'The combination of the LeT and the ISI is the most dangerous terrorist challenge in the world because it carries a real and present danger of provoking nuclear war.'
The IMD has fancy weather-monitoring radars in the name of providing better forecasts.
Start-ups in India with high valuations are witnessing a fund crunch and drop in valuations as investors tighten their belts and look at businesses that are sound.
Nikon India MD Kazuo Ninomiya shares plans of clocking sales worth Rs 1,200 crores in FY18.
The Congress has already been deserted by the urban middle classes and the youth, but by outsourcing its battle against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Admi Party, the grand old party could end up inflicting more damage on itself.
'If Lalu puts the agenda of his son's career ahead of the coalition's interest, this coalition will fare very badly.' 'Lalu will ultimately want that his son becomes deputy chief minister but if he's prepared to wait for some time, nothing bad will happen for the coalition,' Professor Prabhat Ghosh, Director, Asian Development Research Institute, tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com
If doing business in India is a problem for even the richest, most educated scion of a business house, it is unlikely to be a breeze for the average rural Indian woman.
'Continuity in a common agenda is essential, not to disrupt the progress achieved so far,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Of all the PMs of India, I had the closest relationships with Morarji and Rajiv.' Mark Tully, the most famous foreign correspondent in India, remembers some encounters with prime ministers, dictators and militants.
Suddenly the sands are shifting and even friends are acting strange.
'Few practitioners of yoga doing the Surya Namaskar, including lakhs of Americans and Europeans, see it as a form of worshipping the sun. They do it because it is good exercise.' 'In my view Muslim groups need to be more flexible on such things and not present their problem in terms that are confrontational.' 'Having said that, are they over-reacting? The history and the background of the government and its ministers would lead us to believe otherwise,' says Aakar Patel.
'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.'
Volatility ain't going away any time soon. 2013 was the most volatile year for the rupee in at least the last 10, with 2009 not far behind.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
'None of his grandparents, and only one of his parents, was born in the US or spoke English as their mother tongue.' 'Of his three wives, one was born in Czechoslovakia and one in Slovenia.' 'Where would Trump have been if they, too, had 'rejected the ideology of globalism and embraced the doctrine of patriotism'?' asks Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'When war is thrust on you as in 1962 and 1965 or is tempting as in 1971, ensure that all other fronts are kept quiet, leaving your army free to deal with one,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Dr C P Joshi, the rising star in the Congress party, explains his strategy for the Rajasthan poll.
I have always believed that the Nehruvian vision of giving a separate status to Jammu and Kashmir was a flawed one, says BJP's Arun Jaitley.
'Will people who buy iPhones stop buying iPhones to help swadeshi models?' 'There should be some advantage for the consumer to make them buy a Made in India product.' 'Patriotism and nationalism are good words, but in business, it won't work.'
'Chetan Bhagat is not great literature. Is that like you write third rate books and people can't do much better than to read those third rate books. Is it really an achievement?'
'Is Ansari flagging a genuine concern? Is a rectification called for?' 'And finally: Do minorities matter?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
If I were the BJP, I would not be celebrating quite so quickly. It can sweep its heartland in 2014, as it has shown it can do, but that heartland isn't quite big enough. And it can put up a good fight in towns and cities, too - but unless it neutralises AAP or similar political entrepreneurs, it may find itself tantalisingly short, just as has happened to it in Delhi, says Mihir Sharma.
'Look at Kejriwal. With his work, he's made a place in our hearts. But the BJP leaders have only abuses for us," protesters at Shaheen Bagh tell Jyoti Punwani.
Even US equities are now back to end-2014 levels.
There are conflicting signs on India's investment cycle.
'Breaking down silos and ensuring a more integrated governance process is just as important to performance.' 'It has been a major priority in the last six years, especially in national security,' External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar points out when delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture-2020: India and the Post-Covid World.
'One must remember that a dragon has a forked tongue,' warns Vivek Gumaste.
'Today we see the worrisome phenomenon where honest officers who run afoul of the government being chased, hunted down and dirt being dug up on them.'
'It is good for the country, but it is not good for a politician... What we call impatience is actually desperation to needing something NOW.' 'Our politics is restricted by one factor; that our Parliament is full of villages. 40% of the country now lives in cities but only 25% of Parliament is coming from the cities.'
'There is no remorse over the Dadri lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq or of Pehlu Khan by cow vigilante groups.' 'But should you not have remorse for those who came to kill them?' 'They were Hindus. Do you accept that?' 'That to kill one Pehlu, 20 Hindus have become murderers.' Rajdeep Sardesai in conversation with Ravish Kumar.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar expects to see progress in India-US defence relations at the speed of a year per month.
Communalising law and order situations is fraught with danger; we need to tread cautiously. Interjecting a communal angle into what is purely a law and order issue does nobody good; it muddies the picture, fuels unrequited passion and distracts us from the core issue, says Vivek Gumaste.
Why did such a 'socially conscientious' people adapt to cash-for-votes and the like, as fish to water? N Sathiya Moorthy offers an explanation.
'What we are going to see is a large number of white collar jobs getting lost.' 'Job loss can drive people to depression, drugs, alcoholism and even suicide as there is no one to turn to when they are down.' 'There is no in-between now -- things go from a luxurious lifestyle to no lifestyle.'
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
United Progressive Alliance's abysmal performance and the Bharatiya Janata Party's claims of good governance are two factors that could change how India votes this year, says Shreekant Sambrani
Trade sanctions on Russia by Europe and the US offer an opportunity for India, but the devaluation of the rouble may play spoilsport
Sir Mark Tully on the magic of Indian elections. A fascinating excerpt from The Great March of Democracy: Seven Decades of India's Elections.
'When the Americans are talking about colonising Mars by 2030, India cannot be lagging behind.'
'If you solve it in one day, it will go after a day.' 'If it is there for 100 years or 1,000 years, reservation has to continue.'
