'The continuing crisis in agriculture, the inability of successive governments to provide secure jobs to millions of youths having varying degrees of skills, and fragmentation of politics have created a sense of despondency.'
'I believe Modi mentioned Balochistan only to embarrass Pakistan and also divert attention toward the situation in Kashmir.' 'I think from now on, India intends to raise Balochistan whenever Pakistan brings up Kashmir or upsets them on the issue of terrorism.' 'Balochistan is the least developed of Pakistan's four provinces. It is the least educated and least economically developed. People are agitated that a region so rich in mineral resources and a sea-port is still so poor.' Baloch political analyst Malik Siraj Akbar on why the province wants freedom from Pakistan.
Tawang wears its history -- and also its present -- with ease. The flourishing town, with restaurants selling everything from noodles to dosas and locals returning home to new business prospects, shows little sign of the tension building up at the border about 40 km away to the north.
Some believe she should no longer be the face of the struggle to free Myanmar from the new military dictatorship, observes Prakash Bhandari.
'I am very sure that Rajnikanth, a patriot and a spiritual person, will not do this movie which is about a tyrant, killer and murderer,' BJP leader H Raja tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
'Should the Congress take Jyotiraditya's departure as good riddance?', asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'Over one million people served in various battlefronts during World War I. And yet, even today, we know so very little about them.' 'It is absolutely essential to acknowledge this part of India's colonial history,' Santanu Das tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
'No country can ever be free to make its choices and remain independent if it continues to wear borrowed plumes,' warn Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Unlike the Germans, Britons began to face the hard truths about their colonial empire only recently.
'India should pledge that it will only target those provinces of Pakistan where nuclear weapons are located,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Does the Indian army's new assertiveness risk a clash escalating into shooting and possibly skirmishes?' asks Ajai Shukla.
'We should hit Pakistan, continue to prepare for surgical strikes, continue to punish Pakistani posts in the proximity of the LoC and we should start adopting counter terrorist measures.' 'That should be India's action without escalating it to a full-fledged war.'
Sanjeev Nayyar suggests 16 measures by which we can tackle our unrelenting and untrustworthy neighbour.
Gilgit Baltistan's large frontage with Kashmir and Ladakh across Kargil and the Siachen Glacier gives Pakistan and China the perceived scope for conduct of collusive operations against India and wrest control of the major course of the Indus and Shyok, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Rangoon haunts in unlikely fashion and, while the director's most straightforward picture, holds enough of its own marvels to justify multiple viewings,' notes Raja Sen.
'What can I do for my India except make films that showcase it's greatness to the world, which touch on national issues and arouse the feeling of patriotism?'
Aiyaary is a bloated, prolonged mess of misplaced purpose that digresses from military misdeeds to animal cruelty, feels Sukanya Verma.
'Isn't it tragic, comic as well as ironic that the people who owe their allegiance to the Constitution of India are declared deshdrohis without an iota of evidence?' 'But this mistake has to be corrected and those who actually and directly fomented the Bhima Koregaon riots and the masterminds behind these people will have to be exposed now.'
He cautioned people against forces inside and outside India which are working against the country by targeting it and its constitutional values.
'What kind of education have we had if we can't treat another human being with equal respect?'
Klitschko and his brother Vitali, also a former world heavyweight champion and now the mayor of Kyiv, have both taken up arms against invading Russian forces.
'One of R&AW's greatest achievements is in projecting itself as benign.' 'This work -- done in tandem with the Diaspora and the MEA -- sells a story of India as mostly the victim.'
'The fact that a rural Kashmiri boy was brainwashed into killing himself and others means there is an active programme that exists which does such recruiting and there will potentially be other such individuals out there,' warns Aakar Patel.
'We have not seen even during Vajpayee's time what Modi and the BJP has adopted now.'
India will be ushering into the 73rd year of freedom and will celebrate Independence Day on August 15, 2019. It was on August 15, 1947, when India gained freedom from the British Rule and decided to be an independent democracy. As India steps into its 73rd Independence Day on August 15, the preparations for the celebration are in full swing. Take a look.
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.
'This Ram Navami -- the birth anniversary of Lord Ram -- presents the majority community an opportunity to shed its minority complex and offer an olive branch and discrimination- free society to the minority,' suggests Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'I don't know if I became an actor, I was just trying to book jobs and survive.'
The moustache protest is the latest blot on the face of a nation that has failed to ensure even the safety of the Dalit community, says Veenu Sandhu.
The Afghan tradition of gaining control of areas does not necessarily involve combat. Most engagements are settled through negotiations and pay-offs before battle is joined. This style of fighting is peculiar to Afghanistan, explains Ajai Shukla, who witnessed such a transaction between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in November 2001.
'At this point, neither the army or the IAF has that immediate, punitive deterrent power against Pakistan.' 'Forget a three-week war; on the LoC, where the action is, Pakistan has until now fielded better infantry weapons, body armour, sniper rifles, and matching artillery' points out Shekhar Gupta.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel discovers Ross Island where the clock can never be turned back.
'India has to understand that the permanent state of war that exists between India and Pakistan has to be expected,,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). 'The only way to ensure peace or absence of war is to maintain a militarily-dominant position over Pakistan.'
None of them had anything to do with the violence at Bhima Koregaon, where they were not even present, points out Aakar Patel.
'It is a travesty that I have to prove my commitment to Gandhi and to this country.'
'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.
The 21-year-old Indian's performance at the World Golf Championships has made the golfing world sit up and take notice.
Four veterans of the Indian National Army, an all-women contingent of the 183-year-old Assam Rifles marching down Rajpath and an Indian Air Force aircraft flying using a mix of traditional and biofuel.
The Prime Minister's Office on Sunday termed as 'false' a media report that Manmohan Singh had initiated a back channel exercise for talks between an 'unofficial' Indian envoy and Pakistan' army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani ten months ago.
'His Promised Land was India.' Shekhar Gupta salutes General J F R Jacob, the incredible soldier who passed into the ages this week.
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