'We cannot believe the police encounter story at all.' 'They were in the hands of the police and they were de-weaponised.' 'They didn't have weapons. How can you kill them?'
'I am very grateful to Rajnathji that he confirmed the fact that Savarkar was a habitual mercy-seeker from the British.'
'They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc.' 'They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.'
Ahead of the elections, a lot had been spoken of the large number of leaders defecting from the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena. In fact, a month before the polls, more than two dozen Congress-NCP leaders quit and joined the BJP in hopes of riding high on the Narendra Modi wave. While for some the shift has brought in good fortune, for others it has brought loss. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com analyses how these defectors have fared.
'The buildings all around had caved in or were damaged. The trees were all uprooted. Things were very scary.'
'If you post on social media on an issue like power cuts in Tral, the police will come to your home and tell you to remove your social media post.' 'If you don't, then the local police threaten you that they will book you under PSA.' 'This is happening all the time in Kashmir.'
'As the firing started everything went haywire.'
Facing ire over his alleged inflammatory speech warning Muslims of a 'final battle', Union Minister of State for Human Resource and Development Ram Shankar Katheria claims he did not make any such comments.
'Rahul Gandhi is going to turn 54 and in India political leaders peak when they are around 60.' 'This 'bhai-behen ki jodi' has done a wonderful job for the Congress.' 'Priyanka Gandhi was a very effective campaigner.'
'Transparency is us watching the government and not the government watching us'
'Since the RJD came to power, criminals have stopped fearing the law.'
'BJP has achieved its aim by making him a regional leader dependent on them.'
'This is total fraud. You are showing me the slip of my vote but not counting it so this is fraud.'
'I am not sure of the numbers killed, but they were not as high as the use of the word 'genocide' suggests.' 'There is another meaning you could take, 'cultural genocide', in that the Pandit community is extremely small and their forced departure led to a wiping out of their culture.'
Journalist Prashant Kanojia was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police on August 18 for a retweet and has been in custody ever since.
'After the Parliament election results many people are confused and that is why this crisis has erupted
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com recounts the history of the Indian flag and how it has evolved over the years.
'Hindus have never been polarised across Maharashtra in any state election.'
'Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal are the two people who have been marked and punished'
'The Indian government evacuated its citizens from the clutches of the Taliban and Covid-hit Wuhan, so I am not worried.'
'At present there might be at least 500 Indians stuck in Iran for various reasons and we have no idea when they will come back.'
'We don't know how and why this happened as the route interlock signal works fine millions of times every day across India.'
The Bombay high court raised some key points before granting bail to actor Salman Khan.
Why is the government unwilling to disclose the winners of its DigiDhan Yojana?
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com traces how the beating up of a man in Ghaziabad went from alleged communal attack to reported regular crime in a matter of days.
How the demonetisation drives in India and Venezuela have played out.
Aam Aadmi Party calls Bhagwant Mann its people's choice for CM candidate in Punjab. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com traces what makes Mann so indispensable for his party.
'He is not acting solo.' 'The plot may have people within the Congress and outside.'
'Badle ki bhavna (revengeful politics) was never seen in Maharashtra and Indian politics, but now we are witnessing all that today.'
'There was a statement by a minister that 30,000 Kashmiri Pandits have come back to the Kashmir Valley after the abrogation of Article 370, it is all b.......t and a white lie.' 'Nobody has come back.'
'George Fernandes will always be remembered in history as the man who successfully called the railway strike.'
'...to address the serious faultlines that had got exposed during the pandemic.' 'If the economy is looking up this year, we could have been allocated an increase of at least 20%.'
'They just say we agree to your demands in the meetings, which is lip service. But on the ground they do not implement anything.'
'The decline of the Congress party and its inability to play the lead role in Opposition politics has created a space for the TMC to expand.'
'The culture of the BJP has changed and the party too has changed with this new culture. 'The BJP is having bad political management, bad man management, personal management and inter-personal relationships.' 'Therefore, people like me are not in the BJP.'
'People with vested interests in the BJP don't want the Patels to get reservation.'
'They were only chanting one slogan, "Ghar jaana hai (we want to go home)".'
'Piyush Goyal is the chief and it is always the chief who is considered to be responsible.'
Worried over those under home quarantine going out and mingling with others, the Karnataka government wants them to confirm their location through selfies.
'It will be a long time before we will see the likes of Vajpayee again.'
