'I am more worried about the BJP as I see lot of marginalisation of top leaders in the BJP.' 'I am really worried about the terminal decline of the Congress. And the greatest tragedy is that there are so many good people in the Congress.' 'It will take a couple of years, but this is the most appropriate time for a new political party and leadership to emerge.'
Two first information reports were registered by the police at Siyana police station in Bulandshahr -- one over cow slaughter and the other on the mob violence in which a village man was also killed.
'A very vast majority of us will catch it at some point, about 8 out of 10 won't feel much worse than a common cold's nuisance, if at all, but some will die.' 'A very, very vast majority, at least about 98 per cent of those infected, if not more, under any circumstances, will live through it,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
'His selection is to honour the sentiment of the communal majoritarianism, satisfy the upper caste and continue the process of Hindutva.'
'There were any number of Congress leaders who disliked Sonia Gandhi, but they were very close to Ahmed Bhai and he would listen, and give a shoulder to cry upon.'
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
Senior officers admit the BJP's revival, and the mainstreaming of the Hindutva narrative that has accompanied this political shift, have complicated communal relations within the army.
'The strange thing about the Karnataka election is that the BJP looks more like the Congress of the past and vice versa.' 'Siddaramaiah has been able to out think the BJP almost every single day on every single issue.'
'The Congress-JD-S alliance will be intact for the next three years, for sure.'
'What was predictable, but entirely missed by Modi's strident critics, is that the excessive and intemperate demonisation of Modi allowed him to assume his own metaphor -- the underdog, the martyr, the marginalised,' says Dr Aseem Shukla.
25 winters have passed. More will pass, but the fight will go on. In spite of successive governments' unwillingness to sincerely reverse ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus and provide them justice, they will steadfastly work towards securing their rights and homeland, says Lalit Koul.
'The appointment of 60 priests from the Dalit community is a historic moment.' 'Imagine this is happening in Kerala when Dalits are not even allowed to enter temples in some states even today.'
How has the Indian State, in principle and practice, given shape to the essential ingredients of the secular principle and composite culture?
Intolerance toward the minority communities or attempts to humiliate them or the refusal to go the extra league to build an inclusive society -- these are all evident today in our society, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The BJP has latched on to the idea of nationalism, but the nationalism they advocate is not nationalism as we have understood it since the time of the freedom movement.' 'This is not secular nationalism, it is Hindu nationalism.' 'It is a form of nationalism that is exclusionary and it tends to conflate national interest with the government.' 'So, if you disagree with the government, for example, on surgical strikes or demonetisation, you are anti-national or holder of black money.'
A left-leaning centralised socialist model has created a shortage/entitlement economy. In fact one of the reasons for India's limited progress is that post-independent India is at odds with its true nature. It is something that educated right of centre Hindus are trying to correct, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Any city that imposes a ban on food of any kind to appease the sensibility of a particular religion has lost any right to be called cosmopolitan and progressive, feels Tanmaya Nanada
With actor Aamir Khan joining the intolerance debate, BJP today insisted that some isolated extreme incidents should not be allowed to define India and took a dig at his wife's suggestion to leave India, saying people move out for many reasons, including for saving taxes.
The real brilliance of this RSS campaign, therefore, lies in building a dominant power base with, and for, a mostly non-RSS leadership. That is why the rise of the BJP in Assam is their stand-out victory, says Shekhar Gupta.
Robbed of prey as people fled, Omar Perez came marching back and shot bullet after bullet into Prudhvi Raj Kandepi's head, thus ensuring that a man he had never met before, known nothing of, would never get up again.
'It is possible that in his perambulations from the company of Baba Ramdev to that of Anna Hazare and finally to the BJP, he hasn't had time to refurbish his memory of what he may have read earlier,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'Minorities should not fear a Modi sarkar... Who has given the right to kill in the name of religion? No one! You are not James Bond 007, that you will just take a shotgun and kill anybody at your whims and fancies. We are not living in a banana republic...' The inimitable Shatrughan Sinha on Narendra Modi as a dabbang action hero, what a Modi Sarkar would be like.
Pandits are missing Kashmir more than ever, and KashmirOneStop.com is their window to Kashmir.
'He has terror charges against him. And for an army officer, it's just terrible.'
'The dirt in the Indian Ocean must be less than the abuses Narendra Modi got from secular forces.' 'If you are going to put the blame on the central government and the RSS for every wrongdoing, then it is not going to serve any purpose, rather it will complicate the issue instead of resolving it.' 'There are fringe elements in every society, but for an ideal State it is important to finish off the fringe elements.'
'Due to lack of understanding or patriarchal misinterpretation, a common notion was generated that if you are a Muslim man you can marry four times.'
"India will succeed if it's not splintered on religious lines."
'Disturbingly, the dissenting judgment of the Supreme Court has raised doubts whether religion, race, caste, community, language etc can be separated from politics at all. It has rightly underlined that this question should to be addressed by Parliament rather than the Supreme Court,' says Dr Madhav Godbole, the former Union home secretary.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision not to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Colombo has once again put the focus on alleged cases of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
'I am in mortal danger not personally, but politically,' Mani Shankar Aiyar tells Anjali Puri.
All the hostages killed during the 12-hour siege by Islamic State terrorists were foreigners, with most being Italian or Japanese.
'I went to slums in India which were quite destitute, where people were clearly really struggling, but typically there is a sort of sense of purpose.' 'People are hustling.' 'What that tells you is that if the country was so organised in a way to give these people opportunity, then they would make something of it.'
The statements made by the opposition parties after the preemptive air strike on terror camps have made only people of Pakistan happy, he claimed.
Given the subdued pre-poll voter-behaviour in the state over the past couple of decades and more, and the inability of individual political parties to cobble together an alliance and announce candidates, or both, to launch grassroots-level campaigns early on, close fights with landslide victory is an equal possibility, N Sathiyamoorthy.
'Nehru's hegemonic politics has been responsible for many ills, which undoubtedly includes Kashmir'
'Are moving towards a political culture that provides more space for violence and a paranoid political rhetoric,' asks Nitin Desai.
Moni Chadha was with Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent. He counters colourful conspiracy theories with sobering facts.
Only on Wednesday, in his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Modi said he wants to resolve the Kashmir issue through Vajpayee's doctrine of "Insaniyat, Kashmiriyat, Jamhooriyat" - a testimony to the former PM's lasting legacy.
If the fight against black money seems half hearted, the same is not the case with gau raksha, says Subir Roy.
BJP MP Vinay Katiyar said those who 'support Pakistan' were behind the violence.
