Russia welcomed the world to the soccer World Cup on Thursday as fans streamed in, the hosts savoured a 5-0 victory on the pitch and President Vladimir Putin's government derided Western efforts to isolate him.
Aseem Chhabra lists his 10 favourite non-Indian shows streaming in India -- classics as well as recent shows.
Hollywood stars, singers and politicians all turned out on Wednesday for the eclectic birthday bash of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last head of state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, who turned 80 earlier this month.
'Of the people here in Europe who have watched The Story of Film: A New Generation, the most talked-about clip is the one from Ram Leela.'
'Any normal human being, even if he is the American president, will find it hard, at least in the initial stages, to get over the gnawing feeling that Modi is Trump's man.' 'Modi should not be surprised if India and its requirements are treated as of low priority by Joe Biden,' warns B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Us Congressman Meryvn M Dymally, like the late Democratic lawmaker Stephen J Solarz, was always in India's corner on capitol hill during the Cold War years when it wasn't cool to be a friend of India, and New Delhi was considered by many United States lawmakers as a surrogate of the erstwhile Soviet Union
At the age of 47, the former Czech will play doubles under an American flag in the semi-finals of the Fed Cup.
The warships will be armed with BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles which can reach targets 295 km away.
Documents released by the US National Security Archive disclose how close Cuba came in 1962 to becoming Latin America's first nuclear power, and had planned to train Cubans how to use the nuclear weapons
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Stalin owes his victory this time, like in 2019, to the hate-campaign of the local Hindutva forces, which kept haranguing him, and even his dead father, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the situation in Ladakh tense and no resolution in sight the trigger to take the India-US relationship to a transformational one is already there, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Singh, who arrived in Moscow on Wednesday on a three-day visit to attend a crucial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), pressed for expediting supply of a number of weapons systems, ammunition and spares to India by Russia under contracts which were concluded earlier.
Did you know the world's youngest director is an Indian?
Ukraine striker Andriy Shevchenko announced he will retire from international football after his country's elimination from Euro 2012 with a 1-0 defeat by England on Tuesday.
Israel is "deeply embedded" in Azerbaijan and can use its airbases bordering Iran to carry out an attack against Iranian nuclear installations, a media report said.
We mourn the passing of Admiral J G Nadkarni, who passed into the ages on Monday. The admiral -- one of the finest officers to head the Indian Navy and a most remarkable human being -- was one of Rediff.com's earliest columnists. His assessment of why India won the 1971 War is a classic and we republish the column today to celebrate his brilliant mind and salute an office and gentleman, the likes of who we will not see again.
It is unconscionable to choose between Sardar Patel, who united India physically, and Indira Gandhi, who gave meaning, content and pride to the unity of the nation and became a martyr at the altar of national unity, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'It is crucial today to realise where we have reached in this 15 year-period in order to fully and properly assess the profundity of what General Rawat has said,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India-born Suma Chakrabarti will succeed Germany's Thomas Mirow as the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which has been supporting economic transition in former Eastern Bloc countries and Soviet republics for the last two decades.
As traders obsessively follow US presidential elections, expect a surge in case of a change of guard in the Oval Office.
Many Russian soccer fans believe their underdog national team can pull off another upset when they take on Croatia in the World Cup quarter-finals later on Saturday, allowing them to stay in the tournament against the odds.
The Euro 2020 soccer Championship, trumpeted as a continent-wide feast of football from Dublin to Baku to mark UEFA's 60th anniversary, was postponed for a year on Tuesday as the coronavirus pandemic claimed its biggest sporting casualty yet. Europe's flagship tournament, staged every four years and second only to FIFA's World Cup in terms of prestige in soccer, will now be staged from June 11 to July 12, 2021.
'A breakthrough in eastern Ladakh leading to disengagement and creation of a buffer zone will obviate the need of military deployment through the winter months ahead,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Spain's dramatic defeat by Russia on penalties in the World Cup round of 16 on Sunday ensured that at least one of this year's finalists will not have reached the title decider for half a century, if at all.
In the cacophony of debates on the wisdom of liberalising retail foreign direct investment, or FDI, one viewpoint was noticeably absent: whether and how this might affect India's strategic interests.
Sebastian Coe's life was changed by his 1,500m gold medal at the politically riven 1980 Olympics so it came as no surprise to hear him argue on Saturday that a suggested boycott of next year's Sochi Games was misplaced.
'By annoying the Arabs and cozying up to Iran, Pakistan may end up losing Arab economic support, annoying the Americans and increase Shia-Sunni tensions domestically,' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) points out.
Germany kick off their title defence on Sunday with their Group F opener against Mexico.
American swimmer Michael Phelps is 'probably not' the greatest Olympic champion of all time, despite winning a record total of 19 medals, London 2012 Games chief Sebastian Coe said on Wednesday.
Rajesh Khanna's life can be viewed as a paradigm of stardom's tragedy. He found both success and failure hard to handle.
The Italian federation (FIGC) is determined to complete the season and its president Gabriele Gravina has been presenting new ideas on an almost daily basis of how that can be done. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan in Central Asia is set to resume its soccer season with spectators at the weekend, making it only the second country in the world to let fans attend matches as the new coronavirus shuts down almost all of world football.
Garry Kasparov hated losing but in defeat, to an "alien opponent" incapable of fear or the faintest flicker of emotion, the youngest of chess champions and greatest of grandmasters made history. He became a grandmaster at 17 and world champion at 22 in 1985 when the charismatic youngster beat Soviet establishment hero Anatoly Karpov.
Ahead of the India-China border talks, an official Chinese daily today said both countries need to learn a lesson from the 1962 war that even though Beijing may like peace, it will firmly defend 'its' land.
IITs are ready for and deserving of the autonomy they seek, being the only remaining institutions of excellence in India that are relatively untainted by the general institutional decay we see all around, says Shashi Shekhar
India must be aware that there is no question of the US fighting the Chinese on land. We have to fight our own battles, points out Virendra Kapoor.
US troops after 10 years in Afghanistan are in the same position as the Soviet troops after eight years were in 1987 --victory increasingly elusive, says B Raman.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday ordered a probe into allegations of vote rigging that sparked the biggest anti-government agitation in post-Soviet Russia by tens of thousands of protestors who called for an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule.
'If India is to emerge as a superpower, we must utilise our huge agricultural potential and not, as in past centuries, merely exploit our farmers,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
