Cities, roads, stations rechristened in the time of Modi.
'Gaumutra kills all bacteria,' says the Congress corporator from Mumbai, who wants cow urine to clean the city's hospitals.
'Switching loyalty from one party to another is completely unfair as it devalues my vote.'
'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.'
'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.'
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.
'Our movement was not about putting any flag on the Red Fort, but it is to secure our livelihood.'
'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.'
'I am happy Sanjay Raut and Sharad Pawar changed the game of Maharashtra politics.'
'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."
'...it gets a survey report that they are going to lose elections.' 'The fear of losing elections will make them immediately conduct a caste census.'
'They fear their caste privilege will be exposed if there is an OBC caste census.'
'The right wing has worked for 70-80 years at the grass roots before it burst onto social media.' 'Social media is an extension of its formidable work in society.' 'If you think you can fight them on social media, forget it. You can't.'
'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.'
Less than half the ministers in Team Yogi are not long-term BJP members. Many old-timers have been dropped.
'Use of the word 'genocide' for Kashmiri Pandits is absolutely wrong.'
'Ajit Pawar's speech leaves no room for reconciliation.'
'Priyanka did draw huge crowds and eventually all of those ended up voting for the Samajwadi Party.' 'The voters today are smart enough to vote for the party which they know is going to win or they know this party will come second, but no way will they vote for a party which will come third or fourth.'
'You need a leader whom India can identify with and I cannot think of any other leader except Sachin Pilot in the Congress party.'
'If Mayawati had performed better, then the BJP would have had a much tougher time to win UP.' 'The present gap in number of seats between the BJP and SP would have got reduced.'
'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.
'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.'
Glimpses of the CWC meeting, which was meant to formulate a plan to revive the party from the death throes of electoral irrelevance, but...
Newly-elected CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury speaks to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
'Right now, only religious groups of Hindus and Muslims are working on the ground.' 'The government is missing.'
'Had the Congress made Sidhu its CM face, they would have won 80 out of 117 seats.'
An unemployed migrant becomes a much sought after Baba right before Syed Firdaus Ashraf's eyes.
'We cannot afford to be complacent about our food security needs.'
'When the Congress is put against someone like Narendra Modi, they do not have anything new to offer to the people of India.'
'The decision to supply free food grains is not an economically sound decision because the government will find it very difficult in future to charge anything for food grains.'
'Israel has received an extremely hard and rude reminder that it cannot go ahead and talk of normalisation of relations with other Arab countries without addressing the issues pertaining to Palestine.'
'Putin has set aside all the rules and now he is deciding the rules.'
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.
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.
As the Aam Aadmi Party heads for a resounding win in Delhi, Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists the reasons behind Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's triumph.
'The message they want to send to the country is that they can do anything by hook or crook'
'They want to wind up Osho's Pune operation, take the money and move out of India.'
She could not believe how much India had changed since the last time she experienced it first hand.
'One cannot avoid speculating whether there was something else at play that led to the uncovering of this saga.'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances