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'She has been hurt'
'Those who say that in no country can a foreign-born hold public office are either great scholars or they don't know anything,' says Congress leader and Sonia loyalist Pranab Mukherjee. 'We have started a movement which is close to the hearts of the people of India' "Let them show their strength now, we will show them our strength after the elections. Many more leaders will be joining us soon," says the expelled Congress leader P A Sangma. 'Partymen who share our sentiments will do so later, I can assure you' 'People like Jitendra Prasada, Rajesh Pilot and others are not very comfortable with the scheme of things under the present dispensation,' says expelled Congressman Tariq Anwar. 'There is no point in talking to him' 'When Kalmadi walked out even he had a better gathering of MLAs and municipal councillors,' says CWC member Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Pawar crisis. 'We should not try and provoke him' 'Sonia Gandhi had given him the most important assignment of striking electoral alliances. Finally, it appeared as though he had won her complete trust... This is political suicide,' says Pawar supporter Gurudas Kamat. 'We did not expect Pawar to raise the issue' "No individual is bigger than the party. In the past we have seen big leaders leaving the party, floating their own outfits and later coming back to the Congress. They went out like tigers and came back like lambs." Madhavrao Scindia, the Congress general secretary in charge of Maharashtra, on the anti-Sonia revolt. 'Pawar should be expelled' 'There are nearly 100 Congress MLAs and MLCs in Maharashtra; hardly 12 support him. Of the party's 33 Lok Sabha MPs from the state, only four support Pawar,' says MPCC chief Prataprao Bhosle. 'Sharad Pawar has always been very unpredictable' 'Only two leaders in India have national acceptance -- Sonia Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Pawar and Sangma can never attain that level of acceptability.' Ranjit Deshmukh, former Maharashtra Congress chief and Pawar acolyte, questions his leader's motive. '18 people died in the attack. So why can't 26 convicted hang for it?' 'Me and my team worked 7 days a week, 20 hours a day for a whole year. We viewed 500 videocassettes, scanned thousands of photographs, and interrogated 5,000 people. Whatever evidence was there, we produced that. But we couldn't concoct evidence,' says D R Karthikeyan, head of the Special Investigation Team that brought Rajiv Gandhi's assassins to book. 'India is neither in the first, second or third world, India is a world in its own right' 'India is not marginalised, Indian cannot be marginalised. A country of the greatness of India simply cannot be wished away from the globe. Let us not suffer from this kind of inferiority complex. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh proves a true-blue Indian as he celebrates the first anniversary of Pokhran II. 'Journalists just hate anyone like me who is prominent' 'The god within me is very strong. I am so glad that the killer (Manu Sharma aka Siddharth Vashisht) has been caught. I don't know him at all, but I remember his face. And I will identify him,' says socialite Bina Ramani. 'India should abandon its nuclear weapon development programme and accede to CTBT and NPT immediately and unconditionally' 'It is wrong to regard the nuclear issue of South Asia as an issue between China and India, which is in fact an issue between the international community and India,' says Zhou Gang, Chinese ambassador to India. 'Blackmailing is going on. Purchasing is going on' 'The problem is that there are sharp differences between the parties that want to come to power at the Centre,' says the RSP's Abani Roy. 'We had no mandate to support the BJP' 'Farooq Abdullah has lost all respect for the legacy of his father Sheikh Abdullah, I understand it better than he does. Farooq does not understand it because he is not wholetime into politics. He is busy in extra-curricular activities,' says Saifuddin Soz. 'The govt has been transparent. But what the Opposition demanded was not transparency but nudity. It was an indecent demand' 'I don't think the Congress will gain politically unless they run a government for some time and become very popular, which is going to be very difficult... There are going to be three or four Jayalalithas with them!' says Cho Ramaswamy, in an exclusive interview. 'Tohra is welcome to come...' I am willing to go to his house and request him with folded hands to attend our function and participate in the tercentenary celebrations of the Khalsa Panth. But he seems adamant, says Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in an interview. 'Some may say BJP minus J is BP. BP is not blood pressure. BP is Better Party, Better Performance!' 'We have enjoyed the experience of dealing with Jayalalitha. Vajpayee is a brahmachari. He might not have had the experience of (laughs) dealing with women. So, it is an experience!' says TN BJP general secretary L Ganesan. 'For a university, money is not the most important thing but good professors' 'I would compare even our IITs and IIMs only with second grade institutions of the US. The difference comes due to two factors. We are much better with respect to students. With respect to the faculty, we are not that good.' Former Madras University vice chancellor P T Manoharan on what ails Indian universities. 'Jayalalitha is the only person who can bring down this government' 'And without Sonia it is impossible to form an alternative government. We need her co-operation. So when these two come together I think we have tied both ends.' Dr Subramanian Swamy, in frank conversation. 'How long can we go on supporting this government?' "We have got nothing in return for supporting the government. Kashmir has not been granted anything, no special packages have been announced for it, even though it is well known that we are the worst sufferers of cross-border terrorism. What do we tell the people back home?" Omar Farooq, MP and son of J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, voices his party's discontent with the Centre. 'I don't [see myself as prime minister], but anything is possible in politics' 'The major partner in the coalition cannot adopt a big brotherly attitude towards the other allies and expect them to fall in line blindly. All my statements have been either in the national interest or in the interests of Tamizhnadu. There has been no self-interest. There is nothing personal.' J Jayalalitha, in an exclusive interview. 'There's nothing communal in my report' 'In Bangladesh, there were 700,000 registered Bihari Muslims. Today, there are just 100,000 of them in Dhaka and elsewhere. Where did the 600,000 Bihari Muslims go?' Assam Governor Lt General (retd) S K Sinha, accused by the Opposition of communalism for his report on infiltration. 'I did not expect the Ravi Shankar phobia to reach such a level where they are ready to denigrate the highest award in the land just to pull me down!' 'It is natural to have your favourite actor or actress or musician or composer. But India is the only place where we fight over it,' Pandit Ravi Shankar tells Pritish Nandy. 'Rightist history is communal history' 'That history denies you your past. The Hindutva forces will deny you your right to knowledge. The VHP and RSS have a set agenda -- they state that their history is the history of Hindus,' says Marxist historian K N Pannikker. 'If the people who support me don't object to my wearing pants, I don't see why anyone else should' 'We will go to the polls with a state government that is almost in coma and a rudderless Centre. Vajpayee might have gone to Pakistan in a bus. I went to Pakistan in an aircraft, with 35 MPs, and it made no difference,' says Karnataka Congress chief S M Krishna. • 'The alarming rate of accidents in the IAF has caused serious concern' 'My committee has also recommended that stern action should be initiated against those who are responsible for dereliction of duty towards the nation.' Squadron Leader Kamal Chaudhry, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, on the IAF's biggest problem: the absence of an Advanced Jet Trainer. • 'The law is an amoeba riddled with parasites' ''Having first been brought up to believe that you must get married, and then that you are incomplete as a woman without any children, I found the whole idea that women cannot be the natural guardian of their children ridiculous," says writer Githa Hariharan, who took the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1959, to court and won. • 'Our past lives determine what we are today' "Patients, when they go into their past lives, find familiar faces, familiar experiences. Through these, they understand their present life and cure themselves of phobias they can easily do without. That is how past life therapy works, by helping you to understand the fears, the pains, the illnesses that you experience in this life because of your earlier experiences in earlier lives." Psychotherapist Karl Everding tells Pritish Nandy. • 'The people are far less tolerant of our infighting' "Hegde is a tremendously popular man. But we have won many bye-elections without him, and I don't see why facing an assembly election will be any different," says Karnataka Deputy CM Siddaramiah. • 'In a shootout, no one has time for niceties. You kill or get killed.' ''We may get monetary rewards every time we catch a criminal. But that is not what we risk our lives for. We risk our lives for recognition, for official acclaim. And we do not get enough of that." Assistant Police Inspector Vijay Salaskar on what it is to be Bombay's fabled encounter expert. • 'We must be disciplined soldiers' "I don't think anyone has to be upset about anything. We are not here to become ministers, we are here to serve people in the manner assigned by the high command." Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang on his new ministry. • 'If a military person does not speak or stand up for his convictions, he is not fit to be there in the first place' "We have an elite united in one kind of thinking: that none of their sons, daughters and sons-in-law want to join the armed forces of the country. I think it has an effect down the line. Because if you think someone else should fight your wars, it is a very, very poor way out and a very poor message." Sacked navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat on the vocation he left behind. • 'On one hand, you want to fight corruption and on the other you want join hands with the corrupt...' "We have suffered because of the RJD's jungle raj in Bihar. So if we are apprehensive about Laloo Yadav and his party, it is only natural." The Janata Dal's Ram Vilas Paswan on why he won't vote against President's rule in the state. • 'Without conversions, the Church will simply collapse' "Christianity is finished in India, because it takes such enormous resources to just hold on to the people they have," says former Lockheed principal scientist N S Rajaram. • 'The RJD and BJP have been indulging in the politics of dalit corpses' "The poor dalits must be given arms and the unlicensed weapons of the wealthy farmers must be seized," says Dipankar Bhattacharya, general secretary of the CPI-ML, about the carnage by the Ranvir Sena in Bihar. • 'Their agenda is to convert poor people to Christianity' "When the missionaries say they are working for the downtrodden, it is all a myth. In fact, their agenda is to convert poor people to Christianity," says Orissa Bajrang Dal chief Pratapchand Sarangi. • 'I was elected because the Congress is with me, not because I am Gomango' "All the attack cases against the Christian community are under investigation and review. These are not small cases, but serious ones. And I have to solve these cases. There are problems and we will surely solve the problems." Orissa's Chief Minister-designate Giridhar Gomango, in his first media interview. • 'Being aggressive in politics is not the same as being a criminal' 'The murder charge was filed only to embarrass me. I was in Mumbai when this man was killed 500 kilometres away, in Sindhudurg. The Congress was in dire straits out there and so they planned to finish off my political career.' Maharashtra Chief Minister Narayan Rane defends himself. • 'There is no question of revival of terrorism in Punjab' 'The political leadership in the state has been creating a spectre of the revival of militancy in an attempt to oust me from the Akal Takht. It is not appropriate for Sikhs now to raise slogans for a separatist state.' Ousted Akal Takht jathedar Bhai Ranjit Singh, on the crisis in Punjab. • 'There is an unconscious militant dislike of the Christian world towards Hindu India' 'And in this militant hate, Christians are even ready to ally themselves with their traditional enemies: Islam.' Le Figaro correspondent Francois Gautier tells Rajeev Srinivasan. •The Rediff Interview/ Tahir Mahmood •The Rediff Interview/ Romila Thapar •The Rediff Interview/ A Balakrishnan •The Rediff Interview/ Surendra Jain •The Rediff Interview/ Gladys Stains •The Rediff Interview/ Aslam Sher Khan •The Rediff Interview/ Raj Thackeray •The Rediff Interview/ Jayalalitha •The Rediff Interview/ Nandamuri Harikrishna •The Rediff Interview/ Basanta Kumar Biswal •The Rediff Interview/ Dr Stephen Cohen •The Rediff Interview/ Ajitha •The Rediff Interview/ K N Govindacharya •The Rediff Interview/ Keshubhai Patel •The Rediff Interview/ Joginder Singh •The Rediff Interview/ Rear Admiral (retd) K R Menon •The Rediff Interview/ Jayantibhai Kewat • The Rediff Interview/ Dr Murli Manohar Joshi • The Rediff Interview/ T N Kaul • The Rediff Interview/ T S Chandrashekhar • The Rediff Interview/ Uma Bharti • The Rediff Interview/ C Subramaniam • The Rediff Election Interview/ Sudha Churi • The Rediff Election Interview/ M Arunachalam • The Rediff Election Interview/ Ramgopal Yadav • The Rediff Election Interview/ Shiela Dikshit • The Rediff Election Interview/ Shiv Charan Mathur • The Rediff Election Interview/ Sunderlal Patwa • The Rediff Election Interview/ Kailash Joshi • The Rediff Election Interview/ Hari Shankar Bhabra • The Rediff Election Interview/ Raghuveer Singh Kaushal • The Rediff Election Interview/ Ashok Gehlot • The Rediff Election Interview/ Ashok Gehlot • The Rediff Election Interview/ Digvijay Singh • The Rediff Election Interview/ T John Longkumer • The Rediff Election Interview/ Bhairon Singh Shekhawat • The Rediff Election Interview/ Shyama Charan Shukla • The Rediff Election Interview/ Narendra Modi • The Rediff Election Interview/ Nawal Kishore Sharma • The Rediff Election Interview/ K N Govindacharya • The Rediff Election Interview/ Chhotubhai Vasava • The Rediff Interview/Ronald Mendonca • The Rediff Interview/Dr K Krishnaswamy • The Rediff Interview/L C Jain • The Rediff Interview/S S Ahluwalia • The Rediff Interview/ Arun Gawli • The Rediff Interview/ Dr K Kasturirangan • The Rediff Interview/ T N Seshan • The Rediff Interview/ Dr Wilfred de Souza • The Rediff Interview/Brinda Karat • The Rediff Interview/Uddhav Thackeray • The Rediff Interview/P D Chitlangia • The Rediff Interview/Sushil Kumar Modi • The Rediff Interview/ Sahib Singh Verma • The Rediff Interview/G K Moopanar • The Rediff Interview/I K Gujral • The Rediff Interview/J S Verma • The Rediff Interview/Hannan Mollah • The Rediff Interview/M K Bezbaruah • The Rediff Interview/Ashraf Jehangir Qazi • The Rediff Interview//Dr A P J Abdul Kalam • The Rediff Interview/Acharya Giriraj Kishore • The Rediff Interview/Prasad • The Rediff Interview/Ganapathy • The Rediff Interview/Kushabhau Thakre • The Rediff Interview/Raghuvansh Prasad Singh • The Rediff Interview/Achin Vanaik • The Rediff Interview/Bharat Karnad • The Rediff Interview/Richard N Haass • The Rediff Interview/Tomazinho Cardoz • The Rediff Interview/Mukesh Baba • The Rediff Interview/Sarath Kumar • The Rediff Interview/Dr Praful Desai • The Rediff Interview/Satish Gujral • The Rediff Interview/Justice A M Ahmadi • The Rediff Interview/Sister Nirmala • The Rediff Interview/Praful Patel • The Rediff Interview/V Gopalaswamy • The Rediff Interview/Protima Bedi • The Rediff Interview/Prataprao Bhosle • The Rediff Interview/Anthony C Lobo • The Rediff Interview/Dr Mubashir Hasan • The Rediff Interview/Bal Thackeray • The Rediff Interview/Ajit Panja • The Rediff Interview/Madhukar Sarpotdar • The Rediff Interview/Kabir Khan • The Rediff Interview/Jiggs Kalra and Puspesh Pant • The Rediff Interview/Shabbir Shah • The Rediff Interview/Pradeep Dalvi • The Rediff Interview/Gerhard Fischer • The Rediff Interview/Laloo Prasad Yadav • The Rediff Interview/Ranjit Deshmukh • The Rediff Interview/Tindivanam K Ramamurthee • The Rediff Interview/Buta Singh • The Rediff Interview/K Karunakaran • The Rediff Interview/Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi • The Rediff Interview/Arundhati Ghose • The Rediff Interview/A N M Kishore • The Rediff Interview/R K Laxman • The Rediff Interview/Amar Singh • The Rediff Interview/N Chandrababu Naidu • The Rediff Interview/A K Antony • The Rediff Interview/Girish Chandra Saxena • The Rediff Interview/Jana K Krishnamurthy • The Rediff Interview/Nitish Kumar • The Rediff Interview/Raghuvansh Prasad Singh • The Rediff Interview/ Sushil Kumar Modi • The Rediff Interview/C Subramaniam • The Rediff Interview/ Pritish Nandy • The Rediff Interview/J Jeyaranjan • The Rediff Interview/Ajit Jogi • The Rediff Interview/Michael Krepon • The Rediff Interview/J N Dixit • The Rediff Interview/Zia Mian • The Rediff Interview/R H Mendonca • The Rediff Interview/Ramagopalan • The Rediff Interview/Mariam Rasheeda • The Rediff Interview/D Sasikumaran • The Rediff Interview/Zia Mian • The Rediff Interview/S A Basha • The Rediff Interview/Murasoli Maran • The Rediff Interview/Ganesh Naik • The Rediff Interview/Kalyan Singh • The Rediff Interview/Subramanian Swamy • The Rediff Interview/L Ganesan • The Rediff Interview/Kushabhau Thakre • The Rediff Interview/P Kalimuthu • The Rediff Interview/D R Karthikeyan • The Rediff Interview/George Fernandes • The Rediff Interview/C P Thakur • The Rediff Interview/Basheeruddin Babu Khan
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