Columnists

"Jihad is the signature tune of Islamic history. If today’s Muslim rulers are reluctant to sound that note, it is often because they are concerned about the consequences of failure."

"There is no pain in life, they say in Granada, so cruel as to be blind in Alhambra. When the Arabs of the desert conquered Spain, they said that they had reached heaven. From the ramparts of the Alhambra, sitting on a spur of the Sierra Nevada, look out and you see a paradise created by nature; look in and you see a paradise created by man."

"Narrated Abdullah bin Abi Aufa: Allah’s Messenger (May Peace Be Upon Him) said, ‘Know that Paradise is under the shade of swords’."

"Just as Hitler had given a frustrated Germany a target and that target was the Jew, so through the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, a frustrated country was given a target and that target was the Muslim."

"While the landlords and capitalists allowed the clergy to make Pakistan a religious state, the clergy allowed the landlords guaranteed property rights and the capitalists unbridled control over the economy. Theocracy and landlordism/capitalism are the two pillars of Pakistan and Bangladesh."

"The true test of a democracy is the justice that the minority gets in the system. The majority will always get its share whatever the system."

"It is extremely symbolic that Advani is the heir of Nathuram Godse who, in pursuit of what he was convinced was his duty to India, shot dead the man who had chanted the name of Ram all his life till his last breath."

"have no recourse to anything like an . The Communist Party decides if you’re guilty or innocent. The conviction rate stands in excess of 98 per cent. Torture and are commonplace. Xi has lately embarked on a vicious campaign of harassment and intimidation of activists, ethnic and religious minorities, and feminists. Scores of human rights lawyers have been rounded up and jailed."

"In these impoverished conditions, it's much easier for journalists to construe events in such a way as to uphold an ideologically rigid "narrative" than to go about the hard work of building true stories from the construction material of hard facts."

"There is something very strange and new and different that is occupying all the places where the left used to be and so these stories, it didn't really matter that they weren't true but they were weaponized, if you like, in this narrative about Canada as an irredeemably racist white colonial apartheid settler state."

"Canada harbours its own disgraceful legacy. Down through the decades, scores of federal and provincial laws isolated, dispossessed and ghettoized one racial or ethnic minority after another. Asians weren't allowed to vote in Canada until the late 1940s; federally-registered Indians had to wait until 1960... For Canada’s young Aboriginal people, it’s not clear that the arc of the moral universe is even bending in their direction at all."

"What I worry about is that the truth doesn't matter, and I think this is something that has changed from 20 years ago, it's not just that the truth doesn't matter anymore, it's that it doesn't matter that the truth doesn't matter anymore. [...] I also think that people really do want some kind of an honest assessment of things that are important. Of something grounded in fact. I think that is something that is actually necessary for a liberal democracy to function."

"I think we have to make a very important distinction between belief and knowledge. And this is something that I think is lost these days, particularly in the news media. There's actually a difference between (and we should draw attention to it when it's transgressed) [...] what we know [and] what we're expected to believe, or told to believe."

"Political problem requires political solution."

"“Spelling is relevant knowledge.""

"“Spelling is not an artificial skin of verbal expression, it is a deep structure that is revealed in the spelled image.""

"I've always loved life. Those who love life can never adapt, undergo, be commanded. Who loves life is always with the rifle at the window to defend life ... A human being who adapts, who suffers, who makes himself commanded, is not a human being."

"Being one of the few women in the leadership team, I am often surrounded by men, but I have never found that to be uncomfortable."

"“In spite of the ruins and death, where every illusion has ended, the strength of my dreams is so strong, that exaltation is reborn from everything, and my hands are never empty.""

"Vajpayee's additional generosity to Muslim pilgrims earned him, in Varsha Bhosle's unsparing satirical columns, the alias Hajpayee."

"This, my friends, is the Jaziya that non-Muslims pay in "free" India, one governed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Hajpayee."

"Which American values can, even remotely, be called Islamic? Democracy? Freedom? Equality? Secularism? Gender equity? Freedom of thought? The right to free expression? The right to critique any holy cow? Does even one of these values exist in a single Islamic state…? Is even one of these values extended to all Muslim citizens of an Islamic state?…What would be the fate of Hindus working in Saudi Arabia if they should advocate the replacement of the word "Islamic" with "Islamic-Hindu" in all references to the kingdom’s heritage?"

"You’ll be pleased to know that you ‘secularists’ have a successful and time-tested way of tackling free speech: I am no longer writing for Rediff since its top honcho, Ajit Balakrishnan (also involved with discredited SABRANG communications Communalism Combat, ), finds me ‘very inflammatory.’ That’s surely something to rejoice over."

"Pakistan, its namaaz-raising hands dipped in the blood of Hindus and Sikhs, began as an Islamic terrorist State and continues to live up to its foundational values. Take it from Balasaheb and me: nothing will emerge from the latest "hand of friendship." Unless, of course, it is Kargil II."

"What makes Ricardo Semler all the more notable is the way he has put theory into practice. Many people have talked the talk of corporate democracy; his company walks the walk."

"Semler is perhaps the best, low-profile CEO in business today – and Semco is no ordinary company."

"The management style that Ricardo Semler evolved through decades of experimentation at Brazilian firm Semco proved to be massively successful. The company defied gravity with the rate of its growth, even when the rest of the country was suffering savage recession. And yet, for all that, it is an example that few have attempted to follow. Why? Because it mostly revolves around management giving up control."

"Companies think that they are modern because they have painted their walls in a bright colour or they allow people to bring their dogs to work. This is silly and millennial-washing. The idea is to bring in the mature generation and get them to mentor the co-work with the younger generation from a distance."

"I always come back to variations of the question that my son asked me when he was three. We were sitting in a jacuzzi, and he said, "Dad, why do we exist?" There is no other question. Nobody has any other question. We have variations of this one question, from three onwards. So when you spend time in a company, in a bureaucracy, in an organization and you're saying, boy -- how many people do you know who on their death beds said, boy, I wish I had spent more time at the office? So there's a whole thing of having the courage now -- not in a week, not in two months, not when you find out you have something -- to say, no, what am I doing this for? Stop everything. Let me do something else. And it will be okay, it will be much better than what you're doing, if you're stuck in a process."

"The opposite of work is idleness. But very few of us know what to do with idleness. When you look at the way that we distribute our lives in general, you realize that in the periods in which we have a lot of money, we have very little time. And then when we finally have time, we have neither the money nor the health."

"Brazilian CEO Ricardo Semler doesn’t believe in rules. At least, he doesn’t believe companies need to impose a host of strict guidelines in order to run efficiently. In fact, he thinks employees will work better if they don’t have to report their vacation days or be told what to wear. He wants to dissolve what he calls the “boarding school aspects” of business, just to see what happens."

"And so, what we've done all of these years is very simple, is use the little tool, which is ask three whys in a row. Because the first why you always have a good answer for. The second why, it starts getting difficult. By the third why, you don't really know why you're doing what you're doing."

"Ways to combat stress, such as playing golf before a conference call or taking a break on the beach during inventory, are essential."

"On-the-job democracy isn't just a lofty concept but a better, more profitable way to do things. We all demand democracy in every other aspect of our lives and culture. People are considered adults in their private lives, at the bank, at their children's schools, with family and among friends--so why are they suddenly treated like adolescents at work? Why can't workers be involved in choosing their own leaders? Why shouldn't they manage themselves? Why can't they speak up--challenge, question, share information openly?"

"I believe the old way of doing business is dying, and the sooner it's dead and buried the better off we all will be."

"Everyone has a ‘reservoir of talent'. Intuition, interests and skills form the foundation of talents. These talents are indicators of your calling. The best way to ensure long-term job satisfaction is to act on that calling."

"Instead of constantly talking about motivation, organizations should ensure that employees are occasionally delighted."

"One, the people in charge wanting to give up control. This tends to eliminate some 80 percent of businesspeople. Two, a profound belief that humankind will work toward its best version, given freedom; that would eliminate the other 20 percent."

"There is the view that during the Cold War, Pakistan was the most allied ally and then, within the space of just a few months, we became America's most sanctioned friend."

"The greatest threat facing Israel is the democratic threat. There is no greater danger to the regime in Israel than its turning into a democracy. There is no society that opposes democracy like Israeli society. There are plenty of regimes opposed to democracy, but not a free society. In Israel the people, the sovereign, is opposed to democracy. This is why the current struggle, which presumes to be about democracy, is a masquerade."

"When Israelis start asking themselves if they really want to continue living like this, alternatives will pop up. There are no miracle solutions and no guarantees of success. There's only one thing for sure: The alternatives have never been tried. We never thought about acting with self-control and restraint. It's for the weak. We never asked what's the outcome of all the killings and the assassinations. We never probed whether these wars contributed anything to our security, or whether they only fractured it. Now the jihad is already coming at Tel Aviv, and from under siege. One day people will learn to appreciate the determination and courage of those who managed to establish such a resistance force while inside a cage, even if we continue to scream and scream "murderous organizations.""

"Sedil Naghniyeh, 15, was standing on the roof of her house in the Jenin refugee camp with her father Adnan to watch the goings-on. An IDF soldier shot her in the head as her father looked on and on Wednesday she succumbed to her wounds... Sedil was a pretty girl, born and raised in the Jenin camp. Her father is the maintenance director of the camp’s Freedom Theater. The theater’s former director, Jonathan Stanchek, an Israeli now residing in Sweden, mourned Sedil on Wednesday. Her family had been his close neighbors during the 10 years he and his family lived in the camp.... Stanchek says he never heard the father utter an angry word at the Jews or the Israelis, even though three times they tore down his house, his brother had been killed, his son is in prison and on Wednesday his daughter died."

"All those who support her continued detention, anyone who is silent while she remains in jail, and all those who make her detention possible are saying: Forget democracy. That’s not what we are. Get used to it."

"She is perhaps the bravest woman living today under Israeli control."

"Jarrar could end up spending the rest of her life in prison; there is no legal impediment to this since all the pathetic arguments used to justify her continued detention could be deemed valid indefinitely. If she’s dangerous today, she’s dangerous forever. Political prisoners, detention without trial and unlimited imprisonment define tyranny."

"When the next war is over Maj. [Shira] Eting will again come to the city square and speak passionately about values, freedom and equality. Then she will be interviewed again by Stahl, who was moved to tears by the principled pilot, and will tell her how much easier it is to kill children under a center-left government. When it orders pilots to bomb, they will do so without batting an eyelash, as they did in Operation Cast Lead (344 children killed) and in Operation Protective Edge (518 children, 180 of them 5 or younger. Who killed the 180 young children? Eting and her comrades. They did so in Protective Edge under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and in Cast Lead under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi"

"The resistance should no longer be directed solely against the occupation. The resistance is to the regime in place in Israel. Her imprisonment is the regime and she opposes the regime under whose boots she lives."

"A war was on. ... On July 14 he was expelled from his home with the rest of his family. He never returned to the city he loved. He never forgot the scenes of in 1948, nor did he forget the idea of violent resistance. Can the Israeli reader understand how he felt?"

"Not much is left of his ideas. What has come of the scientific idealism and the politicization of the masses, the class struggle and the , the and of course the transformation of the struggle against Israel into an armed struggle, which according to the plans was supposed to develop from into a national war of liberation? Fifty years after the founding of the PFLP and 10 years after the death of its founder, what remains? Habash's successor, , was assassinated by Israel in 2001; his successor’s successor, Ahmad Saadat, has been in an Israeli prison since 2006 and very little remains of the PFLP. During all my decades covering the Israeli occupation, the most impressive figures I met belonged to the PFLP, but now not much remains except fragments of dreams. The PFLP is a negligible minority in intra-Palestinian politics, a movement that once thought to demand equal power with and its leader, Arafat. And the occupation? It's strong and thriving and its end looks further off than ever. If that isn’t failure, what is?"

"I felt very sorry that I had not met this man."