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August 30, 2004

'Mine is India of the spirit'
'I have a special, soft corner in my heart for Hinduism. It is like a mother to me,' says author Stephen H Ruppenthal.

August 23, 2004

'Registration for PIO next month'
'It will begin with 16 specified countries. It will be extended later to 70 countries,' says Minister for NRI Affairs Jagdish Tytler.

August 19, 2004

'Magic brings you closer to reality'
'I think that a lot of Western performers can learn from watching Indian street magicians performing, because few Western performers have to perform in such difficult conditions,' says the magician Peter Lamont

August 17, 2004

‘Every culture believes in some sort of magic’
'With the notion of the mystic East, the people in the West may find an inexplicable mystery in India somehow more impressive, more mysterious, more mystical,' says magic researcher Peter Lamont

August 13, 2004

The man who will defend Saddam
P V Bakthavatchalam will be part of the international panel of lawyers being constituted to defend Saddam Hussein.

August 12, 2004

'A hostage crisis is not a silly matter'
'We have to remain patient. It may take days for negotiations to succeed,' says Minister of State for External Affair E Ahmed.

August 11, 2004

'The talks are farcical'
'The border disputes have a genuine problem because whatever Chinese are claiming and whatever they are ready to give both belong to India,' says China expert Srikant Kondapalli.

August 03, 2004

'Judiciary has to be overactive'
'We cannot have the judicial wing of the State wrapped up in its own black gown,' says Constitutional expert Fali Nariman.

July 30, 2004

'My party should have supported me'
Chhagan Bhujbal speaks out!

July 27, 2004

'Gujarat has become a destination for terrorists'
'People who think the terrorism perceived by us is illusory are loose talkers.' Ahmedabad crime branch chief D G Vanzara hits out at his critics.

July 17, 2004

'Infiltration is down, but there is violence'
'I found the situation this time, both in Islamabad and in India, much more relaxed.' Exclusive Interview with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

July 15, 2004

'There are wild kids in India, there are wild desi kids in America, get used to it people'
'All you have to do is hang out with the so-called 'rich kids' in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and you'll see what 'wild' is,' says novelist Sonia Singh.

July 14, 2004

We will not believe Muslims'
'The Muslims just showed that they will vote for us, but didn't actually vote for us,' says former Lok Sabha speaker Manohar Joshi.

July 10, 2004

'India has put us in an awkward position'
Moulvi Abbas Ansari, who has resigned as chief of the Hurriyat Conference, explains why he did so.

July 8, 2004

'My music is not meant to excite the nervous system'
'When you surrender to healing, transformative music, you become the music,' says New Age musician Patrick Bernard.

July 7, 2004

'Be passionate about work. Being genuine goes a long way'
Nandini Chattopadhyay is among 15 immigrant students chosen as the first Merage American Dream Fellow. The $20,000 scholarship is restricted to mostly elite universities in America, including Harvard, Princeton, MIT and Stanford.

July 6, 2004

'Nobody believes Nehru was beyond mistakes'
'Much of the Socialism that we attribute to him actually came during Indira Gandhi's time,' says M J Akbar who believes that Nehru's convictions helped shape modern India.

July 5, 2004

'Please go out and get that pap smear done'
'My objective is to make cancer a less dangerous disease, a disease women no longer need to die from. Cancer has a 95% survival rate if caught at a localised stage before it spreads,' says Sonal Vimal Ambani.

June 18, 2004

'Saif's quite good at playing hapless characters'
'I wouldn't want Hrithik Roshan, his muscles are too big. Aamir Khan would make the part too serious. And certainly not Aishwarya Rai.' Novelist Hari Kunzru on Bollywood and his latest book.

June 17, 2004

'Gujarat has been saved'
'But if you look with a biased mind, you may find our achievement a small one.' Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah defends his police force.

June 15, 2004

'Inexperience is my biggest handicap'
'I often wonder why should you need a post to serve the nation. I will have to tell my supporters to refrain from making hyperbolic references about me.' Rahul Gandhi in an exclusive interview.

June 14, 2004

'India, Pakistan are not interested in peace'
'The peace talks are drama to show off to the international community. Both sides are trying to score points,' says Pakistani lawyer and staunch Musharraf opponent Hamid Khan.

June 11, 2004

'If the domicile clause is gone, why have the RS?'
If the Election Commission had been allowed to fill up the Rajya Sabha vacancies, a precedent would have been set, says former MP Kuldip Nayar, whose petition has delayed the process.

June 10, 2004

'Nehru should have quit in the late '50s'
'What Nehru valued most of all was the attempted construction of a plural, open, and democratic polity working for change in the lives of all citizens,' says biographer Judith Brown.

June 9, 2004

'We don't hide our politics. We are not opportunists'
'Any mistake in the defense of secularism, any lapse in economic policy that affects the people, any giving in to pressure from America, we shall come out,'warns CPI-M leader Prakash Karat.

June 8, 2004

'Operation Bluestar was most traumatic, most painful'
'Every army chief has told the government that it is not in the interest of the army for it to enter civil situations,' says General K S Brar.

'We don't agree with Congress' economic policies'
'The BJP's economic policy narrowed the employment potential. Go to any urban area, you will see closed factories. The small sector belongs to the middle class, and their future is ruined,' says CPI-M leader Prakash Karat.

June 7, 2004

'You are not acting against any religion but against a section of misguided people'
General K S Brar tells Amberish K Diwanji about his feelings as a Sikh who sent soldiers into his religion's most revered site.

June 4, 2004

'There is always a limit to how much any country can take'
'It had to be a surgical operation, one that caused the minimum damage but it had to be as quick as possible because once word got around...' General K S Brar looks back at Operation Bluestar.

June 3, 2004

'Pakistan would have recognised Khalistan'
Lt Gen Kuldip Singh Brar (retd), who led Operation Bluestar, travels back to that difficult moment in India's history, in an exclusive interview with Amberish K Diwanji.

June 1, 2004

'It is important for me to go back to India as much as possible'
'When you go to the top of a mountain, and someone points to the Gangotri, you want to learn more about it. Every little town and village in India has something to do with religion and tradition,' says Stephen Alter.