'India is a huge market for Chinese goods. I don't think a war stands to logic when you have economic compulsions, but then Chinese are known to do illogical things.'
'Just like we have accepted that more Indians have hypertension and diabetes, lower lung capacity of Indians should not be construed as normal.'
Atheela Abdullah, who grew up in a small village in the Malabar region of Kerala shares her inspiring success story.
'AAP has to run a marathon and could face a new crisis on the way. The beauty is to learn from the crisis, correct the mistakes and move forward.'
'There is no difference between the earlier government and the present government.' 'They are all following the economic policy based on the Chicago School of thought.' 'This school of thought says the government should have very little role in governing the country and the majority of the work should be handed over to the private sector.' 'This has not succeeded in the US.' 'Yet, it is being tried here by people like Arvind Subramaniam, Arvind Panagariya, Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan.'
Manish Sabharwal is chairman of TeamLease, which has helped hire 1.4 million sales and customer service reps and logistics employees such as couriers for companies across India since it was founded in 2002.
'What is surprising is the scale and spontaneity of the mobilisation and the social profile of the mobilisation.' 'Not just the youth, but women, children and families are part of this now.' 'This is completely unprecedented.'
'Lakhs of engineers graduate every year in India and the IT industry used to be the primary recruiter. That is going to end.'
'We are allowing FDI on the terms of the investors, multinationals.' 'We bow down to whatever they say.' 'When they say you open this sector, we open that sector.'
'I will be happy if walls are built between India and China!' 'We are going to nooks and corners of the country to make ordinary people realise the need to buy Indian goods so that our workers get jobs.'
'It is a national shame that the only country that enacted a food security act is now better known as the land of farmer suicides. Indian farming can change only if national irrigation policy is implemented in totality,' Dr M S Swaminathan tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
'Sasikala definitely has an emotional advantage over the others, but there are very seasoned politicians with a strong support base.' 'For the time being, they may toe her line.'
Start-ups in the information technology domain are quite common these days. But three young entrepreneurs have ventured into a comparatively lesser known area of food: snacks. Arul Murugan, co-founder, Chloroplast Foods, tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com, how he is bootstrapping his start-up.
'The BJP had no traction in Karnataka and Siddaramaiah would have scraped through if he had not done all that he did.' 'When you pander to one community, the other community gets irritated.' 'Then, when you make fun of the cow and the treating of the cow as sacred, in your effort to belittle the Sangh Parivar and its obscurantism, you are hurting your normal voters too.' 'It is okay to make fun of the Sangh Parivar, but it is not okay to make fun of all Hindus.'
'The sadhus and sanyasis of UP are not for any economics.' 'They only know the religious agenda and the RSS will support them.' 'Modi does not have full control of the party at the ground level like Indira Gandhi had.'
'Our case should act as a warning. It is high time change comes to society. This is not the way to treat a woman. I don't want any other woman to have a fate like mine.'
'He can say justice has not been done in accordance with the free will of the MLAs without a secret ballot and also by the issuing of a whip.' 'He can ask for a fresh show of strength.'
'I may not indulge in chest thumping to express my patriotism every day.' 'I may be cynical about many things happening in our country.' 'I may not roar Bharat Mata Ki Jai at the top of my voice. But I still love my country, just as one loves one's parents with all their weaknesses.' 'Does that make me any less of a patriot?' asks Shobha Warrier.
Dr Tiju Joseph, a foreign service officer who studied medicine, has set up the first public online blood donors registry in the UAE.
'After three days, most people resigned to the idea of living with minimum facilities. By then, they had stopped getting angry, irritated and worried. As days passed by, one heard less and less complaints.' 'In a crisis like this, you expect the administration to help people but I didn't see any administration here. I saw only NGOs and people helping themselves' 'I feel people have not leant anything from this disaster. Unless we learn to respect nature, learn to take corrective measures, this will happen again and again.' N Rajasekharan Nair recounts his ordeal as the flood waters rose around his apartment complex.
'The Cauvery river has become excessively politicised by all political parties.' 'They see a vote bank in an emotive issue of this kind.'
'If jobs do not happen, the demographic dividend we have will become a demographic disaster.'
'We feel there is definitely something murky in the system.' 'Will anyone believe that Nirav Modi will go to a branch and bribe a low-level officer?' 'Just look at the people with whom he had moved around.'
Talented students in small towns often don't get into national-level colleges simply because they don't get proper training to write entrance exams. Ignus is working to change that.
'We are against Alibaba investing in Paytm.' 'We are against the concessions given to Paytm.' 'In fact, we want Paytm to close down because of its alliance with Alibaba.'
'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.'
'When you have the freedom to have mosques, the freedom to have madrasas and the freedom to pray, why should you turn to terrorism?' 'Both mother and father are equally important to every person. Similarly, both our country and religion are important for a citizen.' 'I would say that terrorism has no religion. A small segment of people from all religions are terrorists.'
'Instead of camping in the cities and leading the party, leaders have to go to the interiors of the country.' 'The Congress is losing touch with the common man.'
'There were days when there was no rice at home and we ate only jackfruit seeds.' 'They feel I, a lowliest human being, a tribal, have no right to go abroad and study.' 'The humiliation was so bad that I was broken inside.'
'What authority has a secular government to administer Hindu temples? When Hindu temples are ruled by secular governments, what religious freedom do Hindus have?'
'Growth is predicated on the misery of large sections of people.' 'Maybe Hindutva will be used to suppress any such unrest.'
'They don't just kill their enemies, they chop off limbs, sever heads.' 'How can anyone kill a teacher in front of small children and a son in front of his parents?'
'I feel that since they know the problems, in the next 2 to 3 quarters, these problems could be resolved.' 'But they should realise that things are not working well right now.'demonetisation did not have a huge negative impact on the economy. But when it comes to GST, those who are looking for loopholes find it difficult to adapt.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
Prashant Lingam and Aruna Kappagantula are changing the way houses are being built in India.
'Our religion had some important philosophies regarding trans people that cannot be ignored.' 'Contemporary India is refusing and ignoring transgender people.'
'2017-2018 will be one of the best years for the country.' 'The wheel has finally started moving in the right direction. It should pick up momentum in the next 8 to 9 months to have a positive impact on the economy'
'India is the number one IT destination in the world as we have the largest number of IT professionals in the world.'
ISB professor Krishnamurthy Subramanian tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com that Modi government's continuation of tax terrorism is driving away investors.
'Communal tension and violent mobs have been part of our country, whichever government is in power. What has happened since the BJP came into power is that individuals or group activities asserting Hindutva have become louder, more aggressive.' 'Now we are finding ourselves in a country where reasoning and thinking have no place, the power lies with the goons.' 'I find any ban, whether on what we write, what we eat, how we dress etc, absolutely abominable. They have no place in a democracy.' Shashi Deshpande on why she joined the writers' protest against the growing intolerance in India.
