As education minister Smriti Irani should be worried about the state of education nationwide rather than fuelling a German-versus-Sanskrit row, says Sunil Sethi
Far away from the glare of publicity lives Atal Bihari Vajpayee's family -- three sisters, nephews, nieces and their children. A large family proud of its bond with India's leader.
'If prices of everyday consumption don't come down, employment doesn't pick up, 2020 will not be a happy year for anyone but the super rich,' notes Sherna Gandhy.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
The BJP sees investments, both foreign and domestic, as their pathways to political power and not the construction of the Ram temple or a nationwide ban on beef. It will have no option but to let commerce prevail over religious sentiments, says Amulya Ganguli.
Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt unearths some never-told-before details of Narendra Modi's early life. Read on!
Slamming the government over the situation in Kashmir, Opposition in the Rajya Sabha on Monday pressed for holding an all-party meet to discuss the issue and pitched for a political solution rather than using "barrel of the gun" while dealing with the unrest.
'The Indian middle class ignores the conflicts areas in Jammu and Kashmir, in Central India and in the North East.' 'The violence does not touch us at all and so we are able to easily look away from the underlying reasons and grievances.'
It's difficult to say who suffered more these 28 years: The men who survived the PAC shooting and the assaults in jail; or the women who lost their men in these custodial killings.
Two people, one legally assisting the affected people because of their exclusion from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and another whose relative has been declared a 'foreigner' by the quasi-judicial Foreigners' Tribunal (FT), talk to Rediff.com about the issues on the ground that people excluded from the NRC are facing and how it can turn into a long-drawn legal process.
'From what I know of her,' says Mohammad Sayeed Malik -- the distinguished doyen of Kashmir commentators -- 'Mehbooba will not take too long to recover.' 'How much room she can then find to maneuver in the valley's extremely harsh political climate only time can tell.'
Pakistan played a 'key role' in fomenting the recent trouble in Kashmir, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said.
In Yogi Adityanath's Uttar Pradesh wayward Romeos would all be in the lock-up, says Sunil Sethi.
'Belonging to a Muslim family, I obviously had my own set of issues to deal with but I don't remember my father saying 'no' to anything.'
'We are a plural society that for centuries, not for 70 years, has lived in a certain ambience of acceptance.' 'It is under threat,' outgoing Vice President Hamid Ansari tells Karan Thapar.
'The protests have forced the government to announce that the NRC is not an immediate priority.' 'Even if they are trying to pursue this policy in a different guise, through the NPR, the fact that they have been forced to pause and backtrack at least temporarily shows the positive impact of the protests.' 'Moreover, various state governments have opposed the NPR which cannot be carried out without their cooperation. That is also a success of the protests.' 'The state governments would not have taken this stance against the central government if their hand had not been forced by the popular mood.'
Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the New York Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, recalls, with both anguish and elation, the events of the last fortnight after the US President's order banning entry for people from seven countries was put in place.
'The BJP politics of appropriating icons from its ideological adversaries could only be a desperate attempt to extend the Jat-Muslim divide in Uttar Pradesh. Why this desperation when it can comfortably get votes on the plank of economic development?'
Hrithik as Krrish or Anil Kapoor as Mr India? Take your pick!
'It is a travesty that I have to prove my commitment to Gandhi and to this country.'
Sreehari Nair presents his Top 20 movies of the decade.
Nikhil Lakshman remembers the times he spent with the legendary writer who passed into the ages six days before his 86th birthday.
magistrate that he had assembled the explosives and had "guided" the members of the terror outfit while planting bombs at Hyderabad's Dilsukhnagar area in February last year.
While Rajnath Singh said secularism was the most misused word in politics, Sonia alleged that ideals and principles of the Constitution were under threat and being attacked deliberately
'Even if the media is partisan, the BJP, governing at the Centre, has the most to lose if India descends into widespread communal violence.' 'Fanning the flames either by vested political interests or by partisan reports only plays into the hands of those seek a conflagration.'
'It was the first document he had seen that asked him about his past in such detail; it was the only interest this country (America) had shown in his origins, and it was most inconvenient. To get ahead, he had to find out where he had come from.'
If Manto, the film, falls short of being a masterpiece it's because Nandita Das could not quite crack the Manto code: She couldn't quite see the wholeness of her subject with the same eyes that Manto saw his people. This imperfection in the film, in a way, becomes the greatest tribute to Manto, feels Sreehari Nair.
The families of the Muslim youth from Hashimpura who were shot dead 28 years ago had some committed supporters in their long struggle for justice.
'If Rakesh Sinha introduces the bill, but it does not pass the Rajya Sabha in six years, then the bill will lapse.'
'Mohammad Akhlaq's death isn't only about a Muslim being killed out of sheer communal bigotry, but also the denial of the Constitutional guarantees of "due process" under Article 21 and the freedom of choice,' says Shehzad Poonawalla, who has moved the National Commission for Minorities over the murder.
'Those who were first at the site of Gauri Lankesh's murder scene noticed that the place was still open for people to casually walk in and out.' 'No forensic evidence of value can remain in such places,' points out Aakar Patel.
"Although we are kind of open Muslims, I don't want to show my body."
'There are so many dimensions to history that we need to attend to: We need more space for local and regional histories; we need to delve into the histories of particular communities; we need to emphasise gender history and environmental history.' 'We need to think about India's history beyond India's current borders.'
'As I went around Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna and Mannar, my mind went back to my visit in January 1990 at the fag end of the IPKFs mission in Sri Lanka,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'In one mansion we visited, I was told the doors in the back courtyard had to be kept closed because to have the front and back doors open at the same time would result in Chettiar wealth flowing away,' notes Rahul Jacob after a memorable visit to Karaikudi.
When Meenakshi Arvind and Mookambika Rathinam took an epic car journey from Coimbatore to London, they encountered a world that was more good than bad. In the cry for freedom in a dark corner of the globe, they discovered that The Mahatma remained India's greatest icon.
'While India's 'secularism' is a matter of cultural values rooted in Hinduism, the Western concept became one of rights rooted in legal rights. India would be secular with or without Article 25 of the Constitution,' says T V R Shenoy.
Mufti's political graph shows his fondness for courting unpopular, politically hazardous ventures in pursuit of his ultimate objective to vindicate his leadership. Towards the end of his life, Mufti's public profile had come to assume the dimensions of statesmanship. One reason being his willingness to learn from his experience, says Mohammad Sayeed Malik.
'This was our country, after all, our India, humara Hindustan -- why would we go anywhere else?'
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