'Look at Mr Modi. He is a part of this new middle class.' 'India has never before seen this kind of social mobility, certainly not since medieval times.' 'As a result, India's entrenched elite, which is a class of people with a strong sense of entitlement, is being tamed,' Sanjeev Sanyal tells Shyamal Majumdar and Arup Roychoudhury.
'For the first time in 66 years, here is a leader who democratically dares to take on the establishment by raising the right kind of questions. When will the poor get justice? For how many years will the migration of the poor to cities like Mumbai continue? How long will the poor sleep on the pavements and when will all this end?'
Don't forget to make your pick for the newsmaker of 2015.
The West Bengal government wants to replace hand-pulled rickshaws with battery-operated ones. But the rickshaw pullers are apprehensive that they will lose their livelihood
'Will 'Make in India' be able to harness the demographic dividend so it does not become a disaster?' 'Will 'Digital India' live up to the lofty promises the government and private sector made as part of its recent launch?'
For the Congress, the Janata Dal-United has made up for the numbers in case the Samajwadi Party discontinues its support to the UPA government, reports Renu Mittal
She accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being 'anti-Dalit' and recalled the Una incident and the death of Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula to back her assertion.
Still to recover from their electoral rout, defeated Congress members of Parliament and ministers are now faced with the heart-wrenching job of moving out of their official houses, says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal
'The job of RSS is to unite the Hindu society and make it fearless, self-reliant and selfless,' says RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat
'When he first came to office, my belief is that the PM's reading of the landscape was that, with a vanquished Congress and fragmented Opposition, he was looking at least at two terms in office. This reading perhaps allows for a more cautious, gradual approach.' 'It was only a matter of time before the government was forced to come face-to-face with a serious corruption scandal. This is not a commentary on the BJP, but a statement about India's political economy.' 'There is growing concern about the government's commitment to freedom of expression, religious tolerance, and an independent civil society. Thus far, the positive movement on strategic and economic matters has crowded out these concerns, but they are lingering beneath the surface.'
After helping the government in policymaking since October 2014, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian is returning to academics and will be teaching at Harvard Kennedy School on a visiting position. In an interview to Dilasha Seth and Somesh Jha, he says the ease of doing business agenda needs to move forward and India must try to integrate with the global value chains. Edited excerpts.
'In the 30 years since the Ayodhya movement began, the RSS has created a generation of Hindus who are the mirror image of those fanatic Muslims who take to the streets at the slightest, even imagined, 'insult to Islam,' argues Jyoti Punwani.
The note ban is Modi's make-or-break gambit for 2019. Opposition leaders see a vulnerability and won't gift pre-eminence to the Congress, says Shekhar Gupta.
Rajiv Gandhi would have turned 72 on August 20. Had he lived. On a humid night 25 years ago, the former prime minister of India was murdered in cold blood by an LTTE suicide bomber. Neena Gopal was an eyewitness to the assassination, and in this exclusive extract from her new book, The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, she reveals for the first time what she saw in Sriperumbudur that night.
If India is to follow a smart cultural diplomacy, it has unmatched advantages over both China and Pakistan, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'If the Indian economy formalises, industrialises, urbanises and develops human capital, 10 lakh youngsters will join the labour force every month in the next 10 years.' 'It's not a bulb that will go off; it is a sunrise.'
As Narendra Modi files his nomination in Varanasi, Praful Bidwai believes 'a straight contest against Priyanka would have put Modi on the defensive and forced him to concentrate on Varanasi.'
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday asked political parties to refrain from taking advantage of communal strife and said states should crack down on elements fanning such violence irrespective of their political affiliations or influence.
Anupam Kher on why he thinks the prime minister is a genuine person.
'Temperature and wind can be predicted more easily than rainfall.' 'Rainfall, as common experience suggests, is very spotty.' 'The last bit of physics required that tells us whether it is going to rain or not is very hard.' Professor Roddam Narasimha, the eminent scientist, explains the monsoon, climate change and global warming, in a fascinating conversation with Shivanand Kanavi.
With India lagging behind on several human development indices including healthcare and education, the Union government's decision to up the spending on these sectors is a step in the right direction. However, much more needs to be done in the way of increasing accountability and arresting corruption if headway is to be made on these fronts, says Devanik Saha.
It has been said that by 2025, India could become among the top five economies in the world. If India does become a $5 trillion economy but gets all its rivers polluted, food chain poisoned and genetic pool depleted and biometric database of Indians sold or stolen at the behest of commercial czars, will it not be a pyrrhic economic victory, asks Gopal Krishna.
The government has returned to talks with Pakistan, but can it withstand pressure from a jingoistic press and a rabidly nationalistic social media.
According to reports, Amit Shah has warned all of them and told them not to make controversial statements.
Fiscal discipline has been maintained but toxic assets worth Rs 7 crore are a massive headache
Gujarat was among the earliest civilisations in the sub-continent, dating back four millennia.
Prominent journalists have been giving the HRD minister a hall pass, asking her about politics and TRP-generating issues rather than focusing on her visions for the country's education sector.
'One big problem for the RSS is, while they spread their ideology of hard, Hindu-ised Indian nationalism, the absence of their own pantheon of modern nationalist giants. They missed out on the freedom movement quite comprehensively, in some ways comparable to the Muslim League and latter-day Communists. They have to find heroes elsewhere.' 'They borrow who they can from the Congress, like Madan Mohan Malviya and Sardar Patel, and then steal the entire lot of revolutionaries, from Bhagat Singh to Netaji, never mind that many of them were extreme leftists.'
If I were the BJP, I would not be celebrating quite so quickly. It can sweep its heartland in 2014, as it has shown it can do, but that heartland isn't quite big enough. And it can put up a good fight in towns and cities, too - but unless it neutralises AAP or similar political entrepreneurs, it may find itself tantalisingly short, just as has happened to it in Delhi, says Mihir Sharma.
'The Left's decline is now a reality, both nationally and in West Bengal.'Behind it lie: Ideological rigidity and confusion, outdated party programmes... a socially conservative upper-caste leadership,' says Praful Bidwai.
Veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book came out recently, speaks to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
Come May 16, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance will have more seats from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh than any formation mustered by the Congress, notes T V R Shenoy.
'Without destroying idol worship, you cannot destroy caste because idol worship keeps religious communities in its religious ideology. The RSS is a big promoter of idol worship.' 'They may have an OBC PM, but neither the RSS or the VHP talk about an OBC becoming a priest. The equation is: Business in Baniya hands. Religion in Brahmin hands. OBC votes for the BJP.'
'We have about Rs 4 lakh crore debt on a state budget of about Rs 1.5 lakh crore.' 'We are in a debt two-and-a-half times our annual budget,' says the banker who would have been Tamil Nadu's finance minister had the DMK won.
'Even if the media is partisan, the BJP, governing at the Centre, has the most to lose if India descends into widespread communal violence.' 'Fanning the flames either by vested political interests or by partisan reports only plays into the hands of those seek a conflagration.'
It is unusual to see Narendra Modi highlight his OBC status -- something he has never done in his long political career. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com examines Modi's compulsions for bringing his caste to the foreground
With almost 300 seats to the Lok Sabha being dominated by regional outfits, the Congress has added to the list by giving space to more regional forces in the Seema-Andhra and Telangana regions, says Saroj Nagi.
'I think the AAP is still in transition from being a movement to a political party so there is a mix of people who form the party. So there is somewhat of a overlapping and commonality of purpose.' 'Look at the way the government and party is functioning, not a single woman minister in the cabinet, or no woman member in the political affairs committee, it is all very tactical now.' 'After the 'sting' I decided to step back. I realised that my moral basis has been questioned by Kejriwal, it is truly despicable. He is around 15 years younger to me, I was aghast by his words.' AAP 'rebel' Prof Anand Kumar speaks of what went wrong with the party in the last few days in this interview with Upasna Pandey.
Attacking the note ban move, Yechury said the PM's assertion that it will impact terror funding has not yielded any result.
'The Congress has become two distinct parties, one of the durbar, the other of the field and if they keep drifting apart, death is a certainty,' says Shekhar Gupta.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances