'Do you think Indian voters are so immature that they can be impressed or won over by such freebies before the elections?' Election Commissioner Sunil Arora asks A K Bhattacharya.
'I feel more like a chess player, thinking for long hours how to make the next move," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan tells Surajeet Das Gupta.
'Visiting my friend in his affluent locality, I realised that the Delhi weather had become the great equaliser.' 'Pollution was always in the air, everywhere, and had become the primary subject of all conversations,' notes Ambassador B S Prakash.
Suddenly the sands are shifting and even friends are acting strange.
Global investor and author Jim Rogers, who recently sold his India investments, talks about his disappointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic reforms, why he is betting big on the US dollar and the Chinese Renminbi and what will bring him back to India some day.
If successful, this would increase capacity to hurl small satellites into space, meeting both local demand and serving global customers.
'Soon enough, we were out shouted. The journalist had a multiple agenda -- he berated the Government, the bureaucracy in general and the UPSC system that selected them.'
The idea is to boost household savings and turn more of them into growth capital. If the plan succeeds, sustained eight per cent-plus rates of gross domestic product growth should be within reach in a few years.
Evolving a common work ethic and culture will be critical so that the merged entity does not lose focus on the common enemy outside -- and instead becomes more obsessed with internal turf wars.
Shahs also said that his party will strive to rid the state of its 'Bimaru' tag as development is the way forward in Indian politics now.
Western businesses and diplomats in Delhi privately say Modi's reputation as a man of action has been hurt by setbacks on economic reform.
In 28 months, Manohar Parrikar as defence minister developed easy relationships with the top brass of the three Services as was rarely ever witnessed before. He threw caution to the winds and managed to pull the forces out of a downward spiral in operational capabilities.
JLR is the UK's largest carmaker, which has witnessed a complete turnaround in its fortunes since Tata Motors acquired the traditional British brands from Ford 10 years ago.
The Pay Commission process is symptomatic of a national crisis within the Indian state.
This is just a brief reminder, dear fellow citizens, that none of us needs permission or sanction to be Indian, in whatever way we choose, as long as it doesn't break the law.
'Make in India' could suffer the same fate as did privatisation and the command economy, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
We don't know what percentage of new fathers in the Indian corporate sector take their parental responsibilities seriously enough to use the leave, says Kanika Datta.
Experts said many of the programmes started in the last one year have been dogged by poor implementation, something which the state seriously needs to answer as it faces a tough electoral battle in the months ahead.
Modi said the ease of doing business ranking improved because the government initiated reforms to end difficulties in the lives of people.
General Bakshi is understood to have been assured by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that the process was under way to appoint him as India's first tri-service commander, a post that would, at least nominally, place him senior to General Rawat.
'The autonomy of essential institutions is clearly under question as the Modi government seeks to influence them politically.' 'The credibility of institutions such as the EC, the CBI, the CVC, the UPSC, the RBI, media, and universities, has been compromised,' notes Zoya Hasan, the distinguished political thinker.
'They are innovating and a new Dalit leadership could be seen at the horizon'
The US president-elect met Silicon Valley's most powerful executives -- CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk from Tesla, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Alphabet -- parent company of Google among others.
Domestic and foreign companies pour in a slew of investments in Gujarat.
'No one institution can cleanse it: Not the courts, government or activists.' 'And least of all the Indian Police Service,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
The GST's significance for the BJP's politics is as important as its implications for the Indian economy, says A K Bhattacharya.
'They insist to compete in national cross country just a week ahead of the much important Mumbai Marathon where top runners will compete. Imagine, if your boss tells you each week, several times a day 'I stop your salary, I stop your salary', how you would feel...'
'We give them a lot of money and they turn that money around and that goes to the bad guys that kill not only folks in America and Afghanistan, but you in India,' says United States Congressman Ted Poe.
In the World Bank's rankings on the "Ease of Doing Business" India stands at 139 out of 189 economies surveyed in 2014; its position has in fact dropped from 131 last year.
Officers of the three premier services -- Indian Administrative Services, Indian Police Service and Indian Foreign Service -- will now spend a minimum of two years at each posting and any exception in the form of transfers or new appointments will only be done upon the recommendation of a civil services board, according to new rules aimed at checking political interference.
The unprecedented move came under severe criticism from the party's opponents, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress.
'She dwarfs every known politician of recent times with her imperious aura, iron will, tremendous drive, dauntless pursuit of goals she set before herself, ability to capture the people's imagination and unshakeable grip over her party and government,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'Jaitley was one of the earliest politicians to sense the changing political scenario in Delhi. He had closely watched the rise of the BJP and declining fortunes of the Congress party during the L K Advani era. But it was between 2009 and 2014 as the Leader of the Opposition that he began to read the tea leaves. 'And thus it was that he introduced Modi-Amit Shah duo to Lutyens Delhi,' says senior journalist R Rajagopalan who had known Jaitley since 1975.
These ambitious projects are littered with every possible acronyms and include proposed road links, air connectivity plans, electricity grids and special economic zones on coasts, says Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
According to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who spent 19 months in prison during the 1975 Emergency imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, it is not possible for anybody to convert a democratic India into a "dictatorship" in this day and age.
'A lot of people,' says India's Ambassador to the US, 'are struggling how to define this relationship.' Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
'Even though an India-China military conflict scenario seems unlikely, its possibility gets enhanced if our capabilities are seen to be inadequate by the adversary,' warns Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
'What Trump and Kim have demonstrated is that leaders need not remain prisoners of the status quo and they can, by showing the necessary will and courage, break out of the hang-ups and constrictions of the past and carve out a new pathway for themselves,' says B S Raghavan.
Trade enhancement is not about lowering tariff barriers, but dismantling such regulatory barriers.
'I am sure the BJP can find a highly educated, respected, non-controversial party man from the North East to be elected India's vice-president,' says Sudhir Bisht.
