A BJP worker's anguished open letter to party chief L K Advani.
Even as senior leaders lined up to receive the party president at the airport, Hindu Jagran Manch put up a poster which read -- 'Jinnah Samarthak, Pakistan Premi Advani, Vapas Jao (Jinnah supporter Advani go back).'
'They were certainly not practising Hinduism in the Harappan culture (which includes Mohenjo Daro and other sites).' 'There was no notion of Hinduism then.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday night expelled its veteran leader Jaswant Singh, who is contesting the Lok Sabha poll as an Independent in Rajasthan's Barmer constituency against the party's official nominee, after he refused to withdraw his candidature on the last day of withdrawal of nominations.
'Nehru's inability to take religion seriously as a category led to serious errors of judgement in his dealings with the Muslim League, and later, also with the Hindu right.'
'Look at the aggressive way in which a campaign against Friday namaz is going on in North Indian cities.' 'Even the Union home minister is part of this vicious campaign.'
Opposition parties, though resigned to the fact that they lack the numbers to defeat or stall the bill in the two Houses, have decided upon different tactics that they would employ to highlight their reasons for opposing it.
The BJP offers Saifuddin Soz 'one-way ticket' to Pakistan
During Vajpayee's tenure, he was there as an indispensable insider, witness to every action that had an impact on history: Pokhran-II (nuclear tests in 1998), the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, the Indo-Pak Agra Summit in 2001, intense engagement with the United States on nuclear issues besides the Kandahar hijack.
It is time the current leaders who swear by 'cultural nationalism', that is religion neutral, assert that Bharatiyata is at the core of our nationalism and India was never a 'Hindu Rashtra', argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
She said that Defence Minister Manohar Parikar was wrong in comparing Pakistan with 'hell'. She said, "It is nothing like that. People there are just like us and there is no difference. They treated us very well."
Syed Firdaus Ashraf traces the trajectory of Lal Kishan Advani from the highs of the 1990s to the present, when he may have to watch the elections from the sidelines.
Kulkarni said that he has accepted Kasuri's invitation to join the launch of his book 'Neither a Hawk nor a Dove' in Karachi on November 2.
'Intolerance is in our blood. Every person has some level of intolerance. One can't get rid of it, but one has to check and control it for the sake of a peaceful society and country,' says actor Tam Alter.
'Amit Shah and his fellow travellers need to realise that India was divided because of competitive communalism of forces like Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League, prodded, aided and abetted by the colonial power,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'The best course for India is to wait out the implosion that is bound to take place in Pakistan sooner than later.' 'We have to ensure that the fallings debris from a collapsing State does not damage us,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Police and paramilitary security forces, including sharpshooters, have been deployed at the MOFA to deal with any untoward security situation, they said.
Using the Jinnah portrait as an issue, and by demonising AMU and consequently Indian Muslims, the politics of communal polarisation is sought to be played out ahead of the Kairana Lok Sabha by-poll and to sustain it till the next Lok Sabha election, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'If PM has some concrete information against gau rakshaks then he must disclose it, otherwise we will take legal action against him.'
There is a great danger of the government getting stampeded into actions in Kashmir that could result in long lasting damage, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'In a relationship that does not permit cricket, how can the prime ministers embrace and send a false message,' asks Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Nobody in AMU supports Jinnah's two-nation theory.' 'It is shameful we are debating Jinnah and not education or employment.'
'The Congress wants to eat the cake, but does not want to share it.'
To promote Advani as a moderate is as much a travesty of truth as to present the children of Godse as followers of Gandhi, feels Poornima Joshi
What happened within the last 40 years that turned this society from secular democratic to Hindu right-wing that clench their collective fists of spiritual nobility against the fictional enemy that never was? The internet happened, says Vinay Menon.
The BJP's panicky return to basic-instinct majoritarianism in Bihar has pushed Muslims back into the 'secular' basement, says Shekhar Gupta.
Dr Behera speaks about how the nationwide positive reaction to the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir indicates that the very idea of India is changing. From a diverse, multicultural entity, could India be becoming a place where assimilation is more important than accommodation?
The elections in two eastern Indian states were keenly observed in Bangladesh for two major contentious issues, writes Prakash Bhandari from Dhaka.
The main culprit in vitiating the inter community/caste/class relations has been the so called 'targeted' approach. This is nothing but discrimination on the basis of faith/caste/class. When an equally poor and deprived child is denied scholarship, despite equal merit, resentment begins to brew, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
AMU has once again been pulled into a crossfire of crass political opportunism. In these post-truth times, that the university also had political stirrings not subscribing to the Muslim League is chosen to be forgotten, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Modi today needs BJP CMs and non-party regional leaders to win votes and build alliances, but he will over-rule them and treat them like dirt once they have served their electoral purpose. Make no mistake: Modi is incurably authoritarian and will brook no dissent -- so long as the RSS is on board, says Praful Bidwai.
'Many who haven't even seen the documentary are claiming that it defames and damages the image of India, makes it sound unsafe, and gives the rapist a forum.' 'This couldn't be further from the truth, and the film shows the best qualities of India and Indians in standing up against evil as much as it shows the unvarnished truth.'
'Indian nationhood is indeed at the cusp of alarming redefinition -- hate-filled, and exclusionary.' 'Nations are not built this way, instead these are the ways of liquidating nations.' 'We must pre-empt it.' 'Can we?' asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'I don't practise yoga. How am I less of a nationalist than the person who practises it? Is it a crime if I don't practice it?'
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