'The BJP is no longer the BJP. It has become the Bharatiya Janata Poaching Party.' 'They talk of black money and here they are ready to pay Rs 100 crore to MLAs.'
Manjunath is a lesson in humanity we all need at the moment, says Paloma Sharma.
Rajiv Gandhi would have turned 72 on August 20. Had he lived. On a humid night 25 years ago, the former prime minister of India was murdered in cold blood by an LTTE suicide bomber. Neena Gopal was an eyewitness to the assassination, and in this exclusive extract from her new book, The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, she reveals for the first time what she saw in Sriperumbudur that night.
The street-fighter is back and the introspecting, sparingly speaking avatar of Kejriwal has gone on an extended recess. In this grime of heightened Delhi politics, all the good work done by the Delhi government may go down the drain, warns Sudhir Bisht.
'There are all sorts of characters moving around acting as unofficial representatives of the government and engaging in their own personal foreign policy initiatives. Clearly, the government needs to shut these characters down if it wants to continue enjoying any credibility, both domestically and internationally,' says Sushant Sareen.
'Article 15 is not the work of a hack, or of someone merely scooping a plot out of newspaper headlines.' 'It is a well-researched, clear-headed movie; but its findings have a purpose,' says Sreehari Nair.
Interference from politicians in terror cases creates added confusion, giving operatives enough time to give investigators the slip. Vicky Nanjappa reports
'If religious scholars and preachers declare suicide attacks as un-Islamic and decree that suicide bombers will be denied an Islamic burial and funeral rites, it may dissuade some would-be terrorists who dream of an afterlife in heaven,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The SIT did not follow up with the CD of the phone call recordings that could have helped it find who were leading the mobs and where the calls of people involved in the rioting originated from and terminated.'
As the BJP snaps at its heels, can the Communists stay relevant in the electoral game?
Even as France mourns the bloodiest terrorist attack for 20 years, let's take a look at some major standoffs witnessed in the past:
Why are Dalits protesting against hangings in Hyderabad? Why is the focus on Muslims in JNU? Why are the students insisting on representation from marginalised communities when they are being judged by a committee? The fact is that India reserves the death penalty mostly for Dalits and Muslims, says Aakar Patel.
Brookings Institution tries 'Re-imagining India.' Aziz Haniffa listens in
Raja Sen hated Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and debates his reasons with Satyajit Chetri, who totally loved it.
From being noticed in a supporting role as her debut to Cannes glory, Richa Chadha has come a long way in Bollywood.
Having made farmer suicides a campaign issue, Modi and the BJP should have no complaints in now having to live with it, says Aakar Patel.
Kapil Mishra was one of the closest aides of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. However, in May 2017, the tides turned. A loyalist of the Aam Aadmi Party founder, Mishra shocked one and all by openly accusing him of corruption, a claim that the AAP dismissed. Since then Mishra has become one of the most prominent AAP rebels. In the face of the sit-in by Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and ministers - Satyendar Jain and Gopal Rai at Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal's office, Mishra spoke to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com and said that this is the first time in history that a sitting chief minister of a state in India has kidnapped himself.
Director Shanker Raman, with an appetite for noir and a natural temperament for fast-cutting, takes you so swiftly and so deeply inside Gurgaon's anomie that you may mistake his vision of the city for some dystopian view of the future, feels Sreehari Nair.
Dr Siras was a man determined to be a freak in the show called Life, says Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
On the eve of the budget session of Parliament, the government on Sunday reached out to the opposition
There would have been no controversy if the convicted rapists were by now punished according to law and sent to meet their maker, in short hanged! But our criminal justice system remains dysfunctional. Ultimately besides the genuine social reform and gender equality it is the lack of effective laws that are at the root of women's insecurity, says Colonel (Dr) Anil Athale (retd).
Prohibition is resulting in prisons getting overcrowded.
As two recently declassified Intelligence Bureau reveal that the Jawaharlal Nehru government had spied on the family of Subhas Chandra Bose for nearly two decades, one of India's political mysteries takes centrestage. Rediff.com reproduces this 2006 report in which Sumit Bhattacharya reported that a website claims that Netaji, in fact, did not die in an air crash, as was being believed, and that Netaji had escaped to Russia.
Reason must triumph over blind faith, says Praful Bidwai in this tribute to murdered rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
'Nobody is killing you in Kerala because you are Hindu unlike in North India where Muslims have been killed only because they are Muslims and were carrying some meat.'
A modern day prince and princess are getting married in Bengaluru this weekend.
'Those who have seen the functioning of the Modi government in Gujarat know that the issues related to Hindutva and issues of economy and growth function simultaneously.' 'Modi's politics are based on the understanding of the middle-class consumer society which is in pursuit of material aspirations.' Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com reveals the Modi government's economic and political plans for the year ahead.
'America's withdrawal from Vietnam was an inspiring moment for all of us. We believed that it was a glorious victory of ideology and spirit and as historic as the defeat of the Nazis exactly 30 years ago,' remembers Kumar Ketkar 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War.
'My confidence in the Indian judiciary is absolute after I saw justice being delivered in Gujarat even when a BJP government was ruling the state. The Muslims of Gujarat believed that they will never get justice in a BJP-ruled state, but the facts are before all of us to make a judgment.'
'It is important to destroy, to undermine, to debunk the narrative of ISIS,' Olivier Roy -- one of the world's leading experts on radical Islam -- tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel in an exclusive interview.
If terror indeed has no religion, no partisan affiliations, and if the government, media and all right-minded people in this country people truly believe that, let us not call one blast a "terrorist incident" and dismiss another one as a mere "cylinder blast" just because it is politically convenient, says Shehzad Poonawala.'If terror indeed has no religion, no partisan affiliations, and if the government, media and all right-minded people in this country truly believe that, let us not call one blast a "terrorist incident" and dismiss another one as a mere "cylinder blast" just because it is politically convenient,' argues Shehzad Poonawalla.
Eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud "bang" from inside the venue.
The year threw up quite a few shockers, some rather rude one. Below are Rediff.com's 12 picks that made us sit back and think, 'Did that really happen?'
'Amit Shah was, briefly, a stockbroker before devoting himself to politics. By instinct or training, he knows the value of keeping blue chips in one's portfolio.'
Sanjeev Nayyar travels across India from Barmer to Arunachal to Mahabalipuram, and comes back humbled and impressed with the women he interacted with through his journey.
'... A youth movement which could really transform our politics in a way that the existing elites don't understand.' 'The more you suppress free expression, the more people will value it.' 'The State can't suppress a young society like India where there are so many interesting new ideas emerging,' says Sunil Khilnani, whose latest book Incarnations looks at Indian history through 50 lives.
'If ISIS was popular, they don't need to use violence.' 'The strategy of violence is a false interpretation of Islam.' 'The main victims of ISIS violence are Muslims.'
Aseem Chhabra's take on the highlights of Indian cinema this year.
On the occasion of her breaking the world's longest hunger strike, Rediff.com reproduces this 2011 feature on the activist and her life.
Sreehari Nair wasn't impressed with Rangoon at all. But find out which film tops his list!
