He was merely responding to the changing currents in the region, which, unfortunately, are not favourable to the Palestinians, says P R Kumaraswamy.
The foundations of the army's own peculiar secularism are potentially being destabilised
'Arvind Kejriwal displayed crass male chauvinism and gender illiteracy in saying that "rape tendencies arise out of sex, prostitution and drug rackets." This shows a failure to grasp that rape has little to with sex, and even less with drugs. Such remarks are far worse than the deplorable comments of policemen and politicians who attribute rapes to women's "provocative" attire or their outdoor presence at night!' says Praful Bidwai.
Ataturk and Nehru, two liberal secular modernisers, are in peril of being disowned by their successors, says Sunanda K-Datta Ray.
'If you look at the entire protest on April 2, you will find it was not only about the Atrocities Act dilution, but the accumulated anger of the Dalit community against the BJP over the last four years.'
'Unsurprisingly, the joint statement issued after Modi's visit contains a paragraph on terrorism.' 'It is on the usual lines that India would have with, say, Croatia.' 'The surprising part is that it shies away from getting into specifics,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Hyperbole by our ministers and a few saffronised scientists not only defames Newton and Einstein, but also mocks ancient India's achievements in mathematics, medicine and natural science, says Utkarsh Mishra.
'Patriotism is a sentiment, a feeling of belonging to a place.' 'Nationalism is an ideology, and like all ideologies, it is absolute and restrictive in nature,' Ashis Nandy, arguably India's leading social thinker, tells Geetanjali Krishna.
'There is perhaps a need to pay heed to L K Advani's belief about an Emergency re-run,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The Hindutva brigade's silence on the rape may possibly be explained that this incident is an intra-Hindu affair for them. What is even more intriguing is that vocal gender activists have preferred to almost ignore the incident. Why? Is it because homosexual rape does not involve the woman either as victim or as aggressor, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Mayawati has accused 'Ravan' of being a BJP agent who is dividing the scheduled castes.
Using the Jinnah portrait as an issue, and by demonising AMU and consequently Indian Muslims, the politics of communal polarisation is sought to be played out ahead of the Kairana Lok Sabha by-poll and to sustain it till the next Lok Sabha election, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Prohibitory orders were imposed in Delhi and parts of Karnataka. Police kept tight vigil in Kerala. In Gujarat, 50 people were arrested for Thursday's violence.
Reason must triumph over blind faith, says Praful Bidwai in this tribute to murdered rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
'They have realised that class war is not possible in India, so they are trying to bring about a caste war.'
'After it was finished, Shah Jahan visited the Taj only twice.' 'There is a letter from Aurangzeb to him after a visit, reporting that the dome was leaking and needed to be fixed.' 'Shah Jahan wasn't bothered: He had moved on to designing his next project, Shahjahanabad,' reveals Aakar Patel.
'If JNU students are anti-national, why do we send in the police? Why not send in intellectuals like M V Kamath to have a debate and discussion?'
Narendra Modi has a once in a lifetime chance to change and take the RSS-BJP-VHP to a new level. Varanasi is the right place to turn the page on saffron history. By surrendering to the spirit of mystical Varanasi, Modi and his party can change the trajectory of their political journey.
'If policy-makers hold the lives of animals to be more significant than the welfare of a human populace, I can't believe that they're likely to do anything progressive for India.'
After Narendra Modi's exit from state politics, the BJP and Hindutva forces are falling back on communal politics, says Vinay Umarji
Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on Thursday rejected allegations that her ministry was trying to push books written by Hindutva ideologues, saying it will abide by "constitutional modalities" before taking any step.
'The innate fascism of the RSS is overshadowing Modi's development programme,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'Anti-incumbency, especially in Maharashtra; the BJP's success in creating a new social coalition; and the sheer force of the party's campaign which overwhelmed its opponents,' argues Praful Bidwai, brought the BJP victory in Haryana and Maharashtra, not the Modi effect.
Most of the opposition parties blamed Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliates for the cow vigilantism.
In the circumstances, an independent probe alone would establish the truth, starting from Koodangulam. It is more so in the case of Marina violence, which may even at this late hour hold a candle to the events and developments in Thoothukudi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
As education minister Smriti Irani should be worried about the state of education nationwide rather than fuelling a German-versus-Sanskrit row, says Sunil Sethi
From Aurangzeb to Sangh Parivar, the year 2016 offers plenty of hope in historical and modern literature.
'I told all those Indians in Cheen there are some netas who go on holiday and don't work. Here I am, working and working, going on so many yatras, shaking hands with all big world netas till my hands feel they will fall off' 'Hai Hai, so much remains to be done, so many countries still to be visited...'
'People on both sides of the Hindutva debate need to read and understand the texts first,' Bibek Debroy, translator of the unabridged Mahabharata, tells Kanika Datta as he gets started on a similar project for the Ramayana.
There are two national political parties in India, but only one of them seems to be any good at politics, says Mihir S Sharma.
'We must begin dialogue with openness and goodwill, but we will not proceed very far without trust and good faith. The alternative is the violence of 'might is right,' which settles very little and destroys so much of real value,' says Dr Rudolf C Heredia, author of Religious Disarmament -- Rethinking Conversion in India.
'Mohammad Akhlaq's death isn't only about a Muslim being killed out of sheer communal bigotry, but also the denial of the Constitutional guarantees of "due process" under Article 21 and the freedom of choice,' says Shehzad Poonawalla, who has moved the National Commission for Minorities over the murder.
'Hindus are proud of what the Dharmashastras symbolise, but they don't want to do any work to preserve it!,' Sanskrit scholar Donald Davis tells Kanika Dutta.
A generation has passed and the demolition appears to be a story of an era gone by, says Sharat Pradhan, who shares his experience as a witness in court in the Babri Masjid demolition case. On the 25th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, we republish this 2011 special.
'Modi's more than dozen interviews are helping him fine-tune the rough edges of his campaign. He is trying to influence floating voters, undecided voters, non-committal and caste-neutral voters into deciding whether to go for the Lotus or not. These could have been Congress voters, but its divided house, torn between the old guard and Rahul Gandhi, seems to have got completely confused.' Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt lists what the Congress did wrong to find itself in such a sorry mess today.
The Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle explains their side of the story which saw the IIT-Madras student body being de-recognized for violation of code of conduct and misuse of privileges.
Hours before Narendra Modi takes the stage at Madison Square Garden, fans thronged in thousands to the venue to catch their seats at the arena.
'The spread of barbarity in Muzaffarnagar's villages makes administrative complicity so very evident that your government is rightly alleged to be imitating what the Modi-led administration did in Gujarat in 2002,' Mohammad Sajjad tells UP Minister Azam Khan.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
The curative petition and other legal remedies still available to Yakub Memon are part of his rights as a prisoner condemned to death. Does the Maharashtra government want to deprive him of these rights, asks Jyoti Punwani.
