The hits and misses of the week.
'After the Parliament election results many people are confused and that is why this crisis has erupted
'Temperamentally, they are quite alike.' 'Ahmed Patel avoided the limelight and was not a power seeker.' 'The Gandhis too are not power wielders, but trustees of power.'
'The issue is not whether the farm laws are beneficial for the farmers or not.' 'The farmers have taken a stand that they do not want these laws.' 'Why do you want to thrust these laws down their throat?'
'They will not get more than two seats in Haryana if elections are held now.'
'Today, there is pervasive fear in society; an uncertainty of what might happen.' 'This has forced Muslims to shrink further into mental ghettos, with many considering extreme measures like pretending to change their identity.'
As the Aam Aadmi Party heads for a resounding win in Delhi, Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists the reasons behind Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's triumph.
Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha's tenures in the Rajya Sabha end this month.
'I want the Supreme Court to give directions to the government of Kerala that they must give protection to all those women who want to enter Sabarimala.'
'There is no democracy, and in fact, there is some kind of monarch ruling.' 'They are protecting themselves and they are scared.''
The trailer is so gripping that you know something interesting is bound to happen, feels Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf explains the charges against the Bollywood star.
'The central government is putting conditions on farmers organisations, that they have to allow passenger trains to ply, only then will they allow goods trains to ply.'
"Lieutenant Commander Firdaus D Moghal, Executive Officer of Indian Naval Submarine 'Shankush', died in an accident off Mumbai while saving the lives of fellow personnel who had fallen in the sea," Navy officials said in Mumbai.
'Mamata wanted the Congress in alliance with the BJP in Bengal against the Left Front government.' 'Pranab Mukherjee opposed it, stating it would amount to compromising on secularism.' 'In 2021, Mamata defeats the BJP and becomes a champion of secularism.'
Can Nawazuddin Siddiqui bring Bal Thackeray's powerful personality to life? Syed Firdaus Ashraf watches the Thackeray trailer to find out.
'The BJP is the most progressive force within Hinduism today.'
'It is a sad day when social activists, environmental campaigners, anti-corruption workers are singled out as anti-nationals and then criminalised.'
'Silencing citizens has become a major institutional process under this regime.' 'The anti-Indian argument is a bogey -- meant to silence independent thinking people in India and turn us into goats and sheep.'
'Certainly if Advani had agreed to Vajpayee in sacking Modi, then we would never have been talking of Modi today.'
'PM-CARES money is for the relief of citizens, so what is the secrecy then?' 'Why will it harm anyone if it is revealed where the money came from and where it is going?' 'What is there to hide?'
'If you believe the Congress will win in 2024 because Modi is blundering from one monumental disaster to another, that means you are living in a fool's paradise.'
The movie has everything going for it. A total paisa vasool film!
'Dr Kafeel is being framed by the Yogi government because he talks about the BRD hospital all the time.'
'I like to tell stories that are real. When you say something true, it becomes controversial. It's not that I desire controversy; it's just that I want to tell the truth.' Director Rahul Dholakia talks about his new film Lamhaa and the Kashmir issue.
The Janata Dal-United, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party, opposed the government's move on Article 370 through a fresh Presidential Order ending special status to Jammu and Kashmir. On Monday, opposing the Narendra Modi-led government's decision, they walked out of the Rajya Sabha where the bill to split the state into two Union Territories was passed. Similarly, on Tuesday, the JD-U walked out of Lok Sabha while the bill was being discussed. In Patna, JD-U national spokesperson K C Tyagi said: "We completely differ with the Central government's move on Jammu and Kashmir. There was a need for wider consultations on it, but no consultation was done even within the NDA. We own the legacy of socialist leaders Ram Manohar Lohia and Jai Prakash Narayan, who had opposed attempts to tamper with Article 370 during Congress (government in the past)." Speaking to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com on the same, the JD-U leader said that 'walking out of Parliament won't affect their ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party'.
'Among Dalits, the Valmikis were the biggest voters of the BJP.' 'They now feel Yogiji has failed them in Hathras.'
'This is not the right way to speak about farmers. How can Kumaraswamy call farmers goondas?'
'If the Chinese military gets hold of some western sectors on the India-China boundary, it will give them added military advantage.'
'If the situation escalates, then mini-scale firing might happen.'
'You haven't heard a peep out of Kashmir so what is going to erupt? What repercussion will be (there) in long term, you will have to (wait) and see'
'We had to respect the sentiments of the people of Jammu as our party was elected from Jammu.'
'There was already a cash crunch and this (lockdown) has created more trouble.'
'Our only request to the Indian government is that they should act fast and send a plane to evacuate us as people around us are dying'
Shahzad Ali, a sales and marketing manager at a mobile phone company, was among the group of Muslims from Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on August 16, 2020.
'No commercial bank will be allowed to fail. There is nothing to worry about.'
'Should the government be in the business of running banks?' 'Particularly when it does not have the fiscal strength to continuously infuse capital into such banks?'
'Rahul Gandhi has personally paid a heavy price for this character assassination and remorseless ridiculing and the Congress, of course, has been demolished politically.'
