let us down badly.'
While Governor Ravi's speeches have put the local BJP supporters on the defensive in matters of religion and social justice, his add-on 'attack on the constitutional scheme' in the 'Senthil Balaji case', has been condemned squarely by many legal experts and editorial writers across the country, thus adding weight to CM Stalin's position -- at least until the courts come up with their binding views, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Indian Council of Historical Research Member-Secretary Gopinath Ravindran was heckled last week after he sought to differ from views expressed by David Frawley, an American who stressed on extensive Vedic studies in India at a lecture series in New Delhi.
'The return of India to its own civilisational values can never endanger freedoms as pluralism is the bedrock of our culture,' assert Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mouthpiece 'Organiser' has justified the action taken against a Dalit students body by IIT, Madras, and claimed educational campuses are "afflicted with red ideology."
All those of us who care about books should welcome the appointment, as head of the Indian Council of Historical Research, of Yellapragada Sudarshan Rao. This is not because Rao has so far distinguished himself as a writer about "history and tourism management", which is the department of Kakatiya University in Warangal he headed before retiring to head an Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed project to "write history from a nationalist perspective and popularise Sanskrit", two aims which naturally go together for the RSS.
The venom and contemptuous sarcasm evident on the army's tweet on the Yeti and my reply has something to do with the intrinsic hatred that a section of the media nurses against the right wing, says Tarun Vijay.
'Ashutosh Gowariker's Mohenjo Daro does what many history books could not have done.' 'He awakens interest in the ancient civilisation of Harapppa and Mohenjo Daro,' says Asim Siddiqui.
'Live a healthy lifestyle. Like what our parents taught us. Like our parents' parents taught them.' 'We become obese. In obesity the chance of cancer increases.' 'Any new symptom? Please talk to your doctor. Some screening test might need to be done.'
For Indians, Iran remains a puzzling part of our collective history.