The BJP government is no better than the Congress -- as wretched and anti-people. In addition, it is explicitly and aggressively communal, says Venkatesh B Athreya, in a hard-hitting interview to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com.
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.'
Sushma Swaraj, like Clinton, has a strong political base in her own party and is likely to have her imprint on foreign policy, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Until India fully absorbs the fundamentals of international relations, it will continue to get evil for good,' says Brahma Chellaney.
'Since Pranab Mukherjee is the Custodian of the Constitution, he should present practical ideas to solve the problems he has been so outspokenly highlighting,' feels Sudheendra Kulkarni.
Sofia Ashraf's video 'Kodaikanal Won't,' slamming Hindustan Unilever for alleged 'mercury poisoning,' has gone viral with over 25,000 online petitioners demanding that the multinational clean up the mess as well as compensate those who worked at its thermometer factory in Kodaikanal.
Reason must triumph over blind faith, says Praful Bidwai in this tribute to murdered rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
'Muslims, like people of all other faiths, are quite comfortable with the idea of nationalism and democracy today. But are they following Islam in its spirit? That is a different question.'
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It's perverse to rationalise 'controlled' killings or torture -- without going down a slippery moral slope. Once the state stoops to torture, it's liable to sink into tyranny, says Praful Bidwai.
'The starting point of the Udta Punjab casting was that we didn't think stars would do a film like this, so we'd take non-stars. As the names kept rolling in and we had Kareena Kapoor and Shahid and Alia Bhatt, I was like yaar yeh ho kya raha hai?'
