You know how, given the right lighting and the right positioning, you can project huge dramatic shadows onto a screen with nothing more than a couple of wiggling fingers? The India show we take around the world, and around India at election time, is a bit like that.
'Modi's victory is his own victory. Now what he has done thereafter, it seems to me, leads us to believe that he was a bit too prolific with his promises.' 'One achievement of Modi's I will praise is that he has put the fear of God among his ministers and officials.' 'Indira Gandhi's sentiment of controlling everything, centralising power in to her hands is the quality that persists in Modi' Veteran journalist Inder Malhotra casts his experienced gaze on one year of the Modi Sarkar.
The linking of biometric UID/Aadhaar number to all public services makes "We, the People of India" worse than slaves, says Gopal Krishna.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Sunday
'Pakistan is full of 'religious entrepreneurs' like Hafeez Saeed who poison the minds of the young so that they can be motivated to become terrorists. They work in concert with the rulers of Pakistan. It is a private-public partnership.'
If the chemistry between Modi and Xi Jinping goes well, it will herald a new future not just for the region but for the world, says Tarun Vijay.
'The Congress, all these decades, worked on a slow Hindi-isation and Indianisation of Arunachal tribes. The RSS wants rapid Hinduisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.
On Monday, Colonel Rai had won the Yudh Seva medal. A day later, he fell to bullets.
'We are encouraged by what the prime minister said recently on these issues... We will keep a close eye on these issues. They are very important and as are other elements of our human rights and religious freedom.' 'So, absolutely, we'll keep a focus on them.'
The prime minister, says Ram Kelkar, could do a lot to advance his stature as a national leader by speaking in strong and unequivocal terms on the subject of opposing intolerance and emphasizing the rule of law, thereby setting the tone for the nation and the party.
A group of young guns led by Abhijit Jejurikar showed the world what they are capable of.
Several former colleagues say Kejriwal is undemocratic. But his loyalists stand stoutly behind him
'We saw how vigorous democracy was when it dislodged authoritarianism under Indira Gandhi. We saw its vigour again when it voted Mr Modi out of humble origins as prime minister. It was Nehru who laid that foundation for India and what is worrying today is Modi's rather imperial style of functioning,' says writer Nayantara Sahgal.
The perception about JNU being 'radical' is one that is as old as JNU itself. But the university is more than just that. At its heart, its campus is a mosaic of ideologies that allow its students to breathe politically.
'If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous one and the most connected.'
Moving ahead with their new mantra -- Chalein Saath Saath: Forward Together We Go -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to deepen cooperation in every sector for the benefit of global stability and people's livelihoods over the next ten years.
'Consider this image of today's youth in Bihar -- armed with a bike, a smartphone and possibly some illegal arms too, imbibing incessant stream of images from the Internet and television.' 'Some of them would turn into gau bhakts, some would listen with interest the exploits of Salafism, dig deep into the Internet to come out with images which cry vociferously that their respective religions are in danger.'
'I can tell you the case that hurts me the most is the one in which the little boy is forced to sign the Kohinoor over.' 'You take a mother away from a child, you surround him with grown ups speaking a different language, you tell him he must sign this over or else...'
A special episode of the Prime Minister's radio broadcast Mann ki Baat featuring US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aired on Tuesday night. The 35-minute special broadcast of 'Mann Ki Baat', which marked the rapport between Modi and Obama, touched on issues ranging from public health and personal inspirations of the two leaders, both of whom have come up from simple beginnings to assume to top positions of the respective countries. What follows is a transcript of the Mann ki Baat episode.
A clear aim, knowledge, hard work and perseverance spells success: President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam.
Vinita Bisht and Vinita Kamte lost their husbands -- one an NSG commando, the other an IPS officer -- in the 26/11 terror attack. Six years later, Archana Masih/Rediff.com meets them to discover that closure is one of the hardest things to find.
'It is only because we were facing US threats that we were able to successfully develop a nuclear programme of our own.'
We present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's full speech as he addressed the country on the occasion of 66th Independence Day, from Red Fort, Delhi.
In Delhi, the poor are pitted against the middle class, with the former led by Arvind Kejriwal and the latter by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.