Red Square and VDNKh easily rank among the most striking places I've visited -- both for their historical significance and architectural splendour.
My admiration for Russian culture, vision and ambition grew with every step as I clocked the miles, Nitin Sathe tells us after a visit to Moscow and St Petersburg.
'A man with a gun commanded respect. I thought if I also got a gun, I could save my family. With this thought, I went to Pakistan and got training there'
While accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night, Biden said in Delaware that "united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America."
The Higgs filled a gap with its explanation for mass. Knowing the exact characteristics of the Higgs allows scientists to make better guesses of the structure of the universe in the first 10 microseconds after the Big Bang, says Devangshu Datta.
Arjun Menon looks at some Tamil films from the last decade that tick all the right boxes, and lists where you can watch them.
'There's no point making grand plans all our lives when life itself is so fragile.'
'If it weren't for Om Puri, a whole range of our big city experiences wouldn't have found their honest representations on the screen.'
'With doctors going up against a seemingly invincible enemy, often at immense risk to their lives, the myths reveal an interesting relationship between the men of medicine and the rest of humankind,' notes Arundhuti Dasgupta.
Yamini has superpowers that help her intercept souls headed to heaven or the afterworld or for reincarnation and spirits them away, on another course, to those in need.
What is strange, for someone who spent a lifetime in seva, is that St Teresa's own personal journals and communication with the Church hierarchy reveal someone in "spiritual desolation", says Sankrant Sanu. Could the Indian sacred traditions have helped her?
'Hate and violence are an ever-present threat to us.' 'The community is staying vigilant of their surroundings.'
Part of what make Ee.Ma.Yau so special is its ability to focus our attention on things that conventional movies throw away under the pretext of storytelling, says Sreehari Nair.
Aseem Chhabra watched some great films and some huge disappointments in 2021.
Despite the Oscars, the box office glory, and the universal acclaim, Francis Ford Coppola, I am sure, remembers The Godfather with as much frustration as pride. Like Michael Corleone, he got into it with the best of intentions, and got out of it on top but lost in the heights. Sreehari Nair revisits the film as it turns 50 this month.
Shubir Rishi/Rediff.com speaks to rockstar saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan days before the release of the sequel, MSG 2.
'A war is being fought in South Kashmir.' 'Do not underestimate your enemy, be sensible and cautious and be prepared for the worst if you choose to move in the region unprotected,' advises Sanjeev Nayyar.
Siva Sankar looks at S P Balasubrahmanyam's fantastic repertoire.
Amongst the many characters in the Mahabharata, the impetuous Ashwathama comes across as a warrior lacking maturity and forethought.
Dad had sneaked into East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) well before the war had started for reconnaissance of the terrain on the other side. He had disguised himself as a driver of a truck laden with goods and traveled into East Pakistan to be received by the underground fighters of the Mukti Bahini.
'Dibakar Banerjee isn't simply giving a particular fascistic regime the finger.' 'Here, he wants to offer us a preview of the invisible forces and human tendencies that drive fascism, blind conformity, and mass hysteria,' says Sreehari Nair.
'We were lucky, in many ways, that we got the disease late.'
You totally should says Lakshmi Sharath.
'The forces of good are on the run.' 'But dark times also challenge people to fight.' 'I believe Indians will rise against these dark times.'
It is a sight that both warms and breaks the heart. The women of Shaheen Bagh seem oblivious of the cold, these women and their children, the latter ranging in age from 19 days to early teens, who have been occupying the road for over two weeks now. Some of them have not gone home for days, but their faces are clear, unlined by fatigue, their eyes bright and fierce as those of the falcon, shaheen, the area is named for.
Rukh may be lit like a YouTube Short Film, and may have its share of other technical problems, but there's something disturbingly original about director Atanu Mukherjee's vision, Sreehari Nair feels.
Sanjay Khan goes back in time with memories of the Mysore fire tragedy.
Sukanya Verma recaps all the action at this year's MAMI.
'The overarching fact of modern social behaviour isn't that we are irresponsible women and men, but that we are never quite sure, when and how to act responsibly.' 'This is the real side of every Twitter outrage, where those who tweet about stories of 'unreported domestic abuse' end up feeling superior to those neighbours who are summoned up as clueless witnesses.' 'This view of the supposed spiritual decay of our times, which is at the core of Gali Guleiyan, is thus more fashionable than perceptive,' says Sreehari Nair.
The writing is on the wall -- and it is written in the blood of the women who 'died', 'ran off' or 'committed suicide' under mysterious, carefully unexplained circumstances -- that the only life that matters is one that belongs to an upper class, upper caste, politically connected male.
'She was just a little girl. She didn't understand religion. Who is Hindu, who is Muslim.' 'She was just 8! Why punish her?' The family of the eight-year-old girl who was gang-raped and murdered in Jammu's Kathua district say everything has changed since that horrific crime.
'From the beginning (I have told her) "Whatever it may be -- you are losing or winning -- on the ground you're not going to cry!" She never cried.' '"I don't want you to project that you are a loser. You are a winner".' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com speaks to Leela Raj about her famous daughter, now in the West Indies for the women's T20 World Cup.
Rediff.com reproduces the 1997 feature about Laxman, his passion for crows, and of course, his genius.
'I can tell you the case that hurts me the most is the one in which the little boy is forced to sign the Kohinoor over.' 'You take a mother away from a child, you surround him with grown ups speaking a different language, you tell him he must sign this over or else...'