"I plan to go to the field, listen to the ground, to the youngsters and important stakeholders and then take a decision," he said.
'The Indian Right can afford to be rigid; but as liberals, our position has to be one of constant evolution, or else death awaits us,' argues Sreehari Nair.
'Rightly or wrongly, 1962 got ascribed to Krishna Menon and him alone. That's unfair.' 'Certainly, he was one of the guilty men, but he was not the only guilty man. Mistakes were made all around.'
'Does Deepika not have the right to raise her voice in a democratic and peaceful manner on an issue she considers important?' 'Why should one view her only as an actor and not appreciate her role as a concerned citizen of the country?' ask Aftab Alam and Mohammad Asim Siddiqui.
For the first time in our political history, Pakistan has become centre stage of the incumbent's campaign, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'The principles on which a modern Republic should be governed are changing and taking dangerous turns,' warns Uddalok Bhattacharya.
'Free India turns 70 this year.' But 'freedom from whom and freedom for what?' asks Rajendran Narayanan.
'Will this communal pendulum, which is swinging towards the extreme of division and violence, ever swing back to its position of the '60s and '70s within my lifetime?' 'Or will my children, and their children, have to continue to suffer the consequences of the country, that we all love, torn apart along communal lines,' asks Najid Hussain in anguish.
On being asked why he doesn't talk about his humble background like Modi, Singh said, "I don't want the country to take a pity on the basis of my humble background."
'For people who are fed on nothing else but the media, what were prejudices become facts of life.' 'What my neighbour may see as just news, for me is a source of fear, living as I do, surrounded by non-Muslims.' 'So I would say it is important to talk to a Muslim, be it your neighbour or your colleague.' 'Have that conversation about what's happening to Muslims.'
'The Parivar's ideology and politics was and remains the very opposite of what Dr Ambedkar stood for.'
'When the BJP first came to power in the late 1990s we heard of anti- Christian incidents perpetrated by members of the Sangh Parivar, the majority of which proved to be blatant falsehoods.' 'We need to recall those events to give a reality check to a similar campaign of unsubstantiated calumny that is raising its head again to discredit the BJP government.'
'The rise of IS and intolerant Wahabism are the real dangers to Indian democracy and pluralism, not the RSS,' says Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Vijay.
'A dangerous and false binary is now surfacing in Indian political discourse, which must be firmly rejected.' 'It is that we have to choose between freedom and development.' 'For us freedom is neither merely an instrument for development nor to be subordinated to development.' 'It is, as our founding fathers proclaimed early in our freedom struggle, 'our birthright' on which we shall never compromise.' 'Growth, wealth and development are fruits of democracy, not substitutes.' Dr Manmohan Singh's thoughts on democracy: A Must Read!
The need of the hour is not a divisive, slanging match of accusations and counter-accusations, but a call for sanity,' says Vivek Gumaste.
"A Meryl Streep or Jimmy Kimmel can speak their mind, and stay assured that they won't be harmed. That does not happen in India," say Manavi Kapur & Ranjita Ganesan.
'This book is really the story of the woman whose destiny takes her onto the path of an inordinately iconic man whom the world reveres as God!' 'It is the day-to-day demolition of her dreams that are at stark variance with those who view him as a trail blazer on the holy path to redemption, while he wrecks the peace of those whom he loves the most; his family.'
'Once you set up a tweet-storm of vilification, labelling individuals anti-nationals, traitors, blasphemous, and foreign agents, you are creating enough justification for somebody with a gun to kill, or for a mob to lynch,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
It is a sight that both warms and breaks the heart. The women of Shaheen Bagh seem oblivious of the cold, these women and their children, the latter ranging in age from 19 days to early teens, who have been occupying the road for over two weeks now. Some of them have not gone home for days, but their faces are clear, unlined by fatigue, their eyes bright and fierce as those of the falcon, shaheen, the area is named for.
'In essence, while I appreciate your earnest care for the nation's welfare, your eagerness in returning the awards seems not be driven by data. The data is at worst favouring the present disposition or it provides an inconclusive result. It seems to be directed at Narendra Damordas Modi and nothing else,' says Sriram Balasubramanian in an open letter.
'The writers fear that the fringe is threatening to become the mainstream and the liberal space -- a must for any creative expression -- is fast shrinking,' says Mohammad Asim Siddiqui.
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
12 lies you must tell your better half without feeling guilty.
'It used to sound very strange.' 'That the same child who used to sing Jana Gana Mana the loudest in class, who celebrated August 15 and 26th January with such fervour and who has always nurtured the desire to make India a better nation being called desh drohi.' 'It was very painful.'
'We must begin dialogue with openness and goodwill, but we will not proceed very far without trust and good faith. The alternative is the violence of 'might is right,' which settles very little and destroys so much of real value,' says Dr Rudolf C Heredia, author of Religious Disarmament -- Rethinking Conversion in India.
'By resorting to divisive issues, the BJP is giving the impression that even if it is voted to power it won't do anything new to give Bihar a facelift. It will repel voters with the belief that the BJP can't do anything without communal polarisation as its core ideology. This is sad and unfortunate,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Eight states and Union Territories have Muslim share of population in excess of national average of 13 per cent. Mayank Mishra report
'Even apart from the Bengal famine, there was a great deal more bloodshed and deceit than I was prepared for.' 'Almost every one of the acquisitions was won by extreme extortionate methods and what came out was that these relatively honest officers found themselves doing very dishonest things.'
'If the charges are so serious against him, then why hasn't a single case been registered against Dr Zakir Naik?'
Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt unearths some never-told-before details of Narendra Modi's early life. Read on!
Sri Srinivasan, the first Indian-origin federal judge in the United States, is India Abroad Person of the Year 2013
'Godse is no more, but the mindset which gave birth to such distorted philosophy is unfortunately still with us.'
