What is the road ahead for Rahul Gandhi? Shehzad Poonawalla offers a blueprint.
'Earlier India as part of the Third World fought for the rights of the Palestinians. But oddly the defeat of the Congress and the decline of the Nehruvian imagination has altered such perceptions. The new middle class expresses an open sympathy for Israel, contending that Jews like many Hindus has been misunderstood,' says Shiv Visvanathan.
Verifiable 'distress-sharing' of available water may still be the way out of the Cauvery water row, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Is this protest real or a manufactured one? Is this not a case of ideological intolerance?" the finance minister writes in a Facebook post.
Israel is determined to take the bilateral engagement to a different level that goes beyond defence hardware and intelligence software. Kanchan Gupta reports exclusively from Tel Aviv for Rediff.com
The absence of a clear underlying economic ideology in the Budget was quite evident, say experts.
The implementation of their recommendations means that an adequate apparatus to change this is at the disposal of the government.
'What his minions do, we are not sure, but he has got to keep them under control. Pogroms against Muslims in India -- I don't think that is going to be his policy.'
The choice before the next government is not between being a soft State and a tough State; it is between being a smart State and a dumb State, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'The effect of demonetisation has been largely to drive black money above ground. But there are several interesting side-effects. One is the uncomfortable realisation that this can happen again, which is a deterrent to future sinners,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'For the last 10 years the Congress made the RSS an idea of intolerance, anti-minority, especially anti-Muslim, and an idea of fascism.' 'That has been demolished now by Pranab Mukherjee.'
'I am in mortal danger not personally, but politically,' Mani Shankar Aiyar tells Anjali Puri.
If you don't have power in a game you are masters of, the world will walk all over you, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
Eminent Punjabi writer and Padma Shri winner Dalip Kaur Tiwana decided to return her award protesting "recurrent atrocities" on Muslims in the country, as another Kannada writer joined authors giving up their Sahitya Akademi Awards against "growing intolerance".
Twenty two years before Kabir Khan's The Forgotten Army streams on Amazon Prime on January 24, 2020, his documentary of the same name was telecast on Doordarshan. On that occasion, Kabir Khan spoke to Amberish K Diwanji/Rediff.com about Netaji's Azad Hind Fauj and its many battles for India's freedom.
'His selection is to honour the sentiment of the communal majoritarianism, satisfy the upper caste and continue the process of Hindutva.'
'A lot will depend on the first Aayog and the power it derives.'
The Union government has no 'Buy India' policy, but has a 'Buy Air India' policy.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently extended a Rs 8,000-crore (Rs 80 billion) central support for building roads in Jammu & Kashmir, Union Cabinet's approval for the big-ticket announcement came in barely 48 hours.
'Today the Chinese think they can slap India, and there will be no consequences.' 'They must be made to feel the consequences through any and all means,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee would seek to placate the hawks in the RSS by stating that the writing of history should not be one-sided. At the same time, he would project a moderate 'Nehruvian' image of himself as the archetypal liberal politician who would strive to attain a balance between conflicting viewpoints. A fascinating profile of the former prime minister and Bharat Ratna by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Shankar Raghuraman.
If an elected government had been sworn in, Jung's tenure and the government would have been more or less co-terminus and Jung would have been just the ceremonial head of Delhi. Now, he will run Delhi, pending another round of assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
'The Modi regime, after experimenting with its own versions of neighbourhood policy for 18 months, has now reached the exact stage where the Manmohan Singh government had left it in so far as our Pakistan policy is concerned,' says former senior RA&W officer Vappala Balachandran.
'It is clear that Britain is a country with a limited future,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Modi is likely to make more announcements to win or retain popularity, and put himself at the centre of things even more than now,' says T N Ninan.
'I have no problem with people from the right wing who speak with a certain integrity of position.'
'Mrinalini Sarabhai was gracious, well-read, liberal, very secular, and very well informed,' recalls film historian S Theodore Baskaran of the celebrated dancer who passed into the ages last week.
'Both reflect prejudice and short-sightedness peculiar to Mr Modi's way of thinking.'
Partial dismantling of subsidies, movement towards a more transparent policy on natural resources and moves to make India more inviting for foreign investors, are some of Modi government's big achievements.
Permissive communalism, as represented by the Sachar Committee report, cannot become the basis to counter the threat of majoritarianism, says D L Sheth.
'India-US relations seem to have soured when the US expected India to not only balance China in the Asia-Pacific, but also make concessions to Pakistan as a price for US technological help,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'there is absolutely no question that the Hinduism of the mob-lynchers, the people who have actually gone and killed others because of what they are eating or how they are worshipping or the faith they belong to or what they're doing professionally, those are, to my mind, not Hindus at all.' 'Hinduism needs to be reclaimed for the Hindus who are not bigots.'
Nehru's sentimental attachment to the Mountbattens deeply vitiated the Kashmir issue. It was certainly the most important factor for the failure to find a solution in the first years of the conflict.
'The real test will be in defence-related deals, for instance the Javelin anti-tank missile: Is the US willing to co-develop something with India, on terms that will support the 'Make in India' initiative? Is there defence technology transfer? Or will it dump old junk on India?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
'What if Modi becomes the fascist the leftists paints him as? What if he does suspend the Constitution and declares himself the ruler, with support from the army? What exactly will you do, Mr Leftie?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Some in the Congress believe the party should, somewhat brazenly, claim the cause of fighting corruption as its own. But the Congress's idea of fighting corruption is nothing but tinkering with laws, it lacks the stomach to take on the corrupt,' feels T V R Shenoy.
'Xi Jinping got a dose of Modi's medicine inside the tent where he was being hosted on the banks of the Sabarmati river.' 'Modi reportedly told him, looking deep into his eyes: "This was not expected of your country. Can you tell me when the troops are withdrawing?".'
In an interview to Rediff.com's Anita Katyal, Shambhu Srivastava speaks about the need of breaking out of the communal-secular paradigm and focusing on the Congress party's poor performance and its track record in fuelling communalism.
'A participant in many rounds of the border talks with China once told me that China seemed not interested in resolving the border issue as it wanted to keep it as a ready excuse to intervene in the sub-continent,' says Colonel (retd) Anil A Athale.
