Here are Aseem Chhabra's picks -- 'films that mattered to me, entertained me and will stay with me through the year.'
Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services says that the government often forgets that its prime duty is to serve the people and not some sick public sector units.
'His contagious smile and peal of laughter, his affirmative approach to national challenges, his faith and conviction in India's future and his profound attachment to the welfare of the northeast attracted anyone who came in touch with him,' says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
In anticipation of a verdict to be delivered by the International Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Tuesday, China has orchestrated a worldwide campaign to defuse its findings.
The President talked about demonetisation, electoral reforms and disruptions in Parliament.
The cascade of cordiality on both sides after the Modi-Sharif handshake in Paris was preceded by much planning and even goading from UK, US and Germany.
'For so long as the rulers of Pakistan remain committed to confronting and vanquishing India, they will sustain delusions, breed terrorists, and export them.'
While Nehru remains an icon for many, including his critics, for the stellar role he played in building institutions of democracy, the 1962 humiliation blots Nehru's copybook, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Our Indian culture system is very family oriented.' 'We value and respect the decisions of our parents to a great extent.' 'That can be a pro or con.' 'It's up to the parents to gauge how much motivation, pressure or space a child needs.' 'Every child is different.' 'We are all unique and that is what I intend to drive home to parents.'
'By not letting bankrupt banks fail, we have discouraged ordinary folk from taking precautions while choosing their bank or at least when they hear bad news about their bank,'says S Muralidharan, former MD, BNP Paribas.
Bollywood has told many 'Brothers' tales over the years.
Upon implementation of the 7th Pay Commission the expected yearly burden on the central exchequer will be more than Rs 100,000 crore. Central government employees will get on an average a 24 per cent pay hike. Still, the unions aren't happy.
'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.
The government and opposition were on Thursday united in criticising the functioning of the judiciary while seeking to scrap the collegium system of appointing judges to higher courts, saying it is essential to restore the delicate balance of power which has been disturbed.
'The strategy has to be restoring order in one part and countering the very effective propaganda through a very nimble monitoring and response system,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain, who retired as the General Officer Commanding of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps.
'It's not only holy reverence that drives them to such vigilantism -- there is adventure too.' 'Some of the younger gau rakshaks enjoy the thrill of the chase: Stopping vehicles, wielding weapons, badgering passengers and then gloating.'
The Pampore attack 'has the stamp of LeT written all over it.'
'They are exactly like the so-called fidayeen of the 1999-2003 phase, when J&K witnessed a surge in suicide attacks on various important garrisons,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), who served as the General Officer Commanding 15 Corps in Kashmir.
How much money the Modi government has already spent and is going to spend on all those foreign trips, muses Sunita Iyer
Prakash Javadekar enjoys being information and broadcasting and parliamentary affairs minister, but heading the green ministry is turning out to be thornier than he had expected.
'A plausible American tactic,' Rajeev Srinivasan suspects, 'would be to try and prevent the BJP and Modi from coming to power by splitting the anti-Congress vote using the AAP, and in case that fails, to follow up with a Plan B to make India ungovernable, to create mass conflict through their agents.'
Shubir Rishi/Rediff.com continues his jungle adventure and narrates his day at the Kanha National Park.
'Thirty years ago, if you walked into a chawl, there would be three TV sets in 30 houses. Today, you'll see TV sets in all 30 houses. So the viewers have increased, but of a certain strata. Sadly, the educated and upper classes have stopped watching TV shows because of the availability of the Internet.' Balika Vadhu writer Gajra Kottary tries to explain to Ronjita Kulkarni/ Rediff.com where Indian television is going wrong.
'I think that has alarmed them because they probably think that it is their voice in there! The idea is to go into the mind of the rapist.' Dibang, co-producer of India's Daughter, defends the documentary in this exclusive interview to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
'We went around with the story, but no one came forward to finance it. They would say 'Who would want to watch this?' Or they would say 'Ek to ladka dal do is me.' We said no, we didn't want to compromise.'
'The over-reaction by the BJP to District Magistrate Pranjal Yadav's decision will prove a double-edged sword.' 'On May 16, if the BJP gets a handsome number of seats and if Modi wins from Varanasi and Vadodara, his opponents can repeat Modi's scathing remarks against the Election Commission, that it was not 'impartial'.'
The horrific disaster that has struck Uttrakhand has been assessed as a mix of natural and man-made. In fact, the various media analyses indicate we were asking for it and there were enough warnings and indications that this would happen, says Lt Gen (retd) Prakash Katoch.
On the occasion of Chinese New Year, we bring you a look at what 2015, the Year of the Sheep has in store for you!
'Evacuating' Devyani's maid's family from India on T visas -- associated with severe sex or labour trafficking... The maximum number of persons thus evacuated by the US from foreign countries last year was from India... A thorough investigation of this is required at India's end,' says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, 'with the US warned that such interference in India's judicial system will not be tolerated.'
'If Modi arrived like a juggernaut, he left like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were being dismantled bit by bit. It was as if India had seceded quietly from him.' Shiv Viswanathan's social science fiction about what India would be like in 2020.
After weighing all the costs and benefits, the next administration is likely to reduce and restructure assistance to Pakistan but not to end it altogether, says Daniel S Markey.
From Boyhood to The Grand Budapest Hotel, we've seen some brilliant cinema this year.
November 12 marks 25 years of the beginning of the World Wide Web. Shivanand Kanavi gives us the story of how it all began.
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
Fifty years ago, India and Pakistan fought a short but bloody war. The author finds out how Sainik Samachar, the defence ministry's journal, reported it.
Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist, HSBC, speaks about a range of issues ranging from inflation, to how Goods and Services Tax and land acquisition bills can help India hit double digit growth, and her impressions about economic growth in the last one year after Narendra Modi took over as India's Prime Minister.
'We saw how vigorous democracy was when it dislodged authoritarianism under Indira Gandhi. We saw its vigour again when it voted Mr Modi out of humble origins as prime minister. It was Nehru who laid that foundation for India and what is worrying today is Modi's rather imperial style of functioning,' says writer Nayantara Sahgal.
Indian economy about to take-off
'He was believed to finish his own work in an hour and spend the remainder of the time walking from one office to another, sitting down with the harried junior staff and helping them sort out the problems they were working on.'
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