The Tamil Nadu chief minister may have opened a Pandora's Box on the religion front with the appointment of qualified non-Brahmin temple priests, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'As a nation we are tearing ourselves apart through decisions we have deliberately chosen to take,' argues Aakar Patel.
'Kashmir is the main issue between the two countries.' 'We have not been able to resolve it bilaterally.' 'As the two major countries in South Asia, we have to go back to the drawing board and start engaging.'
Aseem Chhabra introduces us to the best of Berlinale.
'Rajapaksa's victory poses a serious foreign policy challenge for the Modi government,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Mira's films are alive, rocking and so true to the reality I know. They are gifts that I keep revisiting, and I cannot wait for what more she will share with us, notes Aseem Chhabra.
'"It is not corruption, but destruction that we fear. We fear for our lives and the BJP has not been able to convince us otherwise," Muslims and Dalits tell me.' Does a high turnout indicate anti-incumbency or does it indicate minority consolidation against a particular leader or party? Neeta Kolhatkar explains the situation in Maharashtra.
From the Congress party, I demand justice for the Hathras victim. India is a country for all and everyone has the right to live with dignity, Sonia said.
'Rishi Kapoor was a complete original.' 'He dazzled the screen and stayed a livewire off it as well,' remembers Sukanya Verma.
'Temperamentally, they are quite alike.' 'Ahmed Patel avoided the limelight and was not a power seeker.' 'The Gandhis too are not power wielders, but trustees of power.'
Seven young students from different parts of the country had a wide-ranging discussion from bringing out Congress manifesto in Braille, setting up gender-neutral toilets to steps for removing inequalities in education system and caste discrimination in society with the Congress chief.
"From now on, we will follow a very simple rule: Every day I am president, we are going to make America first, not somebody else, not some other country. We are going to make America first," Trump said.
'There were any number of Congress leaders who disliked Sonia Gandhi, but they were very close to Ahmed Bhai and he would listen, and give a shoulder to cry upon.'
'If they were really serious (about conferring the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar) what were they doing for the last five years?' 'Why do they have to take so long?' 'Gandhi himself never got the Bharat Ratna so it does not really matter.'
'Some of his decisions were not so good, but his intentions were always guided by a deep national interest.'
'What matters right now is what I am able to do in these times of distress for the people of J&K.'
Though it has been accused of politicising the army action and its critics have also referred to the growing violence in Kashmir under its tenure to question the effectiveness of its policies, the saffron party believes that the surgical strikes continue to have resonance on the ground and can help it build a positive narrative in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
At a time when the Kashmir valley has been shut down, it is perhaps appropriate that we remember Lal Ded, Kashmir's best known spiritual and literary figure, someone remembered with divine adoration both by Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir. A fascinating excerpt from Sandhya Mulchandani's For The Love Of God: Women Poet Saints Of The Bhakti Movement.
'We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society,' he said.
Speaking at the RSS's annual Vijayadashami rally in Nagpur which was broadcast online and attended 50 swayamsevaks (volunteers) due to the COVID-19 guidelines, Bhagwat said when the Sangh says Hindustan is 'Hindu Rashtra', it does not have any political or power-centered concept in its mind.
Having emerged as the face of opposition resistance to the Narendra Modi juggernaut after the TMC's triumph in the assembly elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is locked in an unequal battle as she squares off with "lightweight" rivals in her own lair--Bhabanipur.
Some 40,000 Rohingyas have settled in India, and 16,000 of them have received refugee documentation, the UN estimates.
'You know the difference between being brought up by a mother and a step-mother?' 'As long as Amma was there we had nothing to fear. Now the step-mother is there and we are on the streets.'
'And Sir, you are at fault if they don't like you. 'You don't boast of your government's efforts to be the first one to bring in thousands of Indians back home without thinking for a second about their race, religion, language, orientation, or even citizenship,' says Sarang, a reader of Rediff.com.
After decades of delay and inaction, the Hindu minority community in Pakistan will soon have a marriage law as a parliamentary panel has unanimously approved the Hindu Marriage Bill.
'Modi has become confident enough not only to look forward to a second term in 2019, but also to celebrate the 75th year of India's Independence in 2022.' 'It will be in the fitness of things if the vestiges of the past are swept away and the country is reminded that the 1,200 years of 'slavery' under the Muslims and the British were a bad dream.' 'And what better way to achieve this objective than by rubbing out the names of the invaders?' says Amulya Ganguli.
'No one, Mr Kohli, holds any kind of a franchise on nationalism and patriotism.' 'And there is no 'our' that owns India,' says Suhit Sen.
From citizenship rights to hate crimes and police brutality, no wave of persecution in the US has left Indians completely untouched.
Taking exception to Uttar Pradesh government's proposed move to withdraw cases against Muslim leaders in Muzaffarnagar riots, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday asked Governor B L Joshi to press the government to withdraw all cases, including those lodged against its leaders, in connection with the violence.
The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
If Irrfan could have been our finest professor of empirical philosophy, and Nawaz is our foremost poet of that space halfway between the gutter and the stars, then Jaideep Ahlawat has to be our greatest artist-scientist, asserts Sreehari Nair.
'No COVID-19 positive person will be allowed when the bhoomi pujan happens on August 5 in Prime Minister Modi's presence.'
Despite receiving so much love from Gujarat, Modi didn't bother to visit the bereaved parents of those 22 children who lost their lives in Surat, points out Jyoti Punwani.
'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.'
In the Majnu Ka Tila area in New Delhi, Children carrying tricolour burst crackers and shouted 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.
Some speakers also blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.
If he doesn't, two things are guaranteed: Failure for him, and continued slide for his nation despite its talented people, strong nationalism, the gift of geography and a formidable army, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The letter alleged that some of the recent articles written by the award-winning writer amounted to "misleading" the Muslim youth. It also warned that Ramanunni would meet the same fate as that of professor T J Joseph, whose right arm was chopped off by the members of a radical Muslim outfit for allegedly hurting their religious sentiments through a question paper he had set.
The bench directed that the mediation will be held at Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh and the process should start within a week from Friday.
'Muslims, like people of all other faiths, are quite comfortable with the idea of nationalism and democracy today. But are they following Islam in its spirit? That is a different question.'
