Incisive Editor, brilliant scholar on Islam, and now BJP leader, M J Akbar is at his intellectual best when he dissects the Muslim world and its problems, and offers up a solution from his unique perspective, as he did in this recent speech at the 10th R N Kao Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.
The apex court said the faith of Hindus that Lord Ram was born at the site was undisputed, and he is symbolically the owner of the land.
'Those who have followed politics even when there was no Twitter know what the word 'jumlebaaz' means,' says Utkarsh Mishra.
One should appreciate the sagacity and audacity of JRD and Nani Palkhivala in founding TCS on April 1, 1968. At that time there was no Microsoft or Intel, SAP or Accenture, much less Google.
They needed a person who could build and execute their vision: A frontiersman; a problem solver and an institution builder. It was their and India's good fortune that Faqir Chand Kohli more than measured up to their requirements and indeed laid the foundation to take TCS to unimaginable heights and to the giant success that it is today. Shivanand Kanavi salutes the incomparable F C Kohli, who passed into the ages last week.
'Most Hindus believe in living in peace with their Muslim neighbours and vice versa.' 'It is this India we have to preserve.'
Historian Stanley Wolpert, author of several books on India, passed into the ages recently. We remember Professor Wolpert with Rajeev Srinivasan's March 1997 interview published on the occasion of his controversial book on Jawaharlal Nehru.
At the stroke of midnight on Friday, Bangladesh and India swapped tiny islands of land, ending one of the world's most intractable border disputes that has kept thousands in stateless limbo for nearly seven decades.
'Patel was more in tune with the popular mood than Jawaharlal Nehru. While the principle that Hindus and Muslims should be able to live together remained central to Nehru's vision for India, the Sardar was less sentimental.' 'Nehru would angrily face down mobs himself, rushing from trouble spot to trouble spot. A veritable tent city, filled with Muslim refugees, sprouted on the lawns of his bungalow... Mountbatten feared Nehru's impulsiveness would get him killed, and assigned soldiers to watch over him.' Nisid Hajari's Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition casts fresh light on the events and personalities behind the horrific division of the subcontinent which haunts the India and Pakistan to this day.
'Godse is no more, but the mindset which gave birth to such distorted philosophy is unfortunately still with us.'
The main culprit in vitiating the inter community/caste/class relations has been the so called 'targeted' approach. This is nothing but discrimination on the basis of faith/caste/class. When an equally poor and deprived child is denied scholarship, despite equal merit, resentment begins to brew, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
The Congress accused Yogi Adityanath of withdrawing cases of heinous crimes such as rioting in Muzaffarnagar on religious lines.
'... That they should emerge as role-models to be emulated by the fellow countrymen; and that the middle classes should not stick only to hate-filled and scornful criticism and condemnation against the state of affairs,' remembers Mohammad Sajjad.
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India's fear of small states derives from memories of Partition and the paranoid view that it will break up under 'too many' states. It's time to shed such fears and bite the 'states' reorganisation' bullet. India won't crumble under a few more Telanganas, Vidarbhas or Gorkhalands, says Praful Bidwai.
The kidnapping of MQM workers is a message from Pakistani security agencies that any show of allegiance to Altaf Hussain will be met with a brutal response, says Aveek Sen.
'We want to protect our history, we want to protect our people from getting overwhelmed by the influx from Bangladesh, that is why the people of Assam are out in the streets,' says former Assam chief minister and Asom Gana Parishad leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.
'One hopes the younger generation sees Savarkar him for what he was and does not view him through a distorted prism.' 'This is the least one could do for someone who devoted his whole life to Indian freedom struggle, elimination of caste, succour to Dalits, and instilling of strategic culture in India,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The Dalai Lama is in a tearing hurry.' 'The 'reincarnation' card remains unplayed, and time is running out.' 'Is something big being planned for the event of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in Leh in November?' asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Claude Arpi salutes Lieutenant General Zorawar Chand Bakshi, India's most decorated general, who passed into the ages recently.
'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.
'It is perhaps a sense of intellectual inadequacy, of an ingrained inferiority complex born of the years when the BJP languished in the margins of Indian politics and society that, when faced with the soaring ideas about Indian pluralism, the Hindutva camp turns its face so resolutely against Nehru,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'As events at Kargil and Pakistan's continued support to terror activities in India prove, Pakistan has always felt that the break-up/destruction of India was within its capability,' notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The submission was vehemently opposed by senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, representing deity 'Ram Lalla', who said: "This is totally unwarranted".
On a visit to India in 2013, writer Ved Mehta -- who passed into the ages on Sunday January 10, 2021 - gave Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel a rare glimpse into his state of mind and what he thinks of the changes he encounters in his motherland.
The Muslim parties also attacked 2003 ASI report which had found certain remains, idols and artefacts suggesting existence of a structure before Babri Masjid.
'In the first elections, Hindutva forces got only 6% of the votes and won only 10 seats.' 'It was a great defeat for them.' 'They have held that grouse against Nehru since then.'
Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com recalls the many ways in which he has been influenced by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
'Gone too soon, Astad, but I know whenever we meet in that world beyond, I will watch you dance.' Swarupa Dutt remembers a remarkable human being and a magnificent performer who left the world poorer when he passed into the ages on Thursday.
Gandhi has been attacking the BJP government for allegedly inking the deal at a much higher price than the one the previous United Progressive Alliance regime had negotiated to benefit 'one businessman'.
Shah said the Congress was not rooted in any ideology or principles and was sort of a "special purpose vehicle" to secure freedom.
'Your constant reiteration on the lack of religious freedom in India has sown doubts about the kind of information that you are being fed and based on which you seem to be making adverse references to India and its tradition of religious tolerance.'
Each year Rabindra Jayanti is celebrated with fervour and festivity across Bangladesh.
The US on Tueday released new set of documents that it recovered from the Abbottabad hideout of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
'The one thing India has over these two States, whose toughness awes us, is our ability to embrace diversity with ease. 'The way ahead lies in learning from Vajpayee's method, not in Xi Jinping's,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
'Manto is the only writer to grasp what the project of Pakistan would eventually mean,' says Aakar Patel, who has translated a collection of Saadat Hasan Manto's essays in a just-released book Why I Write.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday dedicated birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as National Unity Day, saying a nation that disregards its history cannot create one and made a veiled reference to anti-Sikh riots that followed then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination this day 30 years ago.
'A dangerous and false binary is now surfacing in Indian political discourse, which must be firmly rejected.' 'It is that we have to choose between freedom and development.' 'For us freedom is neither merely an instrument for development nor to be subordinated to development.' 'It is, as our founding fathers proclaimed early in our freedom struggle, 'our birthright' on which we shall never compromise.' 'Growth, wealth and development are fruits of democracy, not substitutes.' Dr Manmohan Singh's thoughts on democracy: A Must Read!
'If Ruttie had been alive, Jinnah would never have turned communal.'
'Nobody in AMU supports Jinnah's two-nation theory.' 'It is shameful we are debating Jinnah and not education or employment.'
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