The need of the hour is not a divisive, slanging match of accusations and counter-accusations, but a call for sanity,' says Vivek Gumaste.
'Civilian casualties are something that could change the mood overnight, and therefore should be avoided by every means.'
French journalist Nicolas Henin was captured by the terrorist organisation, the Islamic State, and spent 10 months in captivity explains how the growth of the Islamic State is result of the West's limitation in seeing the IS merely as a terrorist organisation while ignoring its political message and goals.
US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, newly elected co-chair of the influential Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, discusses her vision for US-India ties with Rediff.com's Monali Sarkar.
Sandhya Ravishankar describes the thorny relationship between the two political titans of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, both now part of the ages.
As far as India is concerned, the danger is the potential of the IS to create mischief rather than its actual capability as of now, says Rajiv Kumar
The Sochi Winter Olympics are meant to be Vladimir Putin's crowning achievement as Russian leader but are in danger of becoming a symbol of his country's problems.
'We are Indians not by chance, but by choice.' 'Our ancestors had a chance to go to a State which was Islamic, but they chose to stay back in that State which was not Islamic.'
'For a long time Pakistan dreamt that India would break up and that it would be the predominant power in the region,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'India's military posture has become significantly stronger than China's on the 3,500-kilometre Line of Actual Control.' 'This is enhancing confrontation between the two sides,' points out Ajai Shukla.
'The so-called separatists are representatives of Pakistan. They get paid from Islamabad for propagating that country's policy and conniving in her ploy of accession of Kashmir to Pakistan.'
'Crafting a coherent, transparent and consistent policy vis-a-vis our neighbours, leave alone the rest of the world, is unlikely to be high on the priority list of the new Indian government, which will be sworn in before June,' says Ramananda Sengupta.
Does India's first majoritarian government that is hard-focused on economic development have it in it to provide the Muslim community the healing touch? On evidence available so far, I am not hopeful at all. Yet, like the besieged community, I too find it impossible to abandon hope in the land's millennia-old syncretic traditions, says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The population in Gaza has, for almost a decade, been facing Israel-created 'blockage' from the rest of the world. The isolation has given rise to tunnel phenomenon, an underground route for the procurement of essentials, says Ajey Lele
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
'If one observes a common man passing a church or gurdwara or dargah, he instinctively bows his head. It is this prevalence of polytheism that has ensured that monotheists and minorities flourish in India. This may sound preposterous in wake of the recent communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar. But it must be understood that in a county of over one billion people that was at worst an aberration,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'It is important to note that American officials were trying their best to use the Taliban for their oil games till December 1997 when Mullah Ghous was invited to America. State Department officials did not show any interest in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden even at that time.'
If the high security notes introduced in 2015 were kept in the system, the pain due to demonetisation can be ameliorated to a certain extent. But unfortunately, such thought process have no place in the hasty demonetisation decision.
'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.'
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