'In terms of sheer incompetence, this government has rivaled the Rajiv Gandhi-led government that was derisively called the 'Baba-log' government for its naive handling of many issues,' notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
He, however, asserted that all infiltrators will be thrown out of the country.
Bengal, where the electoral discourse has mostly steered clear of divisive agenda, has been drawn into the vortex with the TMC and the BJP accusing each other of fanning communal sentiments ahead of elections.
'Bangladeshi Muslims want to increase their population in India.' 'They have made colonies in India.' 'Rohingyas are doing the same.' 'This has to stop.'
'Politicians insist on focusing on the North even though the rest of India offers a better way of engaging with our Muslims namely, live and let live.'
In the light of the efforts being made to forge electoral unity between scheduled castes and Muslims, Mohammad Sajjad examines what the architect of our Constitution, B R Ambedkar, had to say about the Muslim community.
India's majoritarian regime is now making a dangerously fast-paced move towards theocracy, like its western counterpart did a few decades ago, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
'When violence spread, it looked as if Mamata was losing control, but soon, she was able to contain the situation.' 'Now, the TMC stands to gain the most.'
'The loose use of words like foreigner or Bangladeshis obscures the fact that the post-Partition migration to Assam has been of both Hindus and Muslims.'
As CAB was tabled in Lok Sabha, West Bengal CM said she will never allow NRC in the state.
Why not agree that, yes, India is a Hindu country though not all Indians are Hindus? And that for those who are not, our Constitution is sturdily secular and always will be, says Karti Sandilya.
The AGP, an ally of the BJP, voted for the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, after Amit Shah's assurance. However, the scale, intensity and, persistence of the anti-CAA protests since then have taken it by surprise.
'After a longish time being on the defensive on the Muslim issue, Mamata found in the Centre's surgical strike just the kind of battle in which she specialises -- hand-to-hand combat.' 'Having routed the once formidable Marxists by her trademark, no-holds-barred belligerence, she is now ready to employ the same tactics against the BJP,' predicts Amulya Ganguli.
'Kashmir belongs to us all, even if we differ with each other.' 'Statesmanship demands that we sit together and let the left, right and centre of the political spectrum converge on the solution,' says former MP Tarun Vijay.
Rahul Gandhi also attacks Modi and RSS in Bastar.
The elections in two eastern Indian states were keenly observed in Bangladesh for two major contentious issues, writes Prakash Bhandari from Dhaka.
'I don't think the state administration has shown the resolve to enter Muslim neighbourhoods and arrest offenders in the last decade.'
On Thursday, December 14, Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy tweeted: 'Jihadis have killed, maimed, brutalised tens of thousands of innocent people all across the world. And you ask me about a man killed in Rajasthan and then tell me not to do whataboutery!' It was not the first time that Roy's statements have provoked controversy. Should Tathagata Roy even be a governor, asks Amulya Ganguli.
'Why is the RSS trying to destroy the indigenous culture of Assam and its language?' 'If these migrants settle in Assam, they will overwhelm the 47 per cent of people who speak Assamese.'
'Amit Shah and his fellow travellers need to realise that India was divided because of competitive communalism of forces like Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League, prodded, aided and abetted by the colonial power,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'This is basically aimed at vilifying Nehruvian ideals.' 'Why?' 'Because, Nehruvian leadership is seen by Hindutva forces as the one which did not let them have their Hindu Raj.' 'The Hindutva proponents have always assumed that had Sardar become the first prime minister, India could never have become a secular State,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'It's still very early. I have just been handed over the matter and therefore I haven't formed any views on it as yet,' Justice B N Srikrishna tells Pavan Lall.
Let us see the problem for what it actually is: Illegal Immigration plain and simple, confined to the northeast with a definite communal slant that poses a national security risk and one that needs to be dealt with firmly and promptly by stringent identification (and deportation), says Vivek Gumaste.
"Incidents like Dadri and Ghulam Ali are really sad but what is the role of the Centre in these incidents?" PM Modi told the newspaper.
'Indira Gandhi, it appears, did not to consult her Cabinet colleagues, or diplomats, or civil servants when she decided to sign the agreement in Shimla.' 'We ruefully recall Bhutto's perfidy and the Indian prime minister's gullibility,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
'Hindus are proud of what the Dharmashastras symbolise, but they don't want to do any work to preserve it!,' Sanskrit scholar Donald Davis tells Kanika Dutta.
Violence has always been a fact of life in Bengal's politics; it is just that the faces have changed, the contesting ideologies have changed, says Saisuresh Sivawamy.
On a visit to India in 2013, writer Ved Mehta -- who passed into the ages on Sunday January 10, 2021 - gave Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel a rare glimpse into his state of mind and what he thinks of the changes he encounters in his motherland.
'Pakistan is full of 'religious entrepreneurs' like Hafeez Saeed who poison the minds of the young so that they can be motivated to become terrorists. They work in concert with the rulers of Pakistan. It is a private-public partnership.'
'... That they should emerge as role-models to be emulated by the fellow countrymen; and that the middle classes should not stick only to hate-filled and scornful criticism and condemnation against the state of affairs,' remembers Mohammad Sajjad.
Trinamool leaders have claimed the NRC process and subsequent verification is vote bank politics. Other critics call it as modified ethnic cleansing. But putting poll rhetoric aside, the issue dates back to a time when many of these leaders had no political relevance.
'The BJP and RSS may realise it is much easier for the ICHR to rewrite textbooks and for the ICSSR to float its bizarre interpretations on social themes than to keep people away from their favourite dishes.'
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
A day after total shutdown in Assam to protest against the CAB, fresh protests erupted in the state and neighbouring Tripura and other parts of the nation.
The BJP chief began his speech with the slogan of uprooting the TMC government from Bengal and said in order to do that, he would visit all the districts of the state.
'If the Amendment Bill 2016 becomes law, the indigenous people of Assam will become a minority and the language, literature and culture of Assam will be lost.'
The BJP, which has two MLAs in the MDA government, backed the Cabinet decision.
What the Congress will have to understand is that it is not enough to have a 40-something vice-president in New Delhi, but young faces with fresh ideas in the states,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'According to me, her finest hour was in 1983-1984 when she neutralised a combined US-Pakistan-British conspiracy to Balkanise India by creating an independent Sikh State of Khalistan,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). A special assessment of Indira Gandhi on her centenary.
Bharati Dutt witnessed life-changing events that shaped India on the threshold of freedom. Her memories are an account of how ordinary Indians saw India change.
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