B D Pande was Punjab's governor during Operation Bluestar. In this excerpt from his memoir, In the Service of Free India: Memoir of a Civil Servant, Pande reveals what really went on behind the scenes during those dark days in India's history.
'The court can strengthen the verdict by ensuring that Muslims don't feel shortchanged or cheated.'
'The Babri Masjid wasn't just a mosque, it was a test of our secularism,' says Jyoti Punwani.
In the letter dated July 23, the celebrities have said that "exemplary punishment" should be meted out "swiftly and surely" in such cases.
Why did Pakistan sign a cease-fire without acquiring Kashmir, which was the sole purpose of the 1965 War, asks Ahmad Faruqui.
'More so, if it is their daughters wanting to marry someone of their own choosing.' 'Children are seen as property. That's why the problem is so messy.' For young Indians wanting to marry outside their religion, expressing their right to love and live as they choose is becoming increasingly hazardous.
'Mr Kejriwal has played it cool in distancing himself from Delhi's hotspots, adroitly pandering to the BJP's Hindu vote.' 'He neither visited the scene of JNU violence nor has he dropped by at Shaheen Bagh,' notes Sunil Sethi.
It is a record that the saffron party has created, where the majority of its legislators belonged to the minority community.
He asserted his force was as competent as the CBI to probe the Kathua rape and murder case.
'When it comes to national politics, the Modi-Shah BJP has successfully redefined secularism.' 'If a party like the Congress has to have a future, it has to move closer to the secular centre from the far Left where its Left infatuation during the UPA years dragged it,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Three years after the horrific massacre of Sikh worshippers at the Oak Creek, Wisconsin, gurdwara by a gunman with ties to supremacist organisations, a federal system to help track hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindu, Arab American communities has been formalised.
Jamiat chief Maulana Arshad Madani said they took the decision following extensive deliberations involving lawyers and experts.
BJP MP Vinay Katiyar said those who 'support Pakistan' were behind the violence.
'Triple talaq and polygamy are likely to be the next ground on which Hindutva will assert itself.' 'And, as with other issues where this has happened, we must anticipate trouble.'
'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.
Of the 27 named, at least four are workers and functionaries of right-wing organisations, including the Bajrang Dal, officials said.
'He needs to control his foot soldiers by taking either stern action against the over enthusiastic members of his group or convince them to stop causing him this embarrassment.' 'We know that most of these leaders are not going to be prosecuted by Indian authorities. So we are seeking alternate means to bring them to justice,' FIACONA President John Prabhudoss tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com
Taking a strong stand against the call by its ally Shiv Sena for the scrapping of Muslims' voting rights, the government today said such suggestions were not acceptable to it and that these "should not be discussed even hypothetically".
'If the BJP thinks it is going to overnight transform Bengal into Madhya Pradesh, sorry, that's not going to happen because I have faith in our ethos and culture.'
Hindu American Foundation: 'As an organisation that works on issues affecting Hindu minorities... in the civil war although all groups were affected, Hindu temples and Hindu institutions were disproportionately affected, and Hindus continue to be affected.' Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United States Prasad Kariyawasam: 'Assume that Sri Lanka is referred to the ICC through the UN Security Council -- which will never happen because Sri Lanka has enough clout to block it. But assume it is. Still, the ICC cannot handle it because retrospectively they don't have jurisdiction.'
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, however, told reporters that no one would be allowed to block devotees from proceeding to Sabarimala.
Tarun Vijay visits 20 Durga Puja pandals in five towns in Bangladesh and comes back impressed.
The judges asked the police to escort the woman to the house of the man she wanted to marry.
'If this is the India you're talking about, where there is no space for minorities, where you have hate, where people can enter universities and beat students up, let me be anti-national.' 'I'll carry that as a badge of honour.'
'The Post's coverage is not an authentic public discourse guided by unbiased Western intellectuals, but a slanted doomsday propaganda orchestrated by Indians and expatriate Indians,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
'The cow is sacred to many of us, but these killings are definitely not part of the Hinduism we know and practise,' says Jyoti Punwani.
Modi and Shah's next focus will be South India, and the Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections. Shah is unlikely to abdicate control over the party even after he joins the government. Modi and Shah both know only too well that the party makes the government, and not the other way round.
'Though we will raise our voices repeatedly, though we will not keep silent, this is a clear threat to us. What happened to Gauri Lankesh could happen to any of us,' says friend, and fellow journalist and activist Shashidhar Hemmady.
'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
Expressing shock over the "brutal murder" of BJP state general secretary V Ramesh, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Sunday constituted a Special Investigation Division under the Director General of Police (CB-CID) to probe the case.
Other strong men have stopped Modi and his hordes in states before, but none of them with a footprint or battle cry to shake up New Delhi, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Those who feel the irresistible need to express strong sentiment for our nation and its contents must consider being pro-Indian, whether this Indian be jawan, cobbler, Kashmiri, lesbian, Dalit, protester, pujari, businessman or child.
The threat posed by Shiv Sena is growing into a 'monster' that may prove very hard to control, a leading Pakistani daily said on Tuesday and asked the Indian government to take action against the party to safeguard the country's image.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
'RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was on the Hindu extremists' hit-list. In June 2008, this information was made public. Prior to that, you should hear Bhagwat's speeches and listen to his 'liberal' statements.' 'After he was informed that he was on their hit-list, he became a hardliner. He was not like that before.'
'As a great democracy, we must be responsible and uphold the rights of those who come to us seeking shelter.' 'Everything in the Hindu faith tells us that this is obligatory on us,' says Aakar Patel.
RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya has accused Vice President Hamid of speaking like a "communal Muslim leader".
'The BJP must realise that a resurgent Rahul Gandhi will take the battle straight into its camp.' 'He is not going to be held back by the misdeeds of UPA 1 and 2, so there is no point harping on them,' says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'Over the years he has been getting a feeling of being sidelined by his uncle.'
The twin towns of Ayodhya and Faizabad were on the edge on Saturday as tension mounted on the eve of VHP's yatra with the UP government cracking down on the saffron outfit arresting some of its leaders and over 350 activists.
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