'The default by the State or its agents in terms of deprivation, exclusion and discrimination (including failure to provide security) is to be corrected by the State; this needs to be done at the earliest and appropriate instruments developed for it.'
Enrich a woman and you can enrich a nation. Hurt women, deny women equitable rights, and a nation's death sentence will soon commence, says Dr Krishan Jeyarajasingham.
'If the dimensions of the strategic partnership worked out by India and the US seem like a grand alliance targeted at you-know-who, China had better realise that it has fathered it,' says B S Raghavan, a long time observer of China.
'For a long time Pakistan dreamt that India would break up and that it would be the predominant power in the region,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
It is time the new government, unencumbered with the burden of past, initiates a wide ranging review and open debate on the security issues to rectify our short term and long term shortcomings. It has taken some wise steps but has to go beyond this to identify the structural weakness and create systems, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
'Muslims, like people of all other faiths, are quite comfortable with the idea of nationalism and democracy today. But are they following Islam in its spirit? That is a different question.'
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi's stand that AMU is not a minority university reveals the anti-minority stand of the political party now in power, says Mohammad Sajjad, outlining the long history behind one of India's premier universities.
'In Modi's moral majority, words like security become problematic and a moral majority can turn devastatingly inquisitorial. It turns history into a preferred flatland of the nation State challenging cultural diversity in the name of majoritarianism expressed as patriotism. Dissent almost immediately becomes seditious,' says Shiv Visvanathan.
'When I woke up on New Year's morning last week, it occurred to me that nobody had bothered to investigate how Christmas and the year end were different in my adopted home town of Bournemouth -- a charming place on the south coast of England -- from what played out on the streets of Pala in Kerala. This was clearly an important omission,' says Chindu Sreedharan, and sets out to correct it.
he has to demonstrate the ability of his government to take a quantum leap, almost tantamount to setting the Ganga on fire, in the next six months, if not in 100 days, if the people were to take seriously the cascade of commitments spewing out of the President's address to both Houses of Parliament on June 9, says B S Raghavan. B S Raghavan suggests five practical propositions through which the Modi government can bring in paradigm changes.
'Nehru is often portrayed as a visionary with his head in the clouds. But he had his feet firmly planted on the ground when it came to building and nurturing institutions and setting them on the right path with the right traditions,' says B S Raghavan.
'It is a pattern of behaviour of the Chinese that whenever a Chinese leader visits India or an Indian leader visits China, some incidents take place.' 'When Modi visits China, we should look out for some similar demonstration by the Chinese.'
'I had heard that it was a paradise... but when I first lay my eyes on it, it wasn't what I had pictured.' 'We had known of the devastation, but we didn't know the true extent of it.'
'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.
'The dirt in the Indian Ocean must be less than the abuses Narendra Modi got from secular forces.' 'If you are going to put the blame on the central government and the RSS for every wrongdoing, then it is not going to serve any purpose, rather it will complicate the issue instead of resolving it.' 'There are fringe elements in every society, but for an ideal State it is important to finish off the fringe elements.'
'This is not a small change, it's a BIG change. People wanted to hear the voice of their PM. They can do so now. This is a big parivartan.'
'He was believed to finish his own work in an hour and spend the remainder of the time walking from one office to another, sitting down with the harried junior staff and helping them sort out the problems they were working on.'
