'Counter terrorism does not appear to be good guys fighting the bad ones; it is about people being picked up, detained and charged with crimes they did not commit.'
'Indira Gandhi, it appears, did not to consult her Cabinet colleagues, or diplomats, or civil servants when she decided to sign the agreement in Shimla.' 'We ruefully recall Bhutto's perfidy and the Indian prime minister's gullibility,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
'How does one get to weaken all those pillars on which the Deep State of Pakistan and the Separatists rely to prevent the situation reaching that point; how must this stage of the proxy war be countered? In many ways the strategy being followed by the adversaries is a smart one, acting within threshold and avoiding overpitch,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'The Indian government has accepted and is a party to international agreements, standards and conventions on religious freedom.' 'We did not force it on them. We are not trying to impose something on them that they haven't already agreed to...' 'India has never allowed us to visit, which is very disappointing for such a wonderful country with such a rich democratic tradition. They seem to be afraid to let us in.'
'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.
'The threat that India faces and the threat the United States faces is not just to the homeland, but to our people and to our institutions wherever they may be.' In an exclusive conversation with Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com, US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal outlines the importance of Prime Minister Modi's visit for America.
The history of the Cauvery and Mullaperiyar cases has shown how helpless the constitutional processes and judicial verdicts have been in enforcing the law of the land in inter-state and state-Centre disputes, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I sat down and asked them what they would want in their new school. One student said a football field, another one asked for computers. One little girl came and sat next to me and said, "A separate toilet for the girls." I think these small things make a huge difference in the future of education in India,' Nita Ambani tells Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com
In a recent chat with readers, Utkarsh Rai, author of Faster, Smarter, Higher, addressed queries on how employees can deal with their bosses.