'Intolerance is in our blood. Every person has some level of intolerance. One can't get rid of it, but one has to check and control it for the sake of a peaceful society and country,' says actor Tam Alter.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on range of issues -- from Rafale deal to Ram temple and triple talaq.
The Aadhaar Bill passed during Budget session last month, overruling amendments moved in Rajya Sabha.
Militant group Al-Badr has claimed responsibility for the twin suicide attack that rocked Samba sector in Jammu region on Thursday.
India on Wednesday asserted there can be no military solution to the lethal Syrian conflict and societies cannot be "re-ordered from outside" as people have the right to choose their own destiny.
'The wheel does not need to be reinvented.' 'The question is whether we are prepared to put our shoulder to it to make it turn.'
The West has always preferred a timid, half intelligent and a dependent India rather than a decisively independent and self-reliant one. A pliable Indian leadership suits the West best, says Tarun Vijay.
'It is obvious within these two months that in many ways Narendra Modi has a great degree of resemblance with Indira Gandhi.' 'The same style of management of power. The same kind of attempt to reduce a large section of the political leadership into, if not spectators, bureaucrats. His leaders are taking orders from him and executing those orders.' 'This is the model that has worked in Gujarat. And he is hoping that it will work in India.'
Meanwhile, a group of college students, donning degree robes and selling 'pakodas' to passers-by in a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks over job creation, were on today whisked away by the police, hours before the PM's rally in Bengaluru.
In Muthuvel Karunanidhi's passing, Tamil Nadu has lost the last of its Titans.
'Being authoritative is one thing -- Nehru was that -- but being authoritarian is quite another -- the current prime minister is clearly one.'
'No, the liberals haven't lost because there weren't any liberals in the fray to begin with.' 'What has happened is that left-wing orthodoxy has lost to right-wing orthodoxy.' 'That is at best a Pyrrhic victory for India,' argue Sonali Ranade and Sheilja Sharma.
'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
'Difficult issues should not be brushed under the carpet, but should be raised upfront, particularly by India. While engagement and dialogue are always welcome and desirable, there should be some tangible results. Mere signing of agreements, MoUs, joint declarations are not enough.'
'If one is looking for evidence of his talents as a mass leader, it has been on display since he announced demonetisation on November 8.' 'Let us look at it and appreciate it, because we are in the presence of a true master,' says Aakar Patel.
Congress engaging in a 'false show of jubilation', said Amit Shah.
While Rajnath Singh said secularism was the most misused word in politics, Sonia alleged that ideals and principles of the Constitution were under threat and being attacked deliberately
Before the situation in the Naxal-affected areas got out of hand, the Raman Singh government intervened to calm tempers between the police and human rights activists.
In private, AIADMK spokespersons say that the raid on Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao might be aimed at weakening the AIADMK, and demotivating the party from selecting/electing Jayalalithaa's confidante, Sasikala Natarajan, as her successor -- first as party head then possibly in the government, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The writers, artistes, thinkers and academics had gathered for a "resistance" meet (Pratirodh) against what they described as "attack on reason, democracy and composite culture".
Is politics gaining at the expense of civil society?
A former Maoist speaks to Shobha Warrier
With GDP down by 2 per cent, while 99 per cent of banned notes make way back to the banking system, whom did demonetisation benefit?
'We saw how vigorous democracy was when it dislodged authoritarianism under Indira Gandhi. We saw its vigour again when it voted Mr Modi out of humble origins as prime minister. It was Nehru who laid that foundation for India and what is worrying today is Modi's rather imperial style of functioning,' says writer Nayantara Sahgal.
'The so-called separatists are representatives of Pakistan. They get paid from Islamabad for propagating that country's policy and conniving in her ploy of accession of Kashmir to Pakistan.'
In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court on Friday held that citizens have right to cast negative vote rejecting all candidates contesting polls, a decision which would encourage people not satisfied with contestants to turn up for voting.
How to deal with a country that has made export of terror a reason to make the world notice and fund it? Rediff.com contributor Sanjeev Nayyar offers a few suggestions
PM Modi must revive investment sentiment in the country.
'We cannot let this country be a place where the poor pay to shit.' 'That is inhuman and unacceptable.'
'Growth is predicated on the misery of large sections of people.' 'Maybe Hindutva will be used to suppress any such unrest.'
The opposition battled it out with the Centre over farmer issues, the suspension of 6 MPs and the privileges of MPs.
Thousands of defiant supporters of deposed Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi on Sunday staged a sit-in at Cairo, a day after the Muslim Brotherhood claimed that security forces killed nearly 200 Islamists, opening a deadly new phase of conflict in the deeply polarised country.
Today as one sees the Owaisi brothers of Hyderabad seeking to lay claim as the custodian of the Muslim vote and the upholders of the community's interests, it is Shahabuddin who springs to mind for having been there, done that, says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'... A youth movement which could really transform our politics in a way that the existing elites don't understand.' 'The more you suppress free expression, the more people will value it.' 'The State can't suppress a young society like India where there are so many interesting new ideas emerging,' says Sunil Khilnani, whose latest book Incarnations looks at Indian history through 50 lives.
Not with standing the Western nations' zeal to wage a war against the group, unless its source of funding is known and curbed, its rampage will likely continue.
'There is a problem with the rise of a popular view that sees Kashmir through the prism of the larger, chronic Hindu-Muslim tensions.' 'By redefining the Kashmir problem simplistically in Hindu-Muslim terms could end up keeping Kashmir but losing most Kashmiris,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'It is extremely important to take back the domain of both religion from the religious bigots and nationalism from the chauvinists, who are spreading hatred.' Sugata Bose, the Harvard historian-turned-MP, who is Netaji's great-nephew, tells Anjali Puri why it is imperative to speak up for India's students.
'By the time he came out after nearly five hours, he had a one-to-one conversation with the President, a delegation-level meeting, a reception, a dinner, a tour of the White House and a joint statement of a kind none of his predecessors ever had,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'My wife has done everything... She has had to give up a lot,' HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar tells Sahil Makkar.
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