'Only then will we withdraw the agitation.'
'They are calling me an accused without even an inquiry.' 'The video was fabricated and doctored. Now the truth is coming out.'
'This is against the Constitution and we will oppose it tooth and nail.'
'If Israel had stuck to the peace accords, Hamas would have had no one to fight.'
'There are other prisoners too who are behaving in a good manner, but they are not being released sooner.'
The new government order to review the service record of employees who have completed 30 years in the job to identify inefficient or corrupt staff and retire them prematurely has invited the ire of labour unions, who believe that this is a step towards privatisation.
'If the Congress party wants to take on the BJP it cannot do it in this fuddy-duddy, grand old party, style.'
'Since I was held at gunpoint I had no option but to give them the car keys.' 'They took the car and drove away.'
'Gaumutra kills all bacteria,' says the Congress corporator from Mumbai, who wants cow urine to clean the city's hospitals.
Bharat Pardeshi, one of the leaders from the All India Railway Act Apprentice Association, spoke to Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf about why they had to resort to the unpopular move, disrupting the lives of thousands of railway commuters in Mumbai.
'We cannot accept that this incident was not in the knowledge of the home ministry.' 'If they had no knowledge about this incident, then it is a big intelligence failure as the Union home ministry has no idea what is going on in Manipur and what the state police is doing.'
'I can barely see anything in the news about the farmer protests, and all I've seen of Nirav Modi is that he can't come home because he's busy, and that the CBI is writing letters begging him to please at least call the Indian embassy, no?'
'In many cases, I didn't take money because the Indian students had run out of cash.' 'The biggest high was the blessings that these students's parents used to give me on the phone or send messages thanking me on WhatsApp.'
'I should not have lifted my hand, but whoever eats the meat of a cow, whom we Hindus consider our mother, these things will happen.'
'The government, through the media, is saying that everything is normal in Kashmir, but I just want them to give this in writing and let a judicial commission see it.
Mumbai top cop Rakesh Maria's trusted man Dinesh Kadam also helped crack the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts' case, sent Abu Salem to jail and helped bust the Indian Mujahideen terror network in Mumbai.
'It was Maulana Azad's foresight which created the IITs, UGC, science academies across the country.'
'Javed Ahmed was no mastermind of the riots, and this is not mentioned in the FIR against him either.'
Cities, roads, stations rechristened in the time of Modi.
'I am happy Sanjay Raut and Sharad Pawar changed the game of Maharashtra politics.'
Newly-elected CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury speaks to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
'They are trying to make the situation bad for Indian Railways so that they can hand it over to private companies.'
'These new laws give complete (impunity) to the police.' 'Whatever little accountability the police had, all that is gone now.' 'There is no accountability mechanism against the police for abusing or misusing in the new laws.'
'Our movement was not about putting any flag on the Red Fort, but it is to secure our livelihood.'
'Oh god, these workers will now spread the virus! Their only concern was to think about themselves.' 'The middle class was only concerned with flattening the curve of coronavirus and they were not bothered about how these workers live in one room with 10 people or 20 people.'
'On January 22, when the last round of talks took place, the farmer leaders were told by Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar that the government is also prepared.' 'And they did this.'
'Shraddha tries hard to rescue the film, but the script totters so badly in the second half that any salvage seems impossible,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Upper castes who complain against reservations are fighting only for their own castes.'
An unemployed migrant becomes a much sought after Baba right before Syed Firdaus Ashraf's eyes.
'The upper caste elite's belief that they are casteless is a belief that is available only to the upper castes. Because all the lower castes are reminded by society every day what their caste is.'
'BJP takes Lingayat support and later on they throw them out, ditch them and humiliate them.' After months of speculation Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa resigned from the chief minister's post. A powerful Lingayat community leader, Yediyurappa could not even complete his term, owing to the internal politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party. So how does Lingayat community view his exit? Congress working president, Karnataka state and Lingayat leader Eshwar Khandre speaking to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com, said, "The community which voted him and felt that they will lead the government are now disenchanted."
'Today in Uttar Pradesh all big parties like Samajwadi Party, BJP or even Bahujan Samaj Party are out to woo smaller parties as they know the Hindu votes are getting divided.'
But for the PM's decision, my teenage daughter, a child of the post-economic reforms generation, could never have imagined the Socialist India that remains so much a part of my growing up years, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
From July 27, 2017, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf, my daughter will have to learn that there are only two most important things in life: Power and money.
'The government is saying that essential commodities are exempted, but on the ground there is no competent officer from the government who can say which is an essential commodity and which is not.'
'Right now, only religious groups of Hindus and Muslims are working on the ground.' 'The government is missing.'
The entire campaign in Lucknow is based on Narendra Modi -- there is little mention of the BJP candidate, a certain Rajnath Singh. Some locals wonder, 'Rajnathji is not coming to campaign in Lucknow. How will he take care of this city after he wins?' Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com reports from Lucknow.
'Gehlot is right now doing things, which are not appreciated by the Gandhis.' 'The Gandhis have realised that their writ does not run in Rajasthan, therefore they have deflected the issue to Kharge.'
She could not believe how much India had changed since the last time she experienced it first hand.
'The message they want to send to the country is that they can do anything by hook or crook'
