'We are completely engaged in fighting poverty; alas, our neighbour Pakistan seems only engaged in fighting us.'
'The Congress wants to eat the cake, but does not want to share it.'
'If PM has some concrete information against gau rakshaks then he must disclose it, otherwise we will take legal action against him.'
In a sharp attack on Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party campaign centric around him, expelled party veteran Jaswant Singh on Sunday deprecated "veneration" of an individual and said world was full of graveyards of those who are considered indispensable to their nation.
'The BJP, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are celebrating their biggest ideological and philosophical victory in some time,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Bharatiya Janata Party patriarch L K Advani on Tuesday said he has lived his life according to the "diktats" of his inner voice and indicated that his age notwithstanding, he is in good health and not about to hang his boots.
A photojournalist of a French news agency was shot at while three others were injured when activists of Pakistan's right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami protesting against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Friday clashed with police when they tried to enter the French consulate in Karachi.
From the Syrian civil war to the Ukrainian crisis to the terror unleashed by the dreaded Islamic State, there was no lack of news in 2014. In this five-part series, rediff.com presents a selection of the year's most enduring moments year from around the world.
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
Stoking a controversy, the Shiv Sena on Sunday demanded that voting rights of Muslims should be revoked as the community has often been used to play vote bank politics.
There is a great danger of the government getting stampeded into actions in Kashmir that could result in long lasting damage, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Pakistan is full of 'religious entrepreneurs' like Hafeez Saeed who poison the minds of the young so that they can be motivated to become terrorists. They work in concert with the rulers of Pakistan. It is a private-public partnership.'
'In a relationship that does not permit cricket, how can the prime ministers embrace and send a false message,' asks Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'If the bulk of the Pakistan population and the all powerful army are now against radical elements, there is indeed hope that Pakistan's India policy will be more realistic and less ideology driven,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The fabric of democracy is fraying,' says T V R Shenoy. 'It is being attacked not just by terrorists in Kashmir or by zealots in the North-East, but is being ripped apart even in Allahabad, in the Hindi heartland.'
As India celebrates its 70th Independence day, Rediff.com pays homage to millions who laid their lives for the country's freedom.
How seriously should we take Natwar Singh's book? Indeed how seriously should all such memoirs and autobiographies be taken? The answer, I imagine, depends on the intent. If the authors are merely settling scores, as many think Natwar Singh is, future historians would be entitled to ignore such autobiographies. But if there is no mens rea (guilty mind), so to speak, these books must be taken seriously, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Delegates of a bilateral peace delegation urge the prime ministers of Pakistan and India to resume dialogue for peace and full normalisation of relations.
Union Minister Shashi Tharoor's video address to an Indo-Pakistan entrepreneurs' event in Islamabad was abruptly cut off after he lambasted the Pakistani government for ceasefire violations on the Line of Control and suggested the civilian administration did not control the military.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj is a fighter who follows her own code. Those who think she's a pushover are making a mistake, says Aditi Phadnis
'Pakistan is paying the price for ignoring secularism. In seeking to be ever more Muslim to define its nationhood, it has become a terrorist haven.'
The man behind Aligarh Muslim University 200 years on.
Putting together a play about the Father of the Nation is no easy task. But when that play is a musical, the challenges increase.
Nehru's sentimental attachment to the Mountbattens deeply vitiated the Kashmir issue. It was certainly the most important factor for the failure to find a solution in the first years of the conflict.
The elections in two eastern Indian states were keenly observed in Bangladesh for two major contentious issues, writes Prakash Bhandari from Dhaka.
'After General Raheel Sharif took on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, some sections of the military establishment may have felt unease as to whether the crackdown could be extended against friendlier 'non-State' actors like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.'
The BJP's panicky return to basic-instinct majoritarianism in Bihar has pushed Muslims back into the 'secular' basement, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Manto is the only writer to grasp what the project of Pakistan would eventually mean,' says Aakar Patel, who has translated a collection of Saadat Hasan Manto's essays in a just-released book Why I Write.
'This book is really the story of the woman whose destiny takes her onto the path of an inordinately iconic man whom the world reveres as God!' 'It is the day-to-day demolition of her dreams that are at stark variance with those who view him as a trail blazer on the holy path to redemption, while he wrecks the peace of those whom he loves the most; his family.'
'The creation of Pakistan was integral to Britain's grand strategy.' 'If they were to ever leave India, Britain's military planners had made it clear that they needed to retain a foothold in the NWFP and Baluchistan because that would provide the means to retain control of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar.'
Narendra Modi had to be emotional. Fighting the media, sailing against trends where only the rich and powerful are able to navigate in state and national politics, Modi brewed his own cocktail of ideas and formulae. He has reached here on his own strengths, intellect, cunning and merit, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
By resigning from all posts of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and finally being persuaded to withdraw the resignation, veteran leader L K Advani, there is a realisation in the party it could not overlook or ignore the senior leader's tantrums as it would show up the party as a divided house, says Anita Katyal
What happened within the last 40 years that turned this society from secular democratic to Hindu right-wing that clench their collective fists of spiritual nobility against the fictional enemy that never was? The internet happened, says Vinay Menon.
'There are three issues related to beef consumption and cow slaughter. One is the British origin of cow slaughter. Two, if slaughter of cows is sanctioned by Islamic scriptures and three, the environmental impact of beef consumption.'
Honorary Captain Bana Singh won the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest ranking gallantry award, for recapturing a Pakistani post on the Siachen Glacier. Living a retired life in a quiet village in Jammu and Kashmir, he makes you feel that his act of phenomenal courage was part of a soldier's day at work.
Sherna Gandhy hopes Malala Yousafzai can convince the powers-that-be in New Delhi that it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that our children get a decent education.
The 1965 war teaches us that war by escalation is a real possibility. Despite clear threats, Pakistan never believed that India will ever cross the international border. In the age of nuclear deterrence, this failure to deter Pakistan is the central lesson of 1965, says Colonel Anil Athale (retd).
'Let us not say that Modi has not delivered on anything; he has delivered something and in parts substantially, but he has to also deliver on a large number of his electoral promises.'
'Many who haven't even seen the documentary are claiming that it defames and damages the image of India, makes it sound unsafe, and gives the rapist a forum.' 'This couldn't be further from the truth, and the film shows the best qualities of India and Indians in standing up against evil as much as it shows the unvarnished truth.'
