'The government is going to introduce legislation that would make it easy for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sikhs and Jains to migrate legally to India.' 'But looking at that list, my entire well-meaning question, as may be obvious, is: What about Muslims? They seem to have been specifically left out of this formulation,' says Aakar Patel.

'There are moments, and the hanging of Yakub Memon was one, where all of the gathered injustices are crystallised. Those gathered at the graveyard were not there to protest. They came to sympathise because they are also victims,' says Aakar Patel.

'Blocking Parliament brings attention to a party that has poor speakers like Rahul Gandhi. It is unlikely to shine in debates, assuming we were a nation that enjoyed listening to sparkling intellectual exchange, which we are not.'

'I got to know the men accused of the blasts regularly meeting them in court and jail. Some of them, like Dutt, are back in jail. Others, like Mohammed Jindran, a quiet and well spoken middle class man, were killed. And now of course Yakub is ready to be hanged. The first in the case to do so,' says Aakar Patel.

'The BJP has bent. Pakistan has not changed a single thing. It is the BJP and its supporters who have changed. And this is a very good thing,' says Aakar Patel.

'Modi is given a longer leash by his fans than any other leader of our time.' 'Will he be able to continue putting himself above the fray if other scandals continue to emerge in his term? No, the erosion will inevitably come, given the awful state of this country. But for now, he has managed to shine through a period that would have tarnished any other leader but him.'

'The major reason is the reluctance of the Indian citizen, particularly in the middle class, to pay his dues. Only around three per cent of Indians pay any income tax and these are mostly those who are employed, and whose taxes are deducted. I often refer to us as a nation of thieves, who steal from our government,' says Aakar Patel.

A Union minister and a chief minister stand accused of corrupting their office. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi lets them continue, he will have broken his election promise substantively, says Aakar Patel.

'Few practitioners of yoga doing the Surya Namaskar, including lakhs of Americans and Europeans, see it as a form of worshipping the sun. They do it because it is good exercise.' 'In my view Muslim groups need to be more flexible on such things and not present their problem in terms that are confrontational.' 'Having said that, are they over-reacting? The history and the background of the government and its ministers would lead us to believe otherwise,' says Aakar Patel.

'My speculation is that the BCCI believes that it is dangerous for credible insiders to stay outside its area of influence. It wants people like these three cricketers inside the tent rather than outside it,' says Aakar Patel.

'The defence minister should concentrate on acquiring a bigger stick, rather than brag of using terrorists as State policy.'

'Will Modi succeed with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan? He will not, because cultural change does not come purely from legislation and never overnight. It comes internally and this is something Gandhi understood,' says Aakar Patel.

'So in the tens of thousands of ads released in India from now on, we will get to see the photographs of only three people: The President, prime minister and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.' 'Political parties will not like the order. It cuts at the single most important messaging tool available to them, and it will be interesting to see how our leaders will work their way around this hurdle,' says Aakar Patel.

Three or four stars are disproportionately powerful in the industry. All the others in Bollywood, no matter how talented, must be aligned to one of these stars or be reconciled to doing small movies with the others, says Aakar Patel.

'Muslim actors like Dilip Kumar thought they had to give themselves Hindu names to be acceptable. Was their caution justified?' 'My view is that Indians, of all faiths, are tolerant. Secular is a complicated word and I do not know if I can use it in this instance. Tolerance is something that is inherently Subcontinental.'

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.

'Masarat Alam is today one of the the undisputed leaders of Kashmir's Islamists. And all he had to do was to get someone to hold up a flag. He has accurately placed us and we can look forward to many more years of this from him.'

'If 25 black men had been executed illegally in the US in one day, the government would have fallen and the population would have rallied to the victims. In India, those of us who did not applaud the police only yawned,' says Aakar Patel.

'Modi deliberately chose such unhinged people because they said what he wanted to, but couldn't,' says Aakar Patel.