Veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book came out recently, speaks to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
'Without destroying idol worship, you cannot destroy caste because idol worship keeps religious communities in its religious ideology. The RSS is a big promoter of idol worship.' 'They may have an OBC PM, but neither the RSS or the VHP talk about an OBC becoming a priest. The equation is: Business in Baniya hands. Religion in Brahmin hands. OBC votes for the BJP.'
'If policy-makers hold the lives of animals to be more significant than the welfare of a human populace, I can't believe that they're likely to do anything progressive for India.'
Sree Sreenivasan recalls his encounters with the pioneer of sound who passed away on Friday and gives a sense of how many lives he touched -- in big and small ways.
'The BJP had ruled earlier too, but nothing of this sort happened then... I don't say the government is behind the attacks, but they don't do anything to stop the attacks.' 'The prime minister has to tell the perpetrators that it is not in the interest of the government that such incidents happen.' 'When somebody says all Indians are Hindus, responsible people should ask him to stop and assure the country that this is not the opinion of the government. But it is not happening and it is quite unfortunate,' Cardinal Baselios Cleemis tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
'The starting point of the Udta Punjab casting was that we didn't think stars would do a film like this, so we'd take non-stars. As the names kept rolling in and we had Kareena Kapoor and Shahid and Alia Bhatt, I was like yaar yeh ho kya raha hai?'
'He was believed to finish his own work in an hour and spend the remainder of the time walking from one office to another, sitting down with the harried junior staff and helping them sort out the problems they were working on.'
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