'The coronavirus has provided each one of us a chance to press the 'reset' button. I take this National Medical Emergency to announce a process of national healing.' 'As of midnight tonight, my government will drop all talk of NRC and NPR, and my Muslim brethren should sleep peacefully that this is as much their country as mine.'
'Even today, Emergency excesses are being benchmarked and have become reference points for gross violation of human rights by fascist-minded "leaders". Corruption and criminality are the outcome and India has been drifting towards "State kleptocracy", feels M G Devasahayam.
'His negotiations with Idi Amin and his men for compensation for the Indians, who left Uganda, were particularly tough. Apparently, Amin warned him that the body of the British negotiator, who came earlier, was found in a roadside gutter... As Jagat Mehta's special assistant during the last two years of his tenure as foreign secretary, I saw for myself how his conviction, courage and patriotism enabled him to fight against heavy odds, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The Congress on Wednesday suggested that Jaswant Singh has been handed out poetic justice by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which expelled him today in the wake of his controversial book, projecting Mohammad Ali Jinnah as greater than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. "We had rejected the contents of the book. The BJP has rejected the author himself," All India Congress Committee general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said.
'She was once asked what the secret to political leadership was and she said it was the ability to like all kinds of people.' 'I don't think Rahul fundamentally likes people -- that's probably why he can't deal with them and it shows.' 'Sonia is a more talented political mobiliser than her son, but I think the decline of the Congress set in in 1969...'
At a function to commemorate the 125th Foundation Day of the Congress, party president Sonia Gandhi paid glowing tributes to former premiers Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, but made no reference to P V Narasimha Rao, who was prime minister between 1991 and 1996.Gandhi sought to give credit to Rajiv Gandhi for the economic liberalisation in the Narsimha Rao regime when Manmohan Singh was the finance minister.
There were Vedic mantras engraved along with prayer songs for Lord Shiva, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna. Neither the government nor the people of Faisalabad demanded that the carvings be removed. I felt very happy to see Sanskrit shloka
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said attempts were being made to vilify Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the wake of Jaswant Singh's book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah and said it was a malicious campaign to distort history for narrow partisan interests.
Following is the text of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's address from the ramparts of Red Fort on the occasion of Independence Day
On the occasion of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's 125th birth anniversary, Maharashtra Chief Minister joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan.
'We all know that when the Babri Masjid was demolished, P V Narasimha Rao was prime minister.' 'He did not do anything to stop the demolition.'
'It is a diamond which has a very long competitive history.'
Gowri Ramnarayan explores the world of Kalki Krishnamurthy whose magnificent novel Ponniyin Selvan has inspired Mani Ratnam's latest film PS I.
This was a rare instance when Gandhi raised an issue during the Zero Hour.
'Indira Gandhi was a great influence on Sonia Gandhi. Like her mother-in-law, Sonia is a very good listener. She dresses very much like her mother-in-law. She maintains her figure.' K Natwar Singh pays tribute to Indira Gandhi.
'Muslims are depressed and disillusioned.' 'The safety valve is that we still have a multicultural mosaic in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.'
Uttar Pradesh legislator Sribhagwan Sharma, alias Guddu Pandit, who was arrested in Noida on Sunday after a woman had lodged rape and atrocities complaint against him, has been admitted to the Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh, following a complaint of chest pain.
"I am pained at the needless and irrelevant controversies that are sought to be raised in the book published by Dr K L Nanadanji and presented to the Hon'ble President of India on May 9, 2008. I have no desire to join issue with any one on this matter and I respect the views of all my colleaguues, who have thought it proper to comment on it," Arjun said in his statement.
India has been taking an "over-cautious" view on Tibet, the Dalai Lama today said while seeking New Delhi's help to resolve the vexed issue.
Utkarsh Mishra explains what Sardar Patel thought and said about the RSS.
Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad during his retirement speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday summed up his more than four-decade-old political career in few Urdu couplets and a brief speech.
Lata Mangeshkar was my introduction, the beginning, the basic, the identity of film music. Sukanya Verma salutes The Legend.
When a country of the size of India begins to grow at the rate of 9% per annum, with the prospect of even higher rates of growth, energy becomes a critical issue
When Dr Manmohan Singh arrives in Nigeria on a three-day state visit from October 14, he will be the first Indian prime minister to do so in 45 years. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had visited the oil rich nation in 1962, informed Nalin Suri while giving details about Dr Singh's imminent visit. "The prime minister is visiting at the invitation of the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, H E Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar Adua," Suri said.
Taking exception to RSS chief K S Sudarshan's glowing remarks on Indira Gandhi, NDA convenor George Fernandes on Tuesday wrote to him saying that any appreciation of the late prime minister amounted to 'endorsing dictatorship'.
Although much loved amongst the right wing in India, few Indians know of and about Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Respected by Mahatma Gandhi, Malaviya was a long standing member of the Congress party, and was one of the founding members of the far-right party the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha. So here's a rundown of top ten things you didn't know about Madan Mohan Malaviya.
'Judging by the conduct of two governors of Kerala and one governor from Kerala, Congressmen treated Raj Bhavan as a transition point before taking a flight back into active politics.'
The Bharti Foundation and its associates have decided to open 1,000 primary schools in villages across the country with an investment of Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion).
"Why did Modi ji's government send more vaccines abroad, while vaccinating less people in India?"
The Citizenship Amendment Bill would possibly be the first piece of legislation that is perniciously discriminatory on the basis of religion/faith, says Mohammad Sajjad.
A lot of the factors towards which the government has pointed to justify its moves on Jammu and Kashmir are in fact valid. Only, most of them have little to do with Article 370, says David Devadas.
The text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address from the Red Fort on Monday.\n
'Will Muslims in large numbers react positively, especially in the context of the events of the last thirty years?' 'In the process, could Modi end up alienating his core supporters?' A fascinating excerpt from Jaithirth Rao's The Indian Conservative : A History of Indian Right-Wing Thought.
PM Narendra Modi's proposed visit to Israel is "worrisome" as it undermines India's position on Palestine, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said on Wednesday.
'We saw how vigorous democracy was when it dislodged authoritarianism under Indira Gandhi. We saw its vigour again when it voted Mr Modi out of humble origins as prime minister. It was Nehru who laid that foundation for India and what is worrying today is Modi's rather imperial style of functioning,' says writer Nayantara Sahgal.
Does your party stand for the secularism of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru? a group of Mumbai residents asked in a telegram to Sonia Gandhi.
Taking a dig at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's remarks on Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh said if the 'Iron Man' had become the nation's first prime minister then both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh would have been non-existent.
'He was a very shrewd politician. He was a lawyer who really knew how to work the system and manipulate people in a positive sense,' says Netaji's daughter.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com finds out why Sacred Games has run into trouble.
