Entertainment has become a huge aspect of weddings.
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Throughout a quarter century of proxy war, India has shown tremendous restraint in the face of grave provocation. It is inconceivable that any other nation would have refrained from launching trans-LoC operations to eliminate terrorist training camps and interdict known routes of infiltration, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'His essential doctrine was only the local police can fight terror.' '"You can't fire at mobs throwing stones," he said, adding one has to think innovatively, even defensively, sometimes.' Shekhar Gupta remembers the uncoventional SuperCop.
'To identify with the common man, Modi had to look like one.' 'The disastrous suit with his name written on it never made its reappearance.' 'Frequent dress changes during the day, which led Arvind Kejriwal to calculate that Modi spent crores on his attire ever year, too stopped.' 'Instead, a newer Modi emerged: Humble and eager to serve.' Narendra Modi has cleverly repositioned himself as a man of the masses in the past three years, says Aditi Phadnis.
Professor Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao is the third scientist to be awarded the highest civilian award -- Bharat Ratna, a crowning glory of his inexorable list of outstanding achievements.
'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!'
Three businessmen disclose their success mantras: One belongs to an old Marwari family, another is a second generation industrialist whose father scripted an amazing rags-to-riches story and the third was a professional till one day he succumbed to the charms of entrepreneurship.
'At the very end of his speech, he dealt with the 'small problems' of Indian workers. But these measures did not seem to satisfy those who had expected the prime minister to find solutions for their problems. That the prime minister generally focused on broad policy issues and not on matters of detail left them bewildered,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
To claim that Tamil Nadu was waiting for a messiah of the 'spiritual' Rajini kind is misplaced, if not mischievous, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kainchi, near Nainital, attracts devotees from near and far, 42 years after the death of its spiritual leader, Neem Karoli Baba.
Meet the richest and poorest candidates contesting the election to the richest civic body in the country.
'Today it is a studio being held to ransom, tomorrow it will be a government, an entire nation. I don't see anyone laughing when that happens,' says Suparn Verma.
'There are so many dimensions to history that we need to attend to: We need more space for local and regional histories; we need to delve into the histories of particular communities; we need to emphasise gender history and environmental history.' 'We need to think about India's history beyond India's current borders.'
Annet Mahendru -- the half-Indian making waves in The Americans -- on her love for Bollywood, daal-chawal and being a Russian spy.
'There has to be an 18-month transition.' 'But if the government had some prior knowledge that the high value notes were being used for an imminent terrorist activity in the country, then we have to accept the step.'
'An America at war with itself, groaning under a mounting debt, with woolly-headed economic policies of a neophyte president who is more feared and suspected among the comity of nations does not augur well for the world.' 'It would be well justified in asking,' says Shreekant Sambrani, '"Is this how you expect to make America great again, Mr President?"'
When it comes to celebrating William Shakespeare, can India be far behind?
'There appears to be in the Indian polity a link between being Single and being of prime ministerial timber. It is a trend, a preponderance -- not a statistical verity,' says Dr Shashi K Pande.
Lalit Sathyarthi, an aspiring actor, left his home in Agra to follow his lifelong dream of becoming a Bollywood hero. He is still struggling to succeed but he's not giving up yet.
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
When Narendra Modi called for a debate on 370, he was simply reiterating a demand made long back, it was not a dilution of any stated position, nor was it a display of opportunism, it was rather a demand for the assertion of India's unity, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
With an appealing story of two unlikely people falling in love after their politically arranged marriage, the film is filled with several intriguing plots and out-of-the-world songs.
The RSS realises that with a majority BJP government at the Centre and in several states, now was the best time to undermine and perhaps outdo the Congress-Left 'stranglehold' over campuses and young minds.
Jayalalithaa's attack on BJP's PM hopeful a little too late in the coming, says N Sathiya Moorthy
Natwar Singh's book is un-illuminating, largely self-justificatory, often contradictory, and at times tendentious. He is too preoccupied with depicting himself as a victim of the Congress party's machinations, says Praful Bidwai.
Anti-nuclear activist S P Udayakumar, who has been called a threat to the economic security of India by the Intelligence Bureau, speaks to A Ganesh Nadar.
With an aggressive Opposition and unyielding government, important legislation could be the biggest casualty, as details of the helicopter contract surface.
The history of the Cauvery and Mullaperiyar cases has shown how helpless the constitutional processes and judicial verdicts have been in enforcing the law of the land in inter-state and state-Centre disputes, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Anu Malik has great respect for lyrics and lyrics writers. He has worked with big important people through the '80s and the '90s -- everyone from Gulzar and Majrooh Sultanpuri. He treated me with great respect.' 'I don't think the AIB controversy will affect any comedian who can think right and straight, who is clear about his comedy and politics.'
L K Advani's observation on Narendra Modi, an attempt to cut the BJP's prime ministerial nominee down to size, billing him a mere event manager like Vijay Raaz in Mira Nair's film Monsoon Wedding, speaks volumes about their differences... In the coming days, the Congress and BJP may lock horns over the AgustaWestland chopper deal. In an Italian court, Guido Haschke, one of the accused middlemen who allegedly bribed the Indian side, has sought a plea bargain to reduce his jail term if convicted. On or around April 11, we will know how much Haschke is ready to reveal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt detects which way the political wind is blowing these days.
