Ritu Jha/Rediff.com reports from California on the largest TieCon ever.
'When I was younger, 15 years or 20 years seemed like a really long time. But, as you journey though life, you don't realise where the years disappear...'
'Unfortunately, prostitution is looked down upon.' 'It should be legalised.' 'Imagine the sexual frustration in the country if it didn't exist!' Chunky Pandey tells Rediff.com's Ronjita Kulkarni how he bagged Begum Jaan and more.
For the philanthropy, we wanted also to have big impact, a kind of a new dimension.
'There are problems related to the Indian film industry that I'd like to address rather than to keep harping on the negative zone of hurdles in film certification,' Minister for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore tells Subhash K Jha.
'...But my strong suit will not be dancing,' Kal Penn tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com, in the concluding part of the interview.
Tibet is not this desolate, god-forsaken land that you have imagined it to be, discovers Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'You will have good days and you will have hard days.' 'Go through all of them together.' 'Seek shared experiences with all kinds of people.' 'Build shared hope in the communities you join and the communities you form.' 'And above all, find gratitude for the gift of life itself and the opportunities it provides for meaning, for joy, and for love.'
'I've seen the craze for English education even among the poorest. But that is only for their sons. Parents feel thrilled when they see their sons going to school wearing a tie. They don't mind paying for their sons' private tuitions too.' 'But daughters are sent to municipal schools, madarsas, small schools where teachers with no teaching skills are paid Rs 2,000 or Rs 4,000. That's why more girls come to my class.' Syed Feroze Ashraf, who has sent 500-odd girls (and a few boys) -- all first generation learners, children of grave-diggers, hawkers, rickshaw-drivers, tailors and watchmen -- to college, speaks to Jyoti Punwani. A Rediff.com Special.
Arthur J Pais interviews John Madden, director of the Marigold Hotel films, on the difficult task of creating an equally hilarious and as feeling a sequel.
'Today if you look at the way India is growing many people are saying the sleeping elephant has finally woken up, is dancing!' 'I have travelled extensively, in about 60 countries. In all these the moment you say India, the first thing they mention is either an actor's name. Or they start humming a song.' 'I wanted to be in Bollywood. It is the most powerful medium we have in this country. That's soft power.' Listening in on Shobhaa De, Kabir Khan, Vikas Swarop and Saffron Art CEO Hugo Weihe speak on India's Soft Power, Hard Influence.
Meet Cassie de Pecol, a 27-year-old traveller from Connecticut, United States, who visited 196 countries in 18-and-a-half months, making her the fastest person to visit every country in the world.
'I like the thought that I am competing successfully with writers much younger than me,' says Ruskin Bond.
Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt unearths some never-told-before details of Narendra Modi's early life. Read on!
'There was a time when I went without salary for about six months,' says Amod Malviya, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and currently CTO, Flipkart.
Economist Arvind Panagariya tells Suman Guha Mozumder that the rupee is doing a much-needed clean-up job, raising exports and cutting imports.
How do you translate a first love into a profession? How do you become a writer once you set your heart on it? Susmita Bhattacharya, who once worked as a graphic designer in Mumbai, now teaches the basics of English to newcomers to Britain and is also a creative writing tutor. Her first novel The Normal State of Mind was published earlier this year after a grim battle with cancer.
Designer Runa Ray, whose edgy line inspired by an ancient discipline made it to the February New York Fashion Week, discussed the showing with Tista Sengupta/Rediff.com
Anwesha Bhattacharya-Arya writes an open letter to the President on the sorry state of affairs in India.
'There are too many things that haven't gone out of you. So even though the years may have gone by, you are still close to the films in terms of the making.'
'I kept telling myself I'd quit after every film. I saw myself in my first Hindi film Kashmir Ki Kali and I didn't like myself. I said, one more film and I'm done. But it continued.' Sharmila Tagore gets candid on her 70th birthday.
'Why isn't the BJP ready to give reservations to Muslims despite the high court telling it to do so?' 'A K Antony said the Congress lost the 2014 election because of Muslim appeasement. Antony should have gone to the jails of Maharashtra and found out how many Muslims were arrested during Congress rule. I don't know what kind of appeasement this is.' 'We reposed faith in so-called great secular leaders and they deceived us.'
No-Punchline humour reminds us how in our daily lives, we all are by turns 'The Corrupt Politician we criticise,' 'The Chauvinist Male we frown upon,' 'The Rule Breaker we deride through our Facebook posts,' 'The Communal Virus we so easily lampoon' and 'The Bad Artist we spoof.' In a land where the aforesaid prototypes are our major sources of 'funny,' is there an audience for the NPL kind of humour, asks Sreehari Nair.
'This is not a small change, it's a BIG change. People wanted to hear the voice of their PM. They can do so now. This is a big parivartan.'
Naresh Chandra, former cabinet secretary, diplomat and well-known strategic thinker, tries to explain what the Modi government is up to and assesses what will work and what may not work and why. He spoke to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com, also, on diplomatic issues.
Javed and Farhan Akhtar discuss the new and the classic Don.
Besides a great idea, it takes pluck, and some luck, to get going.
'The real danger in India right now is that identity politics is being stoked in extremely dangerous ways.' 'The narrative you get about churches in the mainstream Indian media and the narrative you get in the social media is very different.' 'Many Americans today want to appropriate Indian culture. They want yoga, but they say yoga has nothing to do with Hinduism. They want Ayurveda, but they say it's got nothing to do with Hinduism.' 'Hinduism has been failed by political constituencies in India -- seculars and the right-wing.'
'To be complimented for a fantastic performance after just viewing the trailer! This never happened to me before.' 'If you have given a party a mandate for five years, stop blaming it for everything under the sun.' 'My kind of films do not make stars. Now we, the actors, after years of struggle, have created a parallel industry where we have made a name for ourselves. But stars we are not nor can we be.' 'For a boy coming from a remote village of Bihar at the Indo-Nepal border where no transport was available to commute to the nearest town, even coming to Delhi and then Mumbai and finally watching himself on the silver screen was a huge thing!'
