Terrorism and Afghanistan were the focus points of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's talks with Uzbek President Islam Karimov on his first visit to Central Asia.
Kajal Aggarwal talks about her upcoming film Do Lafzon Ki Kahani and co-star Randeep Hooda.
Ananth Mahadevan takes on the audience.
The fruits of election boycotts are harvested not only by the separatists but also by beneficiaries across the democratic divide, points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik.
Aseem Chhabra's recommendations for the Mumbai film festival.
'Smita had it all planned out. She was pregnant then and planning to leave Raj Babbar after the baby was born. In an enthralling new book Smita Patil, A Brief Incandescence (HarperCollins), Maithili Rao reveals the many fascinating facets of the incomparable actress whom we lost too young.
Director Matt Brown tells Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com what it was about The Man Who Knew Infinity that made him persevere for a decade to turn the book into a film.
'I have watched comedies but some have failed to make me laugh. The characters indulge in too much buffoonery. They move too much, falling, hitting each other, making faces... Comedy is very serious business.' Director Anees Bazmee tells us how he makes people laugh with his films.
Former Delhi chief minister and Kerala governor Sheila Dikshit, speaking for the first time after her gubernatorial resignation, tells Kavita Chowdhury there is a need for Parliament to codify rules for governors if they are required to demit office with a change in the central government. Edited excerpts
'I realised I didn't have to wait for a spectacular event or a character to emerge. All stories of ordinary people, of your family, are extraordinary,' novelist Yasmeen Premji tells Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com
'I was in love and so I got married very early. Love makes you do crazy things. If I had not married then, my life would have been different. Today, I see women balancing their careers and homes. They are giving equal importance to their personal desires and their families, and that is great. I haven't been able to find that balance.' Bhagyashree, close and personal.
Roshan Shah, a Canadian citizen and an Overseas Citizen of India, filed a Right to Information application in Gujarat in 2013 to demand that Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat chief minister, make his educational qualifications public.
There are many firsts in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha speech which constitute the cardinal elements of a strategy which has all the potential to serve as the mainspring of the polity for the rest of the century, says B S Raghavan.
'In Angamaly Diaries, dreams, kinks, small corruptions, cheap lives, and hopes are all given their due and that attitude frees us up to believe that perhaps there is more good than bad in the sum total of us.' 'This is a coming-of-age tale taken straight out of a diary written in blood,' says Sreehari Nair.
'In 2015 I watched films in so many places. I attended several film festivals around the world -- Berlin, Tribeca (New York), Telluride, Toronto, Zurich, Mumbai, Dharamsala and Goa,' says Aseem Chhabra, author of a forthcoming book on Shashi Kapoor.
Aseem Chhabra spots 10 must-see movies at the Berlin Film Festival.
L&T chairman AM Naik is worried about few things.
'I get scared of horror films. Chak De! India was (first) offered to me but Shah Rukh Khan also needs to get some good films. When has Aamir seen me without clothes?' When Salman Khan was in the mood for fun.
PepsiCo India's new CEO admits to being an ardent follower of the world's management gurus and they clearly mould his outlook.
Shatranj Ke Khilari was Satyajit Ray's first Hindi film. The Master set the Premchand story against the backdrop of the First War of Independence in 1857. Bijoya Ray, his wife, reveals fascinating glimpses behind the making of the epic in this exclusive excerpt from her memoir.
Eight years ago Subhashini's husband Colonel Vasanth was martyred fighting militants in Kashmir. Today, she offers hope to widows of army jawans who lost their lives in the line of duty.
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.
'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!'
'It's a joy working there.' 'It's good work and when you come back it gives you pleasure.' 'On returning you take a shower and look at the day and say, "Ah! Nice scenes we did!"' 'Here sometimes you are doing nothing in the day, but you are there for the shoot.' 'You come home and it can be very frustrating, with that frustration the tiredness does not go, you know.' 'Good work gives you that strength and kick.'
'Manto is the only writer to grasp what the project of Pakistan would eventually mean,' says Aakar Patel, who has translated a collection of Saadat Hasan Manto's essays in a just-released book Why I Write.
How do you even define a movie that primarily exists as an invitation to its audience -- an invitation to come and merely laze around with a set of interesting characters, asks Sreehari Nair.
Pakistan's dismal public health system is rife with mismanagement and a paucity of resources. Amidst this shambolic system, one hospital in Karachi has been providing specialised healthcare to millions. Free of charge. As the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation celebrated 40 years of successful service, Dr Sanjay Nagral visited the facility and met the man who helms it, armed with the simple philosophy that 'No person should die only because they are unable to afford medical expenses.'
Portugal's football team captain Cristiano Ronaldo's agent has revealed that the forward would play out the rest of his career at Real Madrid, shunning reports of a return to Manchester United.
'The Pakistan government, we were told, has a plan to renovate several Hindu temples and Buddhist sites, which over the years have fallen into disrepair. The aim is to create a pilgrimage circuit to attract visitors from all over the subcontinent.'
Charles Darwin found his passion playing with rocks halfway around the world.
'On both sides of our cultural divide, it roused strong emotions that had very little to do with the language and its literature.' 'I felt Sanskrit had been removed from the realm of thought, and made an object of politics and piety, of oppression, of reverence and contempt.' 'It was my aim to avoid these things, and go straight to the language which, as an object for the mind, is among the most exquisite ever made.'
Tamal Bandyopadhyay discusses his latest book Bandhan: The Making of a Bank at Bandhan headquarters in Kolkata.
Jyoti Punwani examines the relevance of the Sairat, the hit Marathi film everyone is talking about, in today's times.
'The blood that runs in the veins of our family can never be anti-national.' 'They called Kanhaiya a traitor for questioning the Indian Army. Do they know that our cousin was killed by militants in Manipur while serving with the CRPF?' Archana Masih/Rediff.com travelled to the land of Lal Salam, Lal Sitara and comrades to find out what moulded India's most talked about student leader, Kanhaiya Kunar.
This Teacher's Day, we chronicle the stories of such amazing teachers who inspire by example. Some of them you have perhaps heard of. Others are much more obscure.
The Bharat Ratna conferred on Madan Mohan Malaviya has exposed the frictions within his family, reports Manavi Kapur
Vidhu Vinod Chopra takes stock of his Bollywood career and explains why he thought of foraying into Hollywood.
Bilawal Bhutto's political inheritance is his biggest asset as well as the biggest liability as he tries to make his mark in Pakistan politics. Challenging the Taliban militants is part of that strategy, though it matches with his political ideology. Shahzad Raza profiles the son of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari.
Son Kunal Kapoor's insight into his legendary actor father are a must-read!
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