'Ours is a diverse culture and we ought to respect each other's customs. People must not be coerced into exhibiting their patriotism in one particular way'
He has been removed from the high-profile post on the charges of corruption and dereliction of duty making him the first chief in the history of the agency to face such action.
Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla has rejected the contention that Muslims are feeling insecure under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime and said the community has felt alienated since Independence because of the policies of successive Congress governments.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is meeting state finance ministers on Thursday to garner support for the Constitution Amendment Bill for a goods & services tax (GST), is likely to immediately dole out about Rs 13,000 crore (Rs 130 billion) in Central Sales Tax (CST) compensation to states.
"The solution to terror is peace, development and progress and not unemployment, hatred and fear," he said.
In an era when the misguided youth of today are trying to build political careers by subscribing to divisive ideologies, they need to look to independent thinking icons such as Acharya Kripalani, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'I am as Bengali as they come in my cultural and personal orientation and I think probably all the BJP candidates who are contesting are pretty non-vegetarian in their food and as Bengali in their cultural orientation.'
Opposition does not stall legislative agenda; Upper House passes two bills.
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
Uncertainty looms over the Insurance Bill as the Congress looks unlikely to support it in the current session of Parliament which is what the Modi government is looking at as a 'gift' to United States President Barrack Obama who comes to India in January. Renu Mittal/Rediff.com reports
'Benares has always encouraged healthy debate where disagreement and dissent was never frowned upon. Today, the people are faced with a situation where a political opponent is not being allowed to give election speeches and is being physically attacked.' 'We are going to hand over power to a person who has a reputation of being dictatorial, who does not brook dissent and is known to be vindictive to his opponents,' author Kashinath Singh tells Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
There is growing alarm at the inexorable rise of China, both of its military prowess and its aggressive bullying of other countries plus its subjugation of whole portions of its own population.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Wednesday lauded his arch political rival -- Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa -- for her decision to release the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
'When he has been retired against his will, Advani appears to have found the merits of tolerance.' 'It took his one-time pupil to teach the old man his own lesson,' says Aakar Patel.
'What is there to worry about, he has asked, when there is so much freedom in the country?' 'Freedom can never be adequate, as Kher seems to think.' 'Its presence should be so pervasive that all citizens will feel secure and expect justice to be done if anything untoward happens,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday approved the biggest tax reform since Independence.
'We are in the presence of a truly great politician,' says Aakar Patel.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The first priority for the new Tibetan administration in Dharamsala should be to look at Tibetan recruitment in the PLA, suggests Claude Arpi.
Amid growing demands for his resignation, Kumar told the MHRD officials that efforts were being made to facilitate semester registration for 'willing' students.
'I would rather have an HRD minister who concentrates on her job rather than bicker on Twitter.'
TMC MP Professor Sugata Bose spoke eloquently on the topic of nationalism vs the freedom to dissent, whilst presenting a balanced view on the need to protect constitutional freedoms.
A day after the arrest of an MP of her party in connection with the Saradah scam, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launched a blistering attack against the Modi government, accusing it of "selective vendetta" against her and the party and dared the Centre to impose President's rule and arrest her.
An adverse judgement could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday made a veiled attack on Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal, telling them "neither populism nor individualism" is an alternative way of governance and expressed confidence that people will entrust responsibility to a "hand" that works for equity.
'In the hands of a majoritarian government, with utter contempt for the cultural plurality and diversity of our great nation, the pipe dream of making Hindi the sole official language takes on nightmarish proportions.'
'One does not understand why you should launch your attack against the Constitution, against Gandhiji, against the Left and Congress regimes at a moment when the Hindutva regime needs such attacks against them.' 'By doing so, don't you think you are playing into the hands of Hindutva forces?', Mohammad Sajjad, who teaches history at Aligarh Muslim University, asks Sharjeel Imam who was arrested on charges of sedition on Tuesday, January 28.
'Wisdom demands Modi moves to restore the critical institutions of the State and dial back on the cult building around his persona,' say Sonali Ranade and Shealja Sharma.
In true Karnataka political style, which cuts across parties and loyalties, any reinstatement of Yeddiyurappa, even with adequate legislative majority, could trigger rebellion from within, which could embarrass the Modi-Shah duo than any other development elsewhere in the country, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A major slugfest erupted on Thursday over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Chandan Mitra's demand for stripping Nobel laureate Amartya Sen of the Bharat Ratna award and the economist offering to return it if Atal Bihari Vajpayee asks him to do so.
Various Maratha organisations had held massive 'silent marches' across the state last year for various demands, including reservation.
The former PM attack on the Modi government for its "disastrous policies" and "economic mismanagement".
Jaishankar said that the resolution on Kashmir introduced by Jayapal in the House is not a fair characterisation of the situation in J-K. And also said that he has no interest in meeting the Congresswoman.
"The ruling establishment seems to have lost all sense of balance, and of proportion. It appears determined to undermine all democratic norms. It seems hell-bent to destroy the spirit of inquiry, the spirit of questioning, the spirit of debate and dissent, said the Congress president.
Several protests -- some peaceful, some violent -- erupted across India on Monday against the police crackdown in Jamia Millia Islamia and the controversial citizenship law as students and political leaders took to the streets, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi called these protests "deeply distressing" and appealed for peace.
The Aam Aadmi Party alleged that the chief minister was manhandled during the "pre-planned" protest.
There are indications that India may be shedding its Stockholm Syndrome vis-a-vis the Modi government, says Bharat Bhushan.
Desperate times need desperate actions, and the BJP's only option is to enforce legislation to build a Ram mandir, says Sunil Sethi.
Raising strong objections to the "highly improper" procedure adopted by the Union government in making key appointments to the posts of Lokpal, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley has charged the department of personnel with diluting the role of the Selection and Search Committees.
'The sacking of Outlook magazine's Editor-in-Chief Krishna Prasad provides another example of the saffron camp's disrespect for dissent,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
