'The economy is in a free fall.'
'And it's been declining for so long, so consistently, that the promise of growth and better days now looks a fantasy.' 'A mid-1970s kind of pessimism, even hopelessness, is growing among the young.' 'This isn't what Mr Modi promised them.' 'Their aspirations and needs are clear and present, and not being fulfilled,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'The Modi government's greatest blunder is to exploit sensitive external relations in its domestic politics,' says Shekhar Gupta.
We must seize the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 crisis to kick-start indigenous research efforts, recommends Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Painting opponents as the enemy of the State, using fake news, making wild allegations about rival parties, curtailing civil liberties and challenging the Constitution itself are worrying developments.'
India-China relations have always attracted Parliament's attention and there have always been useful and productive and constructive discussions how to engage with China, notes Rup Narayan Das.
What is the lure of a government job? The answer is India's worst kept secret: Job security. And among the many government jobs desperately sought after is in the armed forces. Which is why the riots by aspiring armed forces job seekers against the government's Agnipath scheme should not really be surprising, points out Harishchandra.
While acknowledging Shivaji's naval contributions, questions are being raised about the inadequate acknowledgement of Chola sea-power in southern Tamil Nadu, which dates back by a few centuries, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
By pegging the exact area of the Babri Masjid site at 0.313 acres, and not the original 2.77 acres, the government hopes to be in line with the court ruling in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case which mentions return of land to original claimants once the exact area needed for acquisition is determined, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
At the Facebook townhall, Modi again showed a side of him that is at odds with his tough-as-nails public persona.
He dropped those perceived to be non-performers or whose integrity came into question, and also where it was felt they needed to learn a lesson or two in humility.
'It is not that he has not committed any mistakes; he has.' 'But people were willing to forgive you if you were honest.'
Among the other names tipped to make it to the Cabinet are Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal, Baijayant Panda.
'I don't buy the theory that if the BJP gets less than 220 seats or 200 seats, there will be a change in leadership.'
After watching Uri: The Surgical Strike, Syed Firdaus Ashraf gets the feeling that Modi has added another tool to help him win the 2019 Lok Sabha election: Hindi cinema...
'Extravagant new promises can buy him time, but far from solving the problem, they compound the risk.' 'His main alternative is to stress not aspirations, but resentments.' 'He has already de-emphasised aspirational appeals: Nothing has been heard for over two years of the coming of achhe din,' points out James Manor.
'The procurement cycle still consumes too much time; little has changed.'
'I approached the ministries for a response, but they did not respond on time, so I had to approach the court.'
'Rahul is only making a pathetic public spectacle of his lack of judgment and good sense by hallucinating that somehow, the Congress, or whatever political combine is cobbled together, will displace the BJP at the coming Lok Sabha election by constantly harping on the Rafale deal,' argues retired civil servant B S Raghavan.
'The farm bills will not bring in corporate zamindari'
'There are three pillars of concern: The expansion of Hindu majoritarianism, the concentration of executive power and decay of independent institutions, and curbs on free expression and dissent.'
'China physically occupies about 45,000 sq km of J&K as claimed by India, including 3,000 sq km captured in the 1962 War and never returned; and 5,180 sq km ceded to China by Pakistan in 1963.' 'It is hard to justify remaining silent about the return of China occupied Ladakh,' observes Ajay Shukla.
Even his critics say Thaawar Chand Gehlot is a man of delivery. 'If a task is assigned, he wins it over with political sagacity,' they say.
'The Republic is currently captained and crewed by people who seem interested in the safety and well being of only a select kind of passenger, advising the rest to swim for Pakistan,' points out Mitali Saran.
The Indian economy was on an impressive growth path through the first decade of this century till it was brought to an abrupt halt by the policy inertia during UPA2 and the Modi government's inability to restore economic and financial momentum. Fascinating glimpses of what went wrong from Puja Mehra's must-read book The Lost Decade: How India's Growth Story Devolved Into Growth Without A Story.
'Tamil Nadu presents a challenge to the BJP and its politics.' 'DMK is making all efforts to resist the BJP.'
'India has demonstrated that if tomorrow, any enemy country that has a lot of satellites threatens it, India can (bring them down).'
The NDA's combined parliamentary and state-level committed Presidential votes number around 12,000 fewer than a majority.
'It doesn't take much time for people's perception to change about a person.' 'People come and go based on people's will.' 'Nobody should forget that.'
'He failed to foresee that the campaign of hatred need not be continuous; a sporadic, scattered campaign is enough.' 'What was important is to keep the pot boiling, not let it overflow like happened during the masjid-mandir days,' notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'Although Narendra Modi had no direct participation in the Ayodhya agitation, he would not have been in the dominant position he is now had it not been for the Ram Janambhoomi agitation.'
'The pressure to work together is even greater than before, because the Chinese have launched a full-court press on the border, in the region, and globally to advance their geopolitical agenda.'
So who really is Narendra Modi? Do we really know him? Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com's ready reckoner on the mystery man who is India's new prime minister.
'I feel the more I'm trolled by Pakistanis, the more I am on the right path.' 'I must be doing something right for them to be so angry.'
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
'The threat of ceding space to China in Afghanistan appears to be one factor propelling our government to get a bit more active now.'
'Speaking this year from the ramparts of the Red Fort, he excelled himself in content, diction and delivery -- all extemporaneously flowing, replete with felicitous expressions and captivating word play. 'The only other Indian prime minister with whom he stands comparison is Jawaharlal Nehru who too shunned prepared speeches and established instant rapport with his audiences,' says B S Raghavan.
'We would love to have more players entering the market because that is how the business will grow.'
'He wanted to learn all the time.'
The election campaign finally ended on Friday, May 17. Arindam Majumder reveals what he discovered on the election front on a long rail journey.
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