'India has seen that whenever dynastic politics has been powerful, institutions have taken a severe beating'
The President in his book,The Turbulent Years:1980-9, has written about the conversation he had with Rajiv Gandhi in a bathroom about prime ministership.
'R N Kao was a spymaster, an institution builder and a gentleman.'
'When I realised that I was to take the pictures of Pandit Nehru, I was very nervous and scared.'
The Bharat Jodo Yatra, Ramesh said, has been a "real booster dose" for the public relationship of the Congress.
Chef par excellence Satish Arora recalls his days working as a chef to prime ministers to Chandrima Pal.
The Congress kept sheltering Quattrochi, and the BJP was more intent on shielding the Hinduja brothers. The fact is that the two roads crisscrossed, and neither the truth prevailed nor did the law take its course, says Mohan Guruswamy.
'It is obvious within these two months that in many ways Narendra Modi has a great degree of resemblance with Indira Gandhi.' 'The same style of management of power. The same kind of attempt to reduce a large section of the political leadership into, if not spectators, bureaucrats. His leaders are taking orders from him and executing those orders.' 'This is the model that has worked in Gujarat. And he is hoping that it will work in India.'
'And when the floats go by in the parade garlanded and decorated with the posters of gun toting assassins and murderers and martyrs, you look the other way.' 'And in return we will bring you 10,000 votes because the people of the gurdwaras will vote as we tell them to vote.'
Vidya Charan Shukla, a former union minister and Congress veteran from Chhattisgarh, died on Tuesday in a Gurgaon hospital after battling injuries sustained in a deadly naxal attack on a convoy of party leaders a fortnight ago.
'As of today, I don't see how the Congress can continue its struggle against the BJP without Rahul. There has to be a fulcrum. There has to be a center for any movement to take place.'
Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Salman Khurshid on Wednesday hit back at their party colleague Kapil Sibal and other leaders of the G-23, alleging that they were trying to break the party by continuing to hold meetings even after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) had discussed 'all' issues during its recent meeting.
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wrote a personal letter to her British counterpart Margaret Thatcher soon after the 1984 Operation Bluestar in an attempt to justify her decision to send army to flush out militants from the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine.
Ambassador Venu Rajamony, who served as press secretary to President Pranab Mukherjee during his tenure, salutes the statesman and political legend, who passed into the ages on Monday.
As Pranab Mukherjee passes away, we remember the man, the politician, the Rashtrapati.
'Indira Gandhi proved herself a great war leader, but failed as a statesman,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
'When an individual becomes authoritarian, you can overthrow the individual easily. 'When the system becomes authoritarian, whoever challenges the system will be called a criminal or an anti-national.'
'New Delhi's rulers should be alert to lighting a dangerous tinderbox,' warns Sunil Sethi.
The competition for the worst or most perilous 10 years has always been between the 1960s and the 1980s, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'If the Congress party wants to take on the BJP it cannot do it in this fuddy-duddy, grand old party, style.'
ACN Nambiar's life was extraordinary and intricately linked to momentous turns in history. Having lived in Europe for five decades, he was witness to and entangled with what we today -- with the benefit of hindsight -- call recent history.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
Richa Chadha to play Shakeela... Vidya Balan turns producer...
There are so many patriotic songs that make us proud to be Indians.
Much of the the-foreign-media-is-biased hysteria that we see on social media these days is provoked by the bad press the regime is getting in the West, points out Vir Sanghvi.
'But he was very quick and did a very stylish adab.' 'Of course, I didn't expect him to hug.'
'Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai? Don't you believe it. I don't trust the Chinese one bit,' Nehru told Gopalaswamy Parthasarathi before he traveled to China as India's ambassador. Asking GP to be ever vigilant, Nehru advised the diplomat to send telegrams on important matters only to him. Many such anecdotes from a long and eventful career as diplomat and bureaucrat crowd the pages of GP: 1912-1995, discovers Uttaran Das Gupta.
'I came to hear you sing Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon. I am glad I have heard you sing.'
The real risk is that the core assumption -- that the votes for a candidate sponsored by an alliance will at least equal the sum total of its parts -- proves to be facile, observes T N Ninan.
'George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position,' remembers Arun Jaitley.
If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'In India, a really popular and well-entrenched leader is not defeated by a rival.' 'Such a leader has to defeat himself,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
While the BJP has taken a beating, its leader still stands tall, points out T N Ninan.
N Sathiya Moorthy goes back in time to dig up three cases that may not have any citation in legal text-books or lawyers' ready-reckoners quoted before courts but which may still have a bearing on the current case against the arrested activists.
'Patriotism won 400+ seats for the Congress party in 1984. How much will nationalism bring in, in 2019, is the question,' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'Nowhere amidst the efflorescence of 13 military bands, 16 marching contingents and 22 tableaux was there any hint that far from being a rich country of poor people, the closely guarded secret is that India is a poor country of extremely rich people,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
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