'Rather than 'consolidate' the Hindu majority votes, as the BJP-RSS combine has been known and wont to try, this time round PM Modi has himself taken the party to the next step, by seeking to create a new divide within the majority community, a la V P Singh in his time.'
'This was undoubtedly a premeditated strategy to thwart India's entry into the NSG.' 'If India hopes to be a major player, it must use its rising clout on the world stage to influence amenable members of the group to alter such discriminatory practices and ensure fair rules of engagement,' says Vivek Gumaste.
If the people of Tamil Nadu stop deifying their leaders and start evaluating them more objectively, the political masters too may change their wayward behaviour, argues Sudhir Bisht.
Naresh Chandra -- distinguished civil servant and diplomat -- passed into the ages on Sunday, July 9. Ambassador T P Sreenivasan salutes a patriot like none other.<
'E Ahamed will be sorely missed as a decent and wise man who made the best use of his political career and personal abilities for the good of the nation,' remembers Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'The most valuable personal sensitive information of present and future citizens has been made available to foreign data firms and governments and non-State actors for all time to come,' says Gopal Krishna.
Rituparno Ghosh's swansong Satyanweshi is a bit of a letdown, according to Indrani Roy.
We need credible retellings of the times we have lived through, or the events in the immediate past that have shaped our today, says Mihir S Sharma
The US #DeepState has had a fine run, but will now discard Saudi Arabia as it is no longer useful to them, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'When the BJP first came to power in the late 1990s we heard of anti- Christian incidents perpetrated by members of the Sangh Parivar, the majority of which proved to be blatant falsehoods.' 'We need to recall those events to give a reality check to a similar campaign of unsubstantiated calumny that is raising its head again to discredit the BJP government.'
'The bumblebees in Par Ek Din may not be flying yet, but even as they dangle in mid-air, their stings hurt.' 'Effortlessly graceful, this is a work of passion that conveys what being passionate about something truly feels like,' says Sreehari Nair.
Ironically, it was the members of the BJP (which the Indian press loves to dub as fascist) who resisted the assault on democracy and were jailed for 18 months. The RSS too played a stellar role in the resistance movement during the Emergency. Yet by some strange warped logic, the Indian media deems the Congress party with an established record of authoritarianism as a standard bearer of democracy while damning a true champion -- the BJP, says Vivek Gumaste
To persist with talks in the face of continuing terrorism that puts hundreds of Indian lives at stake is not only naive but morally repugnant and ethically unacceptable. It is time to see through this charade and abandon a path of high risk and no returns, says Vivek Gumaste.
'The BJP has not moved on since its 2014 victory. There is nothing new to offer. There is far too much negativity about the other side and far too little about what has been achieved by its government.' 'That may have worked when the BJP was in the Opposition but if they believe that the people of India will continue to hold them to such a low standard of expectations, they are really taking the voter for granted or misreading his pulse.'
Natwar Singh's book is un-illuminating, largely self-justificatory, often contradictory, and at times tendentious. He is too preoccupied with depicting himself as a victim of the Congress party's machinations, says Praful Bidwai.
Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre examines the Marathi film industry, which annually produces around 190 dissimilar films that requires an investment of Rs 400 crores.
'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.'
'How come with Nehru at the helm, India missed so many buses? He had such unchallenged power that he could have taken the country in any direction he wanted. The sad conclusion is inescapable that Nehru let things drift in true Hamletian ambivalence,' says B S Raghavan.
'I think the AAP is still in transition from being a movement to a political party so there is a mix of people who form the party. So there is somewhat of a overlapping and commonality of purpose.' 'Look at the way the government and party is functioning, not a single woman minister in the cabinet, or no woman member in the political affairs committee, it is all very tactical now.' 'After the 'sting' I decided to step back. I realised that my moral basis has been questioned by Kejriwal, it is truly despicable. He is around 15 years younger to me, I was aghast by his words.' AAP 'rebel' Prof Anand Kumar speaks of what went wrong with the party in the last few days in this interview with Upasna Pandey.
'She is tough. She can be stern. She can be unpleasant. Rajiv was none of these things.' 'The Congress cannot survive without the Gandhi family. If Sonia were to quit, their Lok Sabha seats would drop from 44 to four.' K Natwar Singh shares his bitterness about the Nehru family with Rashme Sehgal.