'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.
'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.
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.
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.
'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".
'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.'
'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.'
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.
'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.
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.
'Over the years he has been getting a feeling of being sidelined by his uncle.'
Hindutva preacher Swami Aseemanand and four others were acquitted in the Mecca Masjid blast with the judge saying that the prosecution failed to prove "even a single allegation" against them.
'Neither the Congress nor the BJP has the political will to take on the Sanatan Sanstha.'
'Who is the government to decide about my religion?' 'We are governed by the Constitution. The Constitution has given me the independence to follow my religion.'
'The judge said that anybody who does not believe in the RSS ideology is not acceptable to you. You have terminated his contract because he thought differently.' 'The Modi government has no accomplishment to show. Therefore, they are using the tool of nationalism to divert the country's attention from very serious things like farmers suicides and the water crisis.' 'You cannot simply dismiss anyone because they are not willing to raise a slogan and not think like you.'
I am not a fool to say that everything is well, said Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on a clean chit to the rights advocacy group.
Rediff.com lists a few instances when BJP leaders and ministers shot their mouth off.
An Australian national has said that he and his friend were abused and harassed by an unruly crowd in Bengaluru on Saturday for having a tattoo of a goddess on his shin.
'Vajpayee was the first prime minister to visit the battlefield at the height of conflict,' recalls Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Given the disdain Trump has shown for our community's values and experiences, it is disappointing that a handful of wealthy, conservative donors invited him to address their friends last weekend,' say Mira Patel and Gautam Raghavan.
'The Dalits have always asserted themselves, but there has never been any gain for Dalits.' 'But now the most significant thing that has emerged, and which has got all the political parties in denial mode, is the assertion of smaller OBCs along with the Dalits.' 'I accept that the Dalits by themselves are not in a position to make a Mumbai bandh successful.' 'It was only because of the participation of the smaller OBCs that the bandh has become a success.'
On the occasion of Gandhiji's birthday, Rediff.com presents an excerpt from the book that shows how Gandhi changed the face of cricket as it was played then.
'Maybe the BJP believes, in the post-poll scenario, it will have the might to foist, anybody endorsed by the RSS, upon Bihar,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
'That's the stunning achievement of two-and-a-half years of this government -- a political bait-and-switch, selling a promise of economic development, and delivering a triumphalist machine that sacralises country, nationalism, majoritarianism and tradition, to achieve Hindutva goals,' says Mitali Saran.
Sasikala, said she was not allowed to undertake the trek to the shrine and sent back by the police, official sources said that she entered the sanctum sanctorum and offered prayers.
When Nehru came in active contact with Gandhi 100 years ago, he was a Westernised rationalist while Gandhi was deeply soaked in the Indian ethos and spirituality, notes Rasheed Kidwai.
India's majoritarian regime is now making a dangerously fast-paced move towards theocracy, like its western counterpart did a few decades ago, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
I can't see what purpose can be served by an apology by a British government that cannot in any way be blamed for one sadistic man running amok 100 years ago, argues Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'And this mirror imaging is the most dangerous thing because it leads to tremendous misunderstandings.'
'No one has ever heard of a thulabharam scale collapsing before.' 'I was very fortunate to have escaped with a head injury, which could have been a lot worse if my optic nerve was hit or say if the hook had landed on my neck.'
'At Ramjas too, slogans for Kashmir's azaadi were heard. We won't let DU become JNU.'
'Across the country -- in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Manipur, Delhi, Bihar, West Bengal -- men were lynched on suspicion of being thieves by ordinary people armed with rods and sticks.' 'But none of these lynchings made big news.' 'None of these lynchings were cow/beef-related.' 'The perpetrators were unknown people, not so-called gau rakshaks.' 'So why were these instances of mob violence considered less newsworthy than cow-related lynchings?' asks Jyoti Punwani.
Ironically, it was the members of the BJP (which the Indian press loves to dub as fascist) who resisted the assault on democracy and were jailed for 18 months. The RSS too played a stellar role in the resistance movement during the Emergency. Yet by some strange warped logic, the Indian media deems the Congress party with an established record of authoritarianism as a standard bearer of democracy while damning a true champion -- the BJP, says Vivek Gumaste
The statements made by the opposition parties after the preemptive air strike on terror camps have made only people of Pakistan happy, he claimed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday "strongly disapproved" incidents of vandalism of statues in certain parts of the country and spoke to Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the matter.
'Although the tactical move to outflank the BJP fell through with New Delhi's decisive intervention and eventual dissolution of the state assembly, the PDP, NC and the Congress appeared to be more than satisfied.' 'They see the assembly dissolution as their 'great achievement'.' 'If one were to believe what they say, this was also their main objective,' reveals Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the doyen of Kashmiri commentators.
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