'Be responsible, don't use a condom tonight' goes an advertising campaign that is an insult to the intelligence of a community that is by no means ignorant or illiterate, argues Sherna Gandhy.
'Yes, it may have been offensive to some, but an expression of regret is all that's called for. No lasting harm has been done, and people should put it behind them, and move on,' says Rajeev Srinivasan, defending Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti who made abusive remarks in Delhi last week.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's offer of central assistance in arresting the downward slide in West Bengal and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's ongoing trip to the state and his asking for Mamata's cooperation in handling the situation and in dissolving the anti-national and inter-country network of jihad that has now chosen her state as one of its base, is perhaps Mamata's last best chance to salvage the situation, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
'It is a diamond which has a very long competitive history.'
Newly-elected CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury speaks to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
Very few old-style RSS workers-turned-leaders have survived Narendra Modi's political ambush in state politics. Harin Pathak's end closes the chapter for Modi who started his post-2002 riots journey with a new mix of profit-centric development and middle class-pleasing commerce, technology-driven communication with voters, and an unspoken Hindutva that speaks only through posturings and symbols. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reveals the real reasons for the Modi-Pathak rupture.
'Knowing him personally, I can safely say that the usually soft-spoken, qualified medical doctor would not have said what he was 'caught' saying if only he had realised that he was stepping on a political landmine across the emotional LoC, says Mohammad Sayeed Malik.
In conversation with Karan Thapar, former Vice President Hamid Ansari takes on one of the most sensitive issues of our times.
'The obsession of the Pakistan army with India leads to several destabilising things. Support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Support for groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, that have attacked India. Every time you get an attack like that there is a possibility of a war. And then the build up of the their nuclear arsenals. Chances of a nuclear weapon landing in the hands of a terrorist group, or a nuclear war breaking out, are tiny. But they are higher here than anywhere else in the world.'
'For so long as the rulers of Pakistan remain committed to confronting and vanquishing India, they will sustain delusions, breed terrorists, and export them.'
Muzzling NGOs is unbecoming of a democracy. Self-confident democracies encourage, indeed applaud, the involvement of citizens' associations, including NGOs, in social and political decision-making and development planning. Instead, our paranoid government bullies and terrorises them, says Praful Bidwai.
How to deal with a country that has made export of terror a reason to make the world notice and fund it? Rediff.com contributor Sanjeev Nayyar offers a few suggestions
'AAP's real value must be measured not by the number of Lok Sabha seats it wins in the election -- which may not exceed 10 or 15 -- and not even by the number of votes it takes from the BJP, but by its ability to deflate Modi's superhuman '56-inch chest' image and the charisma so assiduously manufactured around him by the corporate-controlled media.'
'The Congress era was already over anyway! The real question is: Has India opened a new, post-coalition era and I'm very doubtful about that,' Christophe Jaffrelot, author of several books on Indian politics, tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com, analysing Mandate 2014.
'A participant in many rounds of the border talks with China once told me that China seemed not interested in resolving the border issue as it wanted to keep it as a ready excuse to intervene in the sub-continent,' says Colonel (retd) Anil A Athale.
'Madras is a Tamil word while Chennai is Telugu. Without the English, there would have been no Madras. The erection of Fort St George laid the foundations for the growth of the first modern city of India,' Historian JBP More tells Shobha Warrier.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
'Under Narendra Modi's leadership, we will be able to regain our rightful place in the community of nations,' veteran diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, who joined the BJP on January 2, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Desis in the US recall their earliest celebration of the festival of lights on American soil. Chaya Babu reports
Industrialist Naveen Jindal, fighting to win the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat for a third time, has more than just Narendra Modi to contend with. Joel Rai reports.
'The real test will be in defence-related deals, for instance the Javelin anti-tank missile: Is the US willing to co-develop something with India, on terms that will support the 'Make in India' initiative? Is there defence technology transfer? Or will it dump old junk on India?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
'There was an overt campaign and there was a covert campaign. The overt campaign may be development, government, and all this nonsense. But the covert campaign, which Mr Amit Shah was doing, was far more important with the help of RSS cadres. This has been an RSS election. From day one I have been saying, this is not Congress versus the BJP, this is Congress versus the RSS,' says Jairam Ramesh, one of the key strategists of the Congress party.
