P. Chidambaram

Police can only act on intelligence.

Pakistan is not a rogue state, but it harbours and covertly supports rogue elements. While war is not the answer, hard or coercive diplomacy could be.

I readily concede that a prime minister is not required to speak on every occasion or on every subject, but when there is a duty to speak, silence is unacceptable. Silence can be a strategy, silence can be a tactic, but silence can never be an answer to the ills of our polity and the fault lines of our society.

Not all ideas will be accepted, but every idea deserves its own space, and every idea deserves to be expressed.

I think preaching equality among unequals is the worst form of discrimination.

If you go back to any period in India's history, all the hard decisions this country had to take were taken when the Congress was in power.

I firmly believe that the Constitution is the most powerful challenge to illiberal tendencies. If the Constitution is followed in letter and spirit and if the laws are made in the spirit in which Constitution was made, liberties can indeed be protected.

A government can do only what is feasible given the political and economic context.

I don't think anyone has qualms in saying victory to the people of India. But when a political party appropriates such a slogan and says this is the definition of patriotism, those who say it are patriotic and those who don't are not patriotic, then I reject that definition.

Independence is a very subjective assessment.

People are wiser than we are willing to attribute to them.

Criticism of a policy is welcome. But in the garb of criticizing a policy, if you allege that the policy was made for corrupt purposes, I reject it.