'Every disease has traits and we have found out that actually 99 per cent of people who have got COVID-19, should recover.'
'Human rights violations are there in rural areas and in cities. In rural areas it is crude and in the open. In urban areas it is well hidden.' 'Awareness has grown several fold. India has 160 national and state human rights institutions. No other country in the world has this.' 'Unfortunately the right to association, right to assembly, freedom of expression, right to protest and discuss are all being curtailed systematically one by one.'
Union HRD minister says women in the country are not told what to wear, whom to meet and where to go.
After five decades of existence, the Shiv Sena's support base seems to be shifting towards the rural electorate but there it has to contend with the network of Sharad Pawar and the BJP.
'Swachh Bharat Cess imposed last year should be made broad-based.' 'Budget should be predominantly economy/ business-oriented and problem-solving rather than political consideration-based.'
For the first time the Ford Foundation is placed under a watch.
Businesses that either take local communities for granted or see them as an obstacle to be 'managed' are skating on thin ice.
Union Budget 2014-15 is positive for metals and mining companies.
'The top-most functionaries and destiny-makers of the nation have thrown away the pretensions of statesmanship.' 'They seem to have made a categorical announcement that the next general election will be fought on the solo plank of Hindutva, rather than on good governance, economic development, and employment to youth', says Mohammad Sajjad.
As the BJP snaps at its heels, can the Communists stay relevant in the electoral game?
The temptation to rehash Manmohanomics is not going to deliver the achche-din that Narendra Modi has promised, warns Sriram Balasubramanian.
"What I said was if we had Rafale at the time (of aerial dogfight), then none of our fighter jets would have gone down and none of theirs saved," he added.
'It is time to not merely assert that Kashmir is an internal problem, but begin to act on it,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Although the Opposition has been making a hue and cry over demonetisation, the BJP's programmes have been attracting crowds.
The public-private partnership model is a compulsion, says the minister.
Despite the strong anti-incumbency sentiment against the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, the Congress neither had the strategy nor an organisation to cash in, says N D Sharma
'The Opposition has no option but to make it an 'All versus One' fight to even think about winning.'
Here are the key decisions announced by the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday.
Indian economy about to take-off
While Smriti Irani might bristle with faux indignation at the 'malicious' newspaper report, it is very clear that just as Teacher's Day was hijacked by her boss and a day of celebration became an assignment, the first attack on Christmas as a holiday has been made in the war on India's cosmopolitan way of life, says the Mango Indian.
The opposition has attacked the Modi government over the National Democratic Alliance's last full-fledged budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
The challenge is to convince productive sectors that a lower general rate would benefit all and remove the prevalent system of favours targeted towards narrow industry and service sector groups.
Here comes the moment of truth. Modi prides himself on offering an "incorruptible" government. Will he dilute the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill to coax the administration's fealty and compromise his self-image?
Demonetisation hit informal sector hard and caused job losses which was not addressed by the budget, Moily said.
BJP's total silence on Delhi statehood is intriguing.
Then chief minister Jyoti Basu once told an industrialist that capitalists were class enemies and he should expect no sympathy.
However, independent economists are not as gung-ho as the finance ministry over the likelihood of deficit target being met this time around, says Indivjal Dhasmana.
'The poor manner in which the RJD stitched its alliance and mismanaged its electioneering, now reveals that Tejashwi was more interested in enhancing his political stature by cutting down many senior leaders, by downsizing and shrinking RJD allies, by displaying arrogance and inaccessibility and by committing silly mistakes in candidate selection,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
If nothing is done, the country is set to become 83 per cent energy-import-dependent by 2040.
With the government claiming that the economy has been growing robustly and the Opposition refuting these claims, the common man is none the wiser, says Rajeev Sharma.
Governments must encourage micro-irrigation, use of natural manure and pesticides in a big way. Farm income can be doubled by reducing cost as much as by increasing MSP, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The 70-year-old is so unassuming that it is reported that he has not removed the name plate in his ancestral home in Jodhpur that reads, 'Judge, Supreme Court'.
With her trademark cotton sari and rubber slippers and her generous doles in rural Bengal, many describe Mamata Banerjee as "ultra left."
'The corporate sector says by 2022 they will create 300 million jobs.' 'In the last 70 years we didn't do it, how will we do it in 5 years?' 'Only agriculture can bail out the economy. Unfortunately, it is not being looked into.'
Those who have a long-range mission of true nation-building will pay close attention to World Bank's new action plan for fairness in all matters of land use, says Rajni Bakshi.
In the year since Modi cast the spotlight on Pakistan's human rights violations in Balochistan, India has not done much more than raise the issue at the UN a few times.
A total of 183 stocks rallied 10 per cent, of which 32 stocks saw price appreciation of 20 per cent each.
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