'I don't think there is a need to order a fresh investigation into the complaint against Modi & Co. As the amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran said in his report to the Supreme Court, the existing material is more than sufficient to prosecute Modi and other high-ups of his regime,' Manoj Mitta, author of the book The Fiction Of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra tells Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore.
'...because we are truer to the spirit of the Hindu faith.' 'There is absolutely no question that the Hinduism of the mob lynchers, the people who have killed others because of what they are eating or how they are worshipping or the faith they belong to or what they're doing professionally, those are, to my mind, not Hindus at all.'
'In the final analysis, all Budgets everywhere are like the schemes hatched by A A Milne's lovable Winnie-the-Pooh.' 'They may be well-intended, but often go awry.' 'Although Pooh and his friends agree that he 'has very little brain', he is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense.' 'This Budget at a first glance does not appear to belong to that latter category,' says economist Shreekant Sambrani.
Aam Aadmi Party spokespersons, Ashutosh, Ashish Khetan and Raghav Chadha, are adept at turning issues on their head and putting up a good offence in their defence.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy tells rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why the UPA lost in the general elections, the decline of the Left and what he expects from the Centre.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the larger interest of the public sector would be fully protected.
'We wanted to make a true coming-of-age story since all of us have been through adolescence.' 'Most people are afraid of commenting on what these boys go through behind closed doors.' 'We just wanted to bring out that truth. People know what adolescents do, but they do not know how they do it.'
Has the Modi government ensured that the MEA keeps abreast of the times, asks Ambassador Vivek Katju.
A soldier cannot justifiably demand faster, easier promotions based on frequent field tenures
A glance back at some of the important ups and down Indian Inc faced in 2018.
Under attack over the alleged power projects scam in Arunachal Pradesh, Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday rejected allegations of wrongdoing and said those who have "planted" the story against him "will be beaten up with shoes".
With Tamil Nadu's economy getting increasingly debt-ridden with each passing budget, any concession to the Centre on the tax front, the state government has argued, would only help forgotten 'minor parties' to start hoping of a revival, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The attack on the Pathankot base constituted an act of war. Yet Modi's only public comment up until now on that attack has been to blame it on "enemies of humanity".' 'Modi came to power talking tough about Pakistan. But in office, he has pursued a Pakistan policy that has lost both direction and purpose,' argues Brahma Chellaney.
The population in Gaza has, for almost a decade, been facing Israel-created 'blockage' from the rest of the world. The isolation has given rise to tunnel phenomenon, an underground route for the procurement of essentials, says Ajey Lele
'What I mean by the BJP's political mafia raj is they descend in such a way that they want to form the government anyhow and murder democracy, no matter what.' 'Knowing Amit Shah, knowing Parrikar, knowing their style of working, they will engineer a split in the Congress.'
'The forces of good are on the run.' 'But dark times also challenge people to fight.' 'I believe Indians will rise against these dark times.'
British military's role in the 1984 Operation Blue Star to flush out militants from the Golden Temple was "limited" and "purely advisory", Foreign Secretary William Hague told the British parliament on Tuesday.
Senior journalist Sandeep Unnithan, author of Black Tornado, a semi-official account of the 26/11 attacks, was on Rediff.com chat on November 26. In what was a frank and instructive interaction Rediff users spoke to the scribe about his views on the status of security and possible upgrades to the same.
'The National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party, as recent events suggest, are quite content as New Delhi's collaborators rather than trying to be true representatives of the Kashmiri people,' says Athar Parvaiz.
Amidst reports of Congress' confabulations with the Rashtriya Janata Dal for a secular alliance in Bihar in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday took a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the Congress preferring Lalu Prasad over him and said such an 'opportunistic' alliance was not a cause of worry for it.
The truth is that few ministries in the Modi sarkar are working on new and updated legislation of any kind.
Congress accuses Centre of 'protecting' state BJP chief's son.
The Bill at best makes the existing public distribution system a legal right, an aspect that seems of little consequence to the lords of high finance, whose primary anxiety is the FSB-by-numbers.
Every blade of grass and grain of sand in Mehrangir has a story to tell: The story of how one of the greatest sons of India lived here, planned and executed from here a technological and scientific enterprise which became the envy of the world. The government must save Mehrangir for future generations, says Dr K S Parthasarathy.
Attacking the note ban move, Yechury said the PM's assertion that it will impact terror funding has not yielded any result.
The underlying tone of a call for separate Mumbai city is always seen as a class war and a linguistic war, says Neeta Kolhatkar
'After Rajan is back in India, our resident dons are almost down. I won't say that they are out. So, now the obvious question is about Dawood, and the present government, I think, is more than willing to address that issue.' 'I think the political system made this kind of people; the corporate world made this kind of people. I have mentioned in my book that even the banks were using these outlaws to get their money back.'
Swadeshi economist, columnist and chartered accountant S Gurumurthy speaks to Shobha Warrier about one year of Modi Sarkar.
In the first part of an exclusive interview with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com on the eve of the first year of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, BJP President Amit Shah talks about the government's achievements and the controversy over the land ordinance.
A former law intern, who accused ex-Supreme Court judge A K Ganguly of sexual harassment, has hit back at him for denying the charges and hinted that she may file a police complaint.
'Indira Gandhi, it appears, did not to consult her Cabinet colleagues, or diplomats, or civil servants when she decided to sign the agreement in Shimla.' 'We ruefully recall Bhutto's perfidy and the Indian prime minister's gullibility,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
Chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian discusses the Budget, goods and services tax, Centre-state relationship and larger issues facing the economy
In the absence of a conducive environment, India should not show any "hurry" to hold talks with Pakistan when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits New York later this month, BJP president Rajnath Singh said.
Babulal 'Bob' Bera, US Congressman Ami Bera's 83-year-old father, faces five years in prison.
Modi today needs BJP CMs and non-party regional leaders to win votes and build alliances, but he will over-rule them and treat them like dirt once they have served their electoral purpose. Make no mistake: Modi is incurably authoritarian and will brook no dissent -- so long as the RSS is on board, says Praful Bidwai.
Why is the BJP playing 'competitive politics' where there is scope or room for none? The release of 5 Indian fishermen on death row in Sri Lanka was a victory for India's quiet diplomacy of long years in the matter -- and not for loud politics by parties in the country.
'This is not the handiwork of ordinary sub inspectors and constables.' 'If the police claim there was a scuffle between them and these five men, then how come none of the policemen were killed, or even hit by a bullet?'
Hindu American Foundation: 'As an organisation that works on issues affecting Hindu minorities... in the civil war although all groups were affected, Hindu temples and Hindu institutions were disproportionately affected, and Hindus continue to be affected.' Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United States Prasad Kariyawasam: 'Assume that Sri Lanka is referred to the ICC through the UN Security Council -- which will never happen because Sri Lanka has enough clout to block it. But assume it is. Still, the ICC cannot handle it because retrospectively they don't have jurisdiction.'
In putting the country's economy back on the rails, it is best that Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley draw on grass-roots feedback and their own practical sense and native wisdom without allowing themselves to be sucked into the quicksand of economic punditry, says B S Raghavan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision not to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Colombo has once again put the focus on alleged cases of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.