'Who says Sohrabuddin's wife has been killed?'
'Amit Shah is a fighter. He should be alright,' BJP spokesman Devang Nanavati tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt. 'Why is Gujarat being targeted?'
'When it comes to Gujarat, when it comes to Mr Modi, you want a different set of laws to be applied,' declares BJP leader Devang Nanavati. 'Rosaiah has poisoned high command against Jagan'
'Jagan is not in favour of floating a new party. He has decided to wait patiently and see how things will unfold in the days to come., says suspended Congress leader Ambati Rambabu, one of Jagan's closest aides. 'I don't see pure milk-and-honey goodness in the poor'
'I remember bitter people in the chawl. I can imagine some NRI writers observing the chawl boys laughing or playing cricket and saying, 'the spirit of Bombay' or some shit like that. That is all rubbish,' says novelist Manu Joseph. 'We politicians have given the Naxals a walkover'
'The cities are not safe, Naxals will reach them very soon,' feels Mahendra Karma, the tribal leader who championed the controversial Salwa Judum against the Naxalites. 'Inter-departmental politics is rotting railways'
In an interview with rediff.com's Anisha Ralhan, M G Arora, former executive director of safety, Indian Railways, explains how lobbyists and deflectors operating at different levels have corroded the lifeline of the nation. Meet the Indian behind G8, G20 summits in Canada
Sanjeev Chowdhury, director general, department of foreign affairs in Canada, headed the team that organised the G8 and G20 summits in Huntsville and Toronto respectively from June 25 to 27. When he joined Canada's foreign service 15 years ago and became a part of the team that organised the G7 summit -- as it was then called -- in Halifax, he never imagined that he would one day be responsible for organising these major events. He spoke to rediff.com's Ajit Jain. 'Blame Left for the surge of extremism in Kerala'
In an exclusive interview to rediff.com, Kerala Cong leader Oommen Chandy blames the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front Government for the surge in extremist activities in Kerala. 'Centre is an equal party to K'taka mining scam'
The mining scam in Karnataka is keeping Advocate General of Karnataka Ashok Harnahalli busy these days. 'This monsoon Maoists will fight for survival'
'Last monsoon, we had them totally on the run. Their bodies were flowing down the streams,' says Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar. 'Only tit for tat can deter anti-Dalit atrocities'
'There is no other method to correct such a deep-seated cultural prejudice against Dalits than shock treatment,' feels Dalit intellectual- activist Dr Anand Teltumbde, author of Khairlanji: A Strange And Bitter Crop. 'Pak's double standards on terror not acceptable'
US National Security Advisor James L Jones sent a tough message to Pakistan saying double standards on terrorism were not acceptable. Reddys don't own mining lease in Karnataka: Lawyer
'Let anyone in Karnataka come forward and show that we have the licences to even a single square foot of land in the state,' challenges C V Nagesh, the Reddy brothers's lawyer. Kiran Bedi on fighting the Maoists
The Centre and states need to synchronise their forces to tackle the surge in Maoist violence, believes former IPS officer Kiran Bedi. 'Policemen need a HR manager before fighting Naxals'
The Centre and states need to synchronise their forces to tackle the surge in Maoist violence, believes former IPS officer Kiran Bedi. 'Khap panchayats can't be above the law'
If the government can act against sympathisers of Naxalites, it should act against khap sympathisers too, Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal tells Sreelatha Menon Chidambaram rejects probe into Azad's death
'He said there was no question of ordering a probe at the Centre's level. This comes within the jurisdiction of the Andhra Pradesh government,' Swami Agnivesh tells Rediff.com 'Majority of Congress in AP is with Jagan'
Gadikota Srikanth Reddy, Congress MLA from Kadapa in this interview with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, says that it is a wrong image that is being portrayed in the media that the Congress in AP is against Jagan. Dr Nirupam Bajpai, the man who knows India's pulse
Senior Earth Institute economist and Dr Nirupam Bajpai is a global vagabond. He flits between the Big Apple, interior India, Mumbai, New Delhi and other developing countries in Sub-Sahara Africa and Asia, faithfully collecting endless data to feed his continuous research on improving developing economies. His special beat: Any of India's 600,000 varied villages. 'Youth have taken over the Kashmir movement'
'Dr Singh reached out to Pakistan when he said he hopes to have a cordial relations with the neighbouring country but he did not reach out to the people of Kashmir. It is rather unfortunate,' says Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umer Farooz Sri Sri speaks on Nityananda, Naxals, land grab
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar speaks about the land-grabbing allegations, the Swami Nityananda sex scandal and his interaction with Naxal leaders. The Dalai Lama: 'I am a son of India'
'My thoughts come from the Nalanda Buddhist tradition and this body has lived on Indian dal, rice and chapattis during the last 51 years.' The Dalai Lama, who is 75 today, in an exclusive interview. Exclusive: An interview with the Dalai Lama
As the Dalai Lama turns 75 on July 6, he speaks about the importance of the Indian tradition of Nalanda, the differences between Buddhist science, philosophy and religion and why he believes that a 'sort' of cultural genocide is happening in Tibet. Chinese are eager to exploit Tibet's natural resources'
Exclusive: A fascinating interview with the Dalai Lama on his 75th birthday. 'Difficult to say if Lashkar's behind JK violence'
People's Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti reacted sharply when asked if there was any truth in the allegation that her party has been providing money to some Kashmiris to stage-manage the ongoing violence in the valley. 'Caste inclusion in census will be a disaster'
Professor P Radhakrishnan is a social scientist talks about the dangers of including caste in the census. 'No proof of Tamil script in Indus civilization'
I do not agree with Parpola's unproven 'decipherment' of Indus script with the premise that old Tamil was the underlying language. It is simply a belief system and not premised on evidence of the corpus of inscriptions and the underlying cultural foundations of the civilization of 4,000 years ago, says Indologist Dr S Kalyanaraman. I was feeling helpless and unwanted: Justice Hegde
Karnataka Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde's sudden resignation has come as a shock to the state and an embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party government, which is incidentally gearing up for grand celebrations on Friday marking two years in office. 'People of Bhatkal are not fools to let ISI in'
There is way too much being made out of this place and I can only say that by putting such baseless news, each one is only trying to tarnish the image of Bhatkal, says MLA J D Naik. 'Hinduism and terrorism cannot go together'
Ram Madhav, the media savvy member of the RSS national executive, vehemently denies the organisation's direct or indirect involvement with terrorism and claims it is not infected by such radical elements. 'Safe passage to Anderson was in India's interest'
Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra, was India's foreign secretary at the time of the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984. speaks on whether Union Carbide Corporation chief Warren Anderson asked for and received safe passage, and did Anderson meet senior officials of the government of India while he was in the country. 'Use minimum adequate force against Naxals'
'We are dealing with a very difficult social situation. It needs a lot of maturity, patience and self control,' says Lt Gen V G Patankar (retd). 'The Centre has been sleeping for so long'
'Manipur is a peripheral state. Had it been in Haryana or somewhere, it would have been cleared in two days. The Centre was too insensitive.' Pradip Phanjoubam, editor, Imphal Free Press, on the Manipur blockade. 'A majority of the police force is biased'
S R Darapuri, a retired Indian Police Service officer has been fighting for several innocents picked up and tortured by the police in several cases of terrorism,explains how the police force is beset with bias and what needs to be done to tackle it. 'Obama's visit may lead to new era'
In an exclusive interview to Rediff.com, US Assistant Secretary of State Robert O Blake speaks about President Obama's trip to India, the recent US-India Strategic Dialogue and the fate of the nuclear liability bill. 'The govt should open its eyes to Hindu terrorism'
Member of the Lok Sabha from Hyderabad and president of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Asaduddin Owaisi on Hindu terrorism and why he thinks Hyderabadi Muslims have been victimised. Interview: Man who warned of the Bhopal gas leak
Just months before the deadly gas leak in Bhopal killed 15,000 people, journalist Rajkumar Keswani had warned that the 'city stood on the edge of a volcano'. He speaks of his 26-year battle to get justice for the victims. ''The Naxalite is not 10 feet tall'
'There are no quick fixes... The security forces can kill terrorists, but terrorism will be killed only by the people,' says Lieutenant General V G Patankar (retd). Govt helped Anderson to leave India: CBI official
The country is seething in anger since the Bhopal court announced a mere two-year jail term for the eight convicted in the 23-year-old Bhopal gas tragedy case. 'The LTTE can never re-emerge'
Journalist M R Narayan Swamy, who has covered Sri Lanka for many years, talks about his latest book The Tiger Vanquished: LTTE's Story and says its fallen chief Prabhakaran made many mistakes in the build up to the war and the organisation dug its own grave. Bhopal: 'It was homicide not amounting to murder'
M R Sivarman, a retired IAS officer was the finance and planning secretary of the Madhya Pradesh government when the Bhopal gas tragedy occurred on the night of December 2-3, 1984. 'Judiciary will not save this country...'
'There was a time when people would go to the Supreme Court because they sincerely believed that the Supreme Court would do justice to them,' says retired high court Justice Hosbet Suresh. 'Deploying Army against Naxals would be wrong'
'If the Indian Army is deployed aganist Naxals it would mean that the whole political system has failed,' says Lt Gen D B Shekatkar (retd). 'Publicity is oxygen for Maoists'
'Unless they create some spectacular event people don't take cognisance of them. So they will select targets that will give them publicity and prominence,' says Lt Gen D B Shekatkar (retd). 'No signs of Maoists in the Posco agitation yet'
'When governments fail in their persuasion they resort to suppression,' says retired Bombay high court judge Hosbet Suresh who visited villages at the Posco site in Orissa that witnessed burning down of shops, homes and police aggression last month. 'The silent majority of Muslims are not Wahhabi'
'The alliance between the mullahs of the Wahhabi Al-e Shaikh and the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Al-e Saud, is like the oppressive nexus between the Christian Church and the monarchy in medieval Europe. It is proving to be a curse for Muslims.' February - May 2010