'If somebody in your family listens more to your neighbour than you, then doesn't the fault lie with you also? This is what is happening in Kashmir.'
"Crores of Muslim women had always demanded that triple talaq should be banned, as it is also banned in Islamic countries," he said.
As Maharashtra and Haryana show, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah completely control the BJP and are taking it to the next level ruthlessly, without carrying forward any past baggage.
Rahul Gandhi has not erred by not engaging with Muslim conservatives. After all, they had misled his father in 1986 to legislate a misogynistic law after the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case, which helped the BJP rise at the cost of the Congress, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Rural slowdown may delay growth in the economy.
Rediff.com lists a few instances when BJP leaders and ministers shot their mouth off.
'The Left is dying, but its economic ideology rules, unchallenged.' 'Modi is its newest standard-bearer.' 'Even in today's bitterly polarised politics, if there is one thing on which not just the BJP and Congress, but all other parties agree, it is that socialist economics is the only way to survive,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'What was said about Muslims was the most important part of the three-day RSS 'seminar'.'
Misa Bharati is fighting to win back Patliputra, the seat her father lost in 2009, in a contest that is a do-or-die battle for Lalu Yadav and the RJD.
Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa explains why destroying mobile towers just before a political rally is a big headache for security agencies.
'This is not a small change, it's a BIG change. People wanted to hear the voice of their PM. They can do so now. This is a big parivartan.'
Stinking politics will only sink the party which practices it, feels Vikas Khanna
BJP President Amit Shah -- arguably the second most powerful politician in the nation -- granted a rare television interview to the Network 18 group of news channels. Rediff.com's Rajesh Alva checks out what the BJP boss said in this word cloud assessment of the interview.
'The CM seems to have forgotten that she is dealing with the Gorkhas, people known for their valour and loyalty to India.' 'It is shameful that Mamata Banerjee and her administration treated them like insurgents, choosing to use live bullets instead of other ways and means to control crowds.'
As a loyalist who would run to her with every little matter, he realises it is time he comes into his own.
Modi accused the TMC of killing the aspirations of the middle-class people in the state and said the ruling party in West Bengal is known for 'triple T -- Trinamool Tolabaji Tax'.
There is nothing the young Purvanchali wants more desperately than to escape to a place with less hopelessness, and some opportunity, discovers Shekhar Gupta.
Television news. Anarchists. Special Status for UP! And that man-who-wants-to-be-Pradhan Mantri so baaad. Sherna Gandhy takes them on.
All mankind looks for good news on a daily basis. It is only a natural human desire. Corporate managements, government spokespersons, political loyalists, merchants and salespersons, all work overtime to create good news. And governments, too, keep trying this with inane pronouncements all the time, says Raj Liberhan.
'And Indians are loving it,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Veterans bemoan the 'lack of intention' shown by the Modi sarkar, who seem to have reneged on their poll promise.
'When a newspaper says that Karnataka leads in corruption, one must also know it means Karnataka leads in patronising corruption.' 'You can't be corrupt without me succumbing to your corruption.'
In an address that was telecast live on national broadcaster Doordarshan, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Friday patted the Narendra Modi government for initiatives on national security, economy and international relations in a short period of four months.
Is politics gaining at the expense of civil society?
Vajpayee's ashes will be immersed in rivers in all the districts in Uttar Pradesh -- his karmabhoomi.
Amitabh Kant tells Rahul Jacob how India could be made an easier place to do business in and why India's software smarts will give it an edge.
'India could become the newest Asian tiger under Modi's dynamic leadership. Modi could become the Nehru of the 21st century, and re-establish a new Tryst with Destiny, by stating once and for all that Mera Bharat Mahaan is and will always be a truly secular and inclusive democracy in the best spirit of Bharatiya-tva,' says Ram Kelkar, offering an NRI view of the Modi triumph.
'It would be very easy for me to say, it's only the Pakistanis that want the Kashmir issue to remain alive.' 'Trust me, there is a vested interest on the Indian side in keeping the issue of Jammu and Kashmir alive.'
'What will be achieved by the prime minister's condemnation of each and every unfortunate incident? Will just the PM's condemnation bring about closure to these cases,' asks Sudhir Bisht.
'Congress is on the defensive about scams and corruption charges... The media is against the UPA.... The Nehru family is not just another family; it is a national wealth,'Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
'I believe that in the BJP nobody can make anybody anything... I believe the media should analyse this after the end of my tenure!' 'My work is incomplete till I take the BJP to the four big states of West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.' BJP President Amit Shah, as never before!
'The incidents that used to happen in our time, have they stopped now?' 'Can you imagine they made an acid attack victim consume acid? And when did this happen?' 'When the CM was inspecting the thana...' 'History tells us that a party does not remain in power permanently.' 'Finally, they will have to deliver.'
A marathon session of over a dozen hearings on implementation of Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha panel recommendations on structural reforms in the Board of Control for Cricket in India came to an end on Wednesday in the Supreme Court, which took the Indian cricket board to task over issues like fund utilisation and avoiding of performance audits.
West Bengal was the second-most industrialised state in terms of value added and first in terms of number of factories and employment even in the mid-1960s. With a severe and long process of deindustrialisation, it lost its primacy.
A round-up of Ranji Trophy matches played on Tuesday.
'There appears to be in the Indian polity a link between being Single and being of prime ministerial timber. It is a trend, a preponderance -- not a statistical verity,' says Dr Shashi K Pande.
Mohammad Sajjad salutes the memory of Mushirul Hasan -- historian, thinker, academic, institution builder, -- who passed into the ages this week.
'People have a certain perception about my political leanings -- and rightly so.' 'But I am an actor first, and then an activist.' 'And I am not an accidental actor.' 'There was no way I was going to be dishonest with my acting,' Anupam Kher tells Veenu Sandhu.
'The top-most functionaries and destiny-makers of the nation have thrown away the pretensions of statesmanship.' 'They seem to have made a categorical announcement that the next general election will be fought on the solo plank of Hindutva, rather than on good governance, economic development, and employment to youth', says Mohammad Sajjad.
'In the name of pluralism-secularism, the kind of politics that was pursued revealed to many that it was basically a favour to Muslim conservatism and communalism -- a politics of minority-ism, rather than of secularism.' 'This is how significant sections of Hindus have been made to loathe the very idea of Indian secularism by now,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
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