Qatar's construction industry is rife with abuse of migrant workers who are "treated like cattle" and live in squalid accommodation exposed to overflowing sewage, Amnesty International said in a report on Sunday.
The American police said that the Las Vegas shooting was not an act of terrorism because he acted alone. The killer was a Christian. Would the police have said the same thing if he was Muslim? I don't think so.
'The Congress in 2017 stands for nothing positive, not even secularism.'
'With the country is a crisis that directly affects hundreds of millions, we will know if Modi has grip,' says Aakar Patel.
'The only forum for resistance and dissent has become the university.' 'Free thinking is the right our brave students have been demanding.' 'As another round of violence and hatred against 'anti-nationals' begins, all of us, whether or not we agree with their views, should support and defend them,' says Aakar Patel.
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
'It will be a fine day when we can claim to have institutions in civil society as influential and as popular as ACLU, which is a strong body only because millions of Americans support its values.' 'When Indians take offence at how other Indians are treated, when we take injustice to others personally, we will begin to make India great,' says Aakar Patel.
Very few people have access to the granular detail of what options are available to India and what their costs, consequences and benefits are. While Modi considers all of this, he would do well to do one thing. And that is to ignore the media.
'Our priority cannot be better cities. Since real change is not possible, we must satisfy ourselves with a change in name,' says Aakar Patel.
'The media, particularly the national media and especially the English media, do not report these stories any longer.' 'They have no interest in crime or human interest stories that do not concern the wealthy,' says Aakar Patel.
'For all of the tamasha about these meetings of Modi and the videshi desis, the reality is that they are just entertainment. The question to ask is what does this energy result in? The answer is: not much,' says Aakar Patel.
The more one thinks about it, the more difficult it is to see how India will be able to reap the benefits of a demographic dividend, says Aakar Patel.
'We are in the middle of the biggest self created crisis of this government.' 'A crisis which involves and includes citizens and affects the way we go about our lives.' 'It is a crisis that is being managed poorly by the government and, it is absolutely clear, even more shoddily by the Opposition,' says Aakar Patel.
'Sexual violence against women is not something unique to India but in our parts the victim must also have to contend with other burdens. Such as the notion of 'honour' and its loss,' says Aakar Patel.
'In Bastar, as in Delhi, being branded 'anti-national' in the eyes of the government now seems to have acquired new meaning,' says Aakar Patel.
'This influence of anchors like Arnab Goswami is mostly negative because their focus is on issues that concern upper class anxieties.' 'Those that affect the majority of people, hundreds of millions of Indians, like health, primary education and nutrition, are not discussed,' says Aakar Patel.
'They have earned their money and their fame. They could have earned our respect by behaving in more public spirited fashion, but they have chosen instead to be unconcerned on that count,' says Aakar Patel.
Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last week, in 14 images
The ongoing violence in the valley is driving students to excel, but it is also making them angry, discovers Ritwik Sharma.
'The Indian middle class ignores the conflicts areas in Jammu and Kashmir, in Central India and in the North East.' 'The violence does not touch us at all and so we are able to easily look away from the underlying reasons and grievances.'
'He selects certain portfolios that he has personal interest in, and he does not give them to a senior leader. The responsibility is given to a junior minister who then directly reports to Modi or to the small team of bureaucrats working with Modi.' 'I noticed this first in Gujarat where Modi worked mainly with two ministers, Saurabh Patel and Amit Shah,' says Aakar Patel.
'For such prices you could get a place inside New York City and inside London.' 'Rs 7 crore is a million dollars and will bring you a handsome place in any city in the world.' 'The truly strange thing is that the conversion of the rupee's actual value makes India's real estate even more expensive,' says Aakar Patel.
'The project of a united Europe has constantly been made and remade.' 'The national borders have changed many, many times and so have the languages.' 'Britain's exit is only the latest episode in this long history,' says Aakar Patel.
'The corporate world and the private sector economy take notice of the monstrous and apartheid like division that exists in our offices. The jobs we so casually take for granted in the upper class have come to us on the back of denial to others,' says Aakar Patel.
Former Research and Analysis Wing chief AS Dulat has claimed that everybody in Kashmir makes money off the unstable situation in the region, alleging that it is 'in their DNA'.
'China's development is on a different scale from India's. They are very far ahead.' 'I don't think it will be possible in the next 30 years for us to catch them,' says Aakar Patel.
'The desire to force others to act according to the way we want the world to be is strong in our parts. This is particularly so because we have not fully internalised the idea of individual liberties. The fact is that our moralism will get us into trouble,' says Aakar Patel.
Girls in the Kashmir valley hurling defiance at the security forces will detract from the legitimacy of India's response and its standing in the world, says Ajai Shukla.
Prashant Kishor wants the Congress to project either Rahul or Priyanka Gandhi as its chief ministerial candidate in UP. The Gandhis are far too arrogant to accept a provincial role, says Aakar Patel.
'The tax avoidance in India is done as much by the wealthy as the lower class.' 'There is no difference in ethics and culture and morality, and no difference in tax-paying behaviour between various Indian classes, whether educated or not,' says Aakar Patel.
'I did not bother to collect my diploma certificate because the course was a waste of time and more or less useless. It would be instructive for me to describe it because manufacturing is seen as the way out for India's great unemployment problem. It is? I do not think so,' says Aakar Patel.
It seems the Congress just does not have the energy and vitality to break through even in the states where it has a ground presence and the wind of anti-incumbency on its back, says Aakar Patel.
It is a difficult question to answer. This problem will remain with us for a very long time because we are the only major nation whose elite speaks a language that is a foreign tongue, says Aakar Patel.
'The idea of moral responsibility is not particularly strong in our parts. Showing that people are corrupt or immoral through stings doesn't have the required effect in such a culture,' says Aakar Patel.
It is the voter who has corrupted politics, not the politician, says Aakar Patel.
''We have a very difficult period ahead of us.' 'Fortunately we have a popular government and a popular leader who is ideally placed to take us into confidence,' says Aakar Patel.
'Till today, the RSS only speaks of Hindu Rashtra but never explains what it means. It cannot, because it would be unacceptable to even a majority of Hindus, forget the Indian Muslims and Christians,' says Aakar Patel.
'I am only slightly puzzled by why the childishness has not left the minister. It is easy to be prejudiced and closed-minded when one is in one's teens. But adults should view the world as adults, not as squabbling and petty schoolchildren,' says Aakar Patel.
'At Ramjas too, slogans for Kashmir's azaadi were heard. We won't let DU become JNU.'
'Which one of us would give up our flats for development?' 'We insist that others, who are unwilling but weak, make all the sacrifices on our behalf and then we are puzzled when there is violence against the State,' says Aakar Patel.
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