'If Kerala votes back the LDF, if Tamil Nadu brings the DMK and if Bengal votes for the Trinamool, we will project a formidable opposition to the BJP.'
'People ask me from where I get the strength to fight this battle. I really do not know.' 'Perhaps God is giving me the strength as I am fighting for truth.'
'Today, political formations seem to adopt an 'us' versus 'them' approach which shows up even in their attitude towards civil servants.'
'This creates an added layer of fear.'
'The babus in Delhi are not able to understand the pain industry is facing.'
'From March 2020 to November 2021, the combined wealth of the billionaires of this country has doubled.'
'He is a busy man these days, still, he makes it a point to call me at least once a month.'
'Only when you are close to the party, will you understand what the BJP stands for.'
'When I realised that I was to take the pictures of Pandit Nehru, I was very nervous and scared.'
'What we have done is a symbol of new India; that is what a small start-up can do, a few hundreds of people coming together, developing a rocket and launching to space and succeeding at the very first attempt.'
'How can anyone ask me to stop what I have been doing since I was 6?'
J Sandhya, member, Child Rights Commission, speaks to Shobha Warrier about the recent incident where more than five hundred poor children from Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal were being sent to Kerala orphanages, and why children's rights need to be protected with vigour.
'The staff student ratio in Kerala medical colleges is already compromised as in the last few years, the Kerala government has taken a decision to admit maximum number of students in all the medical colleges.'
'My wife was asked to get out of an autorickshaw because she was married to me. My children were targeted and branded a traitor's children. In spite of the Supreme Court and the NHRC having cleared my case, the state government is yet to close it. Local politicians are behind this. Why can't they close the case, give me compensation, accepting gracefully that they have wronged me?' Dr S Nambi Narayanan, the scientist who was accused and then exonerated in the 1994 ISRO spying case, speaks to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier about his continuing travails and his recent meeting with Narendra Modi.
'As a person who has seen the treasure, I am worried about its safety.'
'You have to be a total anti-national bozo to shut down the Nokia plant in Sriperumbudur, which was the first large manufacturing plant for mobile phones in India.' 'Why was the unit shut down? Because of somebody's ego.'
'If people use the mask properly, we can confidently say that this is as protective as the best mask in the market.'<
'We still need a certain number of large public sector banks for financial inclusion and stability purposes.'
'We have been telling the government that we need handholding.' So, we sent a series of recommendations to the government, but nothing happened.' 'And the condition of industry became worse.'
'Saying the private industry will come and transform India's space programme is real moonshine!'
'If we were willing to go to Yemen, one can only imagine our condition. Only those who are desperate will go there.'
'Have you met anyone who said "I will not boycott Chinese products"?'
'In India, A3i is found mostly in southern India, and a few in Delhi. You don't see this strain much in, say, Gujarat or Maharashtra.'
'There is good indication that the economy is bouncing back, but the problem is, we should look at the eight quarters preceding March 2020.' 'The growth had fallen below 3.1% before March 2020.' 'So, the governments must realise that even if you transform the best of green shoots into banyan trees, you see only 3.1% growth.'
'Unless we get the health and economic situations right at the same time, we will not recover.'
'That would once and for all teach all the film-makers of this country a fitting lesson!'
For 'a person who has dedicated his life to teaching students, guiding them to restoring monuments and preserving our built heritage, I never dreamt that my home will one day be demolished.'
'I told him, "Balu, you have to get out of the hospital. We have to do a lot of programmes together".' 'When I kissed him on his forehead, tears started rolling from his eyes.' 'I wiped the tears away and prayed.' 'I didn't know that was the last time I was going to see my friend alive.'
Like many such cases, this case too would have remained under wraps had the survivor not exposed the villains and the crime they had commited.
'Vaccination is very important for an economy to start functioning properly.'
'...signatures.' 'But such signatures are missing in this virus.'
'The worst is possibly over because too many of us may already be infected.'
'The future looks quite bleak unless we ramp up testing and start vaccinating on a war footing.'
'Ultimately, people will revolt at one time or the other.' 'You cannot feed the public with cultural issues forever.'
'The most alarming thing is all our wells have got filled with flood waters.' 'Drinking water is going to be a big problem for all of us.'
'If at all there is going to be a second wave, it will not be very strong unlike in the US and Europe.'
'There is indeed a link between BCG vaccination and resistance to COVID-19.'
'We had a great product for the global market and we could sell it globally resulting in this amazing growth.' 'When customers come online and buy a product, they don't look at whether it is created in India or somewhere else.'
'...Rs 137 lakh crores of people's money?' 'It is not the government's money, it is people's money.'
'Once I went to meet an MLA with a complaint, but he refused to even listen to me.' 'I was insulted. That is when I decided not to vote for anyone.'
'Whenever a new film of his releases, he uses politics to hype his film.' 'Her party can manage for a short period without Jayalalithaa as the chief minister but if her absence is for a long term, the AIADMK will start crumbling and disintegrating.' 'What keeps the DMK going despite its corrupt image is it is a democratic party in comparison to the AIADMK... Also, many social welfare measures in Tamil Nadu were brought in by the DMK. So they do have a place in the political scene despite corruption.' Gnani Sankaran, the well-known political analyst, discusses the fallout of Jayalalithaa's conviction on Tamil Nadu politics with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
