'With the Citizenship Amendment Bill, Hindus from Pakistan can come to India. They have got a way,' says Gurumukh Jagwani who came to India on his honeymoon, loved the country so much that he stayed back and got Indian citizenship.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
'All is well in Visakhapatnam for now.'
'Shinde and Fadnavis have different working styles and certainly there is a crack that has come between them.'
'The India which was all about glamour and razzmatazz through which he could earn the trust of people of the other India, which was Bharat.'
'For no other leader of India do so many people turn up for an event every year without invitation.'
Over 1,200 Indian students stranded at Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine make a desperate call for help.
'He was provided sustenance by the British.' 'Many times he wrote to the British that he needed an increase in pension.'
'The central government forces are supporting one group and the state government forces are supporting another group and this is resulting in non-stop cross-firing, which has resulted in the killing of many innocent people.'
'We do not want Kashmiri Pandits to migrate from Kashmir.'
'I was not there at the spot and I don't know who was driving the car.' 'It is a matter that needs to be investigated by the police and it is their job,' says the father of the journalist who was killed in Lakhimpur Kheri.
'Badle ki bhavna (revengeful politics) was never seen in Maharashtra and Indian politics, but now we are witnessing all that today.'
Say hello to the Guddu Rangeela team!
'Even if not me, there are other deserving candidates from Maharashtra in the Congress who should have been given the Rajya Sabha ticket.'
'The Congress didn't win elections only on soft Hindutva.'
'We are a country of amazing ability and the way we have responded to the pandemic is evidence.'
'UCC should be across India and legally applicable to every Indian citizen.'
'Modi warned China, therefore they have come to the talks.' 'Nothing will come out of these talks.'
'As far as I know, Sachin Pilotji is not going to the BJP.'
'Writers are always nervous.' 'If you go to a party, you will notice that the writers are always in a corner of the party, looking anxious, sweating and tense about something or the other.' 'I am that kind of person.'
'All restaurants and pubs must treat the issue seriously and appoint safety officers. This chalta hai attitude cannot work.'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com recounts the history of the Indian flag and how it has evolved over the years.
'The wife will not only abuse her husband for giving her less money, but also abuse the government.' 'Look at the price of a cooking gas cylinder, it is Rs 1,200.'
'These new laws give complete (impunity) to the police.' 'Whatever little accountability the police had, all that is gone now.' 'There is no accountability mechanism against the police for abusing or misusing in the new laws.'
'If Israel had stuck to the peace accords, Hamas would have had no one to fight.'
'People of my constituency told me they will continue loving me, but will not vote for me if I am with the BJP.'
'If they don't make Ajit Pawar chief minister, what can he do?'
'The cousins do not have a good rapport with each other in politics, though they may be having a good rapport with each other in family life.'
'You will really wish oh! Had I stayed in Dharavi I would have got a nice house. I can assure you that. We will make dreams come true.'
'She showed courage at every turn in her political career.'
'He told senior journalists a few days after the Babri Masjid demolition, 'Jo hua theek hua. Maine isliye hone diya ki BJP ki rajniti hamesha ke liye khatam ho jaye.'
'This committee underscores the Indian State's longstanding conventional approach to leverage top-down conflict management in North East India in general and Manipur in particular.' 'Trying to 'manage' violent conflicts top-down has not worked in the past, and apparently does not seem to work this time either.'
'My father's life sends a message that there are positive things happening between India and China, no matter what happens at the border.'
'I am not the Manas Deka who attacked Kanhaiya,' says the BJP activist who shares the same name with the man who allegedly tried to 'strangle' the JNUSU leader.
'Deeply hurt by Modi's conspicuous silence for over a month-and-a-half since the outbreak of violence, people in Manipur came on the roads and crushed their radio sets to express their frustration and anger.' 'The fact that Modi's Mann Ki Baat did not have a single reference to the Manipur violence further accentuated this hurt and anger.'
'We had to respect the sentiments of the people of Jammu as our party was elected from Jammu.'
'The upper caste elite's belief that they are casteless is a belief that is available only to the upper castes. Because all the lower castes are reminded by society every day what their caste is.'
Raju Hirani, Ranbir and Deepika react to the Dutt's release!
'I am not sure of the numbers killed, but they were not as high as the use of the word 'genocide' suggests.' 'There is another meaning you could take, 'cultural genocide', in that the Pandit community is extremely small and their forced departure led to a wiping out of their culture.'
