'Gau rakshak groups are beating Dalits and circulating videos on social media because they know that no one will touch them.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party's hot saffronite swami is yoga teacher Ramdev.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that "20-25 per cent" voters from the minority community had voted for him in the assembly polls and asked the party cadre to reach out to all sections, including Muslims, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
'Since Modi is walking a tightrope between two worlds -- one of the saffron brotherhood and the other of the proposed smart cities and bullet trains -- it is understandable why he is averse to scrutiny lest he loses his balance by tilting too heavily on one side or the other. But, why has Sonia Gandhi acquired the reputation of a sphinx,' asks Amulya Ganguli.
In Tamil Nadu, the alternative to one Dravidian party has been another, and for one actor-politician CM, there is another. Their initial popularity may owe to their filmi charisma, but their continued acceptance owed to their government's policies and programmes targeting the poor and the needy in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Four specific areas will be watched carefully in the first half of FY16
Why has a nation created on strong secular principles slowly chipped away those essential values? Why are so many Indians willing to compromise their freedoms and those of their compatriots for the cause of economic progress and to see a shining India,' asks Aseem Chhabra.
'The Ganga must be kept above all divisive politics,' says Uma Bharti.
'There is nothing that Pakistan has done which deserves a resumption of dialogue. The assurances made in Ufa contain no commitment except a whole range of talks, which could take place without the paraphernalia associated with a joint statement of prime ministers.'
'If Indian armed forces entered Pakistan and succeeded in inflicting major damage on the Pakistani army and occupied territory in the Pakistani heartland, there is reason to think the Pakistani military would use some nuclear weapons against the incoming Indian forces to compel India to stop.'
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We have in UP today the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party representing the two extremes in a bid to capture power in this huge state that returns 80 members to Parliament, says Seema Mustafa.
'I told him when I started my political career seven decades ago he was not even born. His political activities, the protests he organises and the way he fights the biggest corporate of India, the Ambanis, give hope to all people who are progressive. My desire is that such a party must grow, and I wished him all success for its growth.' V S Achuthanandan, the senior-most Communist in India, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why he turned down Arvind Kejriwal's invitation to join the Aam Aadmi Party.
'Am I wrong in presuming that UP is being seen as a new laboratory of communal politics like one has seen in Gujarat,' asks Ashutosh.
Fresh off the success of his newest film, Aamir Khan warns his fans about controversies surrounding his new film PK.
Two years into power, there is very little to show for the Modi government by way of 'achievements' on the foreign policy front, and his China, Pakistan policies are gasping for breath, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A new report says Indian jihadis, including the Indian Mujahideen, are significantly more lethal as a result of external support, primarily from Pakistan. Aziz Haniffa reports.
Lok Satta Party chief Jayaprakash Narayan talks to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa on the Telangana turmoil, 'juvenile' Aam Aadmi Party and more.
'The BJP used to be a party of decent, Hindu, middle-class people. Today, it is a party of goons. At the ground level, goons beat you up and at the senior level, the intellectuals justify the beating up.' 'On May 13, one boy sent me an SMS at 2.35 am: "Mayank sir, only five seats, what will happen?" There will be a lot of these idealist kids who want that quick transformation that may not happen. We will have to mentor them. We will have to explain to them that nations cannot be changed like that.' Aam Aadmi Party leader Mayank Gandhi, on the lessons the party has learnt from Election 2014.
'When you read that for the first time, areas in Gujarat dominated by Patidars/Patels have been declared 'sensitive' for the civic polls that were held this week, you sit up and take note,' says Jyoti Punwani.
After five decades of existence, the Shiv Sena's support base seems to be shifting towards the rural electorate but there it has to contend with the network of Sharad Pawar and the BJP.
I still believe that it is a good thing that think tanks are mushrooming in Delhi. They provide a platform for discussion, even if they shed more heat than light. With Parliament almost incapable of serious debate, informed discussion and civilised discourse, where does this nation get its intellectual churn, asks Mohan Guruswamy.
The beleaguered UPA government may provide Narendra Modi all the ammunition he wants. Still, without the politics of persuasion, the BJP's crowned prince has a daunting task before him, argues Akash Bisht.
'The reason I call Dadri a landmark turning point in our politics is the relatively muted response of the self-styled secular forces.' 'Top leaders of the Congress haven't even taken a padyatra to the village, just a 40 minute drive from Delhi. Lalu, Nitish, Mamata, all claimants to the secular vote, are afraid of messing with an issue involving the cow.' 'Holiness of the cow has now become as multi-partisan an issue as hostility to Pakistan,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'India's nationalism has always been an exceptional and great experiment.' 'We said you don't have to give up your language, your lifestyle or your religion in order to be an Indian national.' 'Nowhere in the world could you find on such a large scale such a democratic experiment of nation building based on diversity.' 'That is the greatness of India's nationalism and we are on the verge of losing that greatness.'
Banning beef (and not cow) slaughter, not renewing education quota for Muslims. What next from the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra, a ban on azaan, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'It used to sound very strange.' 'That the same child who used to sing Jana Gana Mana the loudest in class, who celebrated August 15 and 26th January with such fervour and who has always nurtured the desire to make India a better nation being called desh drohi.' 'It was very painful.'
In the one year since his father, Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray's death, Uddhav may not have done much, but the coming months will show if it was time wasted or spent in useful strategy-making, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
If the wave has become a tsunami, why is the BJP's prime ministerial candidate playing safe by polarising voters along communal lines, asks Bharat Bhushan.
Kisan Baburao Hazare is supporting Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and attempts are afoot to form an alternative Third Front. Will these alliances really work, asks Bharat Bhushan.
Other than providing Narendra Modi a sweetner ahead of the BJP's national executive meet in Goa, there are no major trends to glean from the recent by-election results, says Seema Mustafa.
It is not in the Lok Sabha, where the BJP has a clear majority, but the Rajya Sabha that the Opposition has ganged up to checkmate Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious plans.
Glaring contrasts in various spheres in this Nehru-Gandhi family pocketborough are being raised by the rivals to target Congress President Sonia Gandhi for lop-sided development in the constituency from where she is seeking a fourth term.
The second part of BJP president Amit Shah's interview to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com, to mark the completion of one year of the Narendra Modi government.
'India has always been a land of acceptance of diversity. But if the evangelical activities continue unabated, there is no doubt this will cause a backlash.' 'One exclusive ideology begets another. The hit list will spread. The more strident the evangelists, the more strident the voices for Ghar Wapsi will grow.'
Everyone, it seems, has a question to ask the BJP's prime ministerial candidate these days. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt asked some well-known Indians what they would like to ask Narendra Modi, to gauge what emotions he evokes in them.
Today when we see the man behaving in a controlled, almost genteel fashion, creating a government with Prussian efficiency, colonising Delhi with a strange silence of expectation, one must ask is this Modi? Or is Modi all the trails he has left behind?'
'Even if Akhilesh Yadav opens up the entire state treasury for us we will not vote for the Samajwadi Party... ''...I don't want to return to my village, my head will be chopped off. They want me to press the button on the lotus.' Caught between an aggressive BSP cornering Dalit votes and the BJP cornering other Hindu votes, the Muslims of Muzaffarnagar have nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt presents the grim situation on the ground in western Uttar Pradesh.
'Without destroying idol worship, you cannot destroy caste because idol worship keeps religious communities in its religious ideology. The RSS is a big promoter of idol worship.' 'They may have an OBC PM, but neither the RSS or the VHP talk about an OBC becoming a priest. The equation is: Business in Baniya hands. Religion in Brahmin hands. OBC votes for the BJP.'
'The horrific episode of January 18 in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is quite different from what happened in Muzaffarnagar, UP, in September 2013. The Akhilesh Yadav-led administration in UP and riot-mongers among our political formations need to learn lessons from the response of the state and society in Bihar's Muzaffarpur,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'After the 2002 riots when the media and other political parties started blaming Modiji, thousands of people like us -- now, it must be crores of us -- started becoming staunch supporters of Modiji. The more you blamed him the more of our support he gained.' Pramod Singh of Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh is one of Narendra Modi's biggest fans and a member of Modi's India272 Web initiative, spreading the leader's message on social media and the Internet.
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