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It's perverse to rationalise 'controlled' killings or torture -- without going down a slippery moral slope. Once the state stoops to torture, it's liable to sink into tyranny, says Praful Bidwai.
'The response to terror is not always reciprocal terror, nor is launching a conventional response the best response.' 'The best response is to make the sponsor pay a price he cannot afford,' says former RA&W chief Vikram Sood.
The church bells don't toll in Churachandpur any more. The hill district in Manipur has been in mourning for more than a year.
Cesare Tavella, 50, was shot thrice from a close proximity on Monday evening in Dhaka's Gulshan diplomatic zone while he was jogging, police said.
Miffed that Narendra Modi's presence has been limited in Varanasi city on Thursday, BJP leader Arun Jaitley slammed the returning officer for denying permission to the party's Bharat Vijay rallies and the Ganga aarti scheduled in the city.
The Bengaluru skies dazzled with somersaults and stunts by metal birds.
The magnitude of atrocities inflicted by the Pakistani establishment on the Baloch people is unimaginable, says Dr Abhay Jere.
Amber Dubey explains why India needs to stop blocking competition if it ever wants to become the top aviation market.
'You are beginning your professional life in a time of global turmoil, when economic systems and the earth's eco-systems are in deep crisis.' 'Societies across the world are struggling with the complexity of technological and social change happening at a speed that our species has never experienced before.' 'May you be more excited than frightened by the times we live in.' 'Precisely because the crises are so deep, there are also unprecedented opportunities for pioneering and brave work that can transform society, culture and economy to create a much better world for your children.'
'No one needs to lose sleep if a person with better operational credentials supersedes lesser endowed peers,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
'It is important to note that American officials were trying their best to use the Taliban for their oil games till December 1997 when Mullah Ghous was invited to America. State Department officials did not show any interest in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden even at that time.'
'US counter-terrorism policy was encouraging and emboldening the Indians to deal with the problem of Pakistani-supported terrorism once and for all.' 'The US had been trying to browbeat Pakistan into doing what it wants, with very limited success.'
Two US warships fired at least 50 cruise missiles at the Ash Shai'rat airfield in Homs province in western Syria, from where the US administration believes Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fired the chemical weapons against his own people, media reports said.
'The real test will be in defence-related deals, for instance the Javelin anti-tank missile: Is the US willing to co-develop something with India, on terms that will support the 'Make in India' initiative? Is there defence technology transfer? Or will it dump old junk on India?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
'She is tough. She can be stern. She can be unpleasant. Rajiv was none of these things.' 'The Congress cannot survive without the Gandhi family. If Sonia were to quit, their Lok Sabha seats would drop from 44 to four.' K Natwar Singh shares his bitterness about the Nehru family with Rashme Sehgal.
'No private citizen can be prevented from holding or propagating in India or abroad, a view contrary to that of the government of the day. The government, it seems is misreading the mandate in the Lok Sabha as being a mandate to crush dissent. In times when ruling parties have brute majorities in Parliament, the true test of safeguarding democracy is its ability to allow dissenting voices to be heard,' says Indira Jaising, the former additional solicitor general.
'How can middlemen disappear as long as our political parties are sucking in massive amounts of black money?' 'There is an old political art well practised in New Delhi -- people create artificial problems and then solve it for you to earn your gratitude for a lifetime.'
'How come with Nehru at the helm, India missed so many buses? He had such unchallenged power that he could have taken the country in any direction he wanted. The sad conclusion is inescapable that Nehru let things drift in true Hamletian ambivalence,' says B S Raghavan.
Muzzling NGOs is unbecoming of a democracy. Self-confident democracies encourage, indeed applaud, the involvement of citizens' associations, including NGOs, in social and political decision-making and development planning. Instead, our paranoid government bullies and terrorises them, says Praful Bidwai.
Son Suneil Anand talks about his famous father, and their life together.
'He was believed to finish his own work in an hour and spend the remainder of the time walking from one office to another, sitting down with the harried junior staff and helping them sort out the problems they were working on.'
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