'You can't go on creating division and rhetoric of hate.' 'It comes to roost. We are seeing the first glimpses of that in the state elections.'
'A change of government will bring about a lot of changes because everything is frozen for the last two years. So, the frozen energies of India will be released.' Swadeshi Jagran Manch convenor Swaminathan Gurumurthy discusses the Modi phenomenon with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
The prayer, Sarvejana Sukhinobhavantu, or let the whole universe of living beings be well, helps. So do profound and relevant Ancient Wise Words and aphorisms: Vasudaiva Kutumbakam, or the whole world is one big family, interconnected, interdependent. And a sense of humour, jokes, pranks, writing, conversations. And, last but definitely not least, the rippling waves of inner realisation on the background mind-track -- about the insignificance of ego, the importance of humility, the wasted opportunities in life, the wrong moves, the strokes of luck, the past 'sins', the what-ifs.
According to the 2011 census, 67 per cent of rural households and 13 per cent of urban households defecate in the open.
Faced with sluggish economic growth and dwindling exports, China on Wednesday devalued its currency for the second consecutive day.
Hours to kill and 'nothingness' to contend are driving many urban, affluent women to depression, finds Anjuli Bhargava.
Smartly blending its development agenda with Hindutva politics, the BJP has not lost assembly elections in the state since 1995.
The World War I had been triggered by an assassination in then relatively unknown Serbia.
'There are so many dimensions to history that we need to attend to: We need more space for local and regional histories; we need to delve into the histories of particular communities; we need to emphasise gender history and environmental history.' 'We need to think about India's history beyond India's current borders.'
She said Modi has the mandate to take bold decisions on the lines of Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the resolution of the problems in and around Jammu and Kashmir.
'Indian politics has had three-and-a-half master narratives -- secular nationalism, Hindu nationalism, justice for lower castes and regionalism. The AAP seeks to go beyond that. Therein lies its promise and its challenge,' says Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University professor and author of book Battles Half Won, India's Improbable Democracy.
For 40 years they held out against the social institution of marriage, holding strong to their views that their love did not need the sanctity of a thaali (mangalsutra). They were barely out of their teens when they first met each other. In a year, they had made the decision to live together and over the next four decades that's precisely what they did. Live, work, have a child and nurture their family -- the thought of legalising their union never occurred to Kunjukunju and Leelamani.
Bankers seem to be pleased with the government for keeping its promise of not interfering in operational matters, but are apprehensive about the intense scrutiny of their functioning.
After the Bihar setback, these are the issues the PM must address to maintain the people's faith in him.
Ishita is helping the local community in Spiti lead better lives and build a sustainable environment.
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.
'Most likely scenario is Modi comes back with either a much smaller majority and no majority at all and a coalition.' 'Very hard to imagine him doing better than he did last time.' 'He will then be a weaker prime minister,' the author of The Billionaire Raj tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Heading Crisil would have been the peak of most people's professional lives. But Roopa Kudva felt that was the right time to change tracks.
The fragmentation of politics and the pressures of coalition management have contributed to a near-secular rise in budgetary social expenditures and spending on subsidies since 1991, leaving little fiscal space for government-led capital investment.
'Despite the BJP's successes at the state-level, replicating their 282-seat majority in 2019 is going to be an uphill climb.'
Administration is an evolving process, requiring the civil service to constantly re-invent itself to meet new challenges. The administration must become accountable to the law of the land and to the people.
PE firm True North's investment model is to take 51% stake in mid-sized companies and make them large, says Niraj Bhatt.
'...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?'
It is rare for communal riots to spread to rural areas. The UP riot is the first time after the September 1969 Gujarat riots that a rural area have been affected. Electoral politics which divide society in majority/minority, going on since the early 1990s, is a major contributing factor to this heightened tension between communities, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale in the first of a two part series.
Businessman P C Mustafa wants Indian Americans to return home, Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza outlines how Indian tech companies could grow, Gaurav Dalmia has some investment recommendations while Subramanian Swamy warns that India is flirting with a debt trap.
Ending open defecation by 2019 will require changing minds, not just allocating money to build latrines for people that will either go unused or not be built at all.
India should not miss the opportunity to develop high-speed railway.
In an interview with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com, he talks about the economic policies of the Narendra Modi government and whether achche din is really coming.
'Embedded with the divisive regime, they administer heavy doses of the opium of religion and nationalism day in and day out,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
'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.
The emperor has no political power, yet he enjoys a unique place in Japanese society, notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
India could gain four times over by winding up dysfunctional subsidies.
'Modi wants to reverse everything Nehru did, but is shy of touching his daughter's most unwise policies.' 'There is no example of this more stark than bank nationalisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The Delhi metropolitan area has one of the highest concentrations of population in the world, and suffocating the people of the area on an annual basis should be treated as a crime against humanity, especially when the cause for such suffocation can be controlled, says Arvind Kumar.
'He is anything but astute or charismatic. He believes the Congress can win elections without alliances in the Hindi heartland.'
Rajeev Chandrasekhar discusses five issues pivotal for the success of Digital India
Arvind Subramanian talks about US and China's power play and where India figures in these dynamics.
The proposed changes to the child labour law to allow children and adolescents to work for their families would be most retrograde and regressive, say Shinzani Jain and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.
'Four years into his tenure and Modi still has no idea what is wrong with the agriculture sector!'
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
