On Kishore Kumar's 86th birthday, we revisit a Rediff.com exclusive special by Pritish Nandy on the late legend.
'J&K continues to have the highest concentration of military personnel anywhere in the world and the alienation of the Kashmiri has increased in the last ten years than ever before.'
'Just how strong were the ties between the world's largest and oldest democracies that an incident involving a diplomat and a maid led to anger threatening the relationship itself? Or had the relationship been weakening in the past few years, masked by the empty symbolism of State dinners, asks Devesh Kapur.
The ripping off the lid, that Mekhail did, on the chain of episodes that lead up to his sister's murder, while condemning Indrani for her actions, for the first time, paradoxically, allowed a more human -- if flawed and complicated -- picture to emerge of Indrani, allegedly The Woman Who Killed Her Own Daughter and shocked a nation.
What is going on?! How can an amazing country like India face such highs and lows? Where do these brutes come from? Who are these people who are hijacking the goodness of this country? Who create them? Did we? Can someone please tell me what went wrong with India.
Who was Mohammad Azharuddin? More crucially, *what* was he? Those are precisely the questions that, as the end credits roll after 132 minutes of run-time, remain unanswered, feels Prem Panicker.
'Our daughter's name is ANITA-BRIGITTE. She should actually bear the name of AMITA, but the German authorities would have certainly objected to such an unusual name so we chose the name Anita which is almost sounding like Amita.' 'Brigitte was chosen by me because its short form in German is Gita.' Netaji's family had no idea that he had married and had a child till his brother Sarat Chandra Bose received a letter from Emilie Schenkl. A fascinating glimpse from Madhuri Bose's book, The Bose Brothers and Indian Independence, An Insider's Account.
Those who claim the Maheshtala rape case was only a road accident, are unable to answer why four people were arrested and a gangrape case was registered. Indrani Roy and Dipak Chakraborty report
The argument that a Bharatiya Janata Party government has no business marking the 125th birth anniversary of Panditji makes little sense, says Virendra Kapoor
Rediff.com's Rajesh Karkera shares his impressions from the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India's landmark artistic extravaganza.
Kajal Aggarwal talks about her upcoming film Do Lafzon Ki Kahani and co-star Randeep Hooda.
Ananth Mahadevan takes on the audience.
Mumbai claims to have a large number of developed public and private medical facilities. It attracts patients from all over, including abroad, for specialist care. Hoardings proclaiming all sorts of 'state-of-the-art' medical facilities dot its skylines. The lack of a developed emergency medical response system is completely incongruous with all this, says Dr Sanjay Nagral.
In 2002, at 13 she lost both her hands and severely damaged her legs in a freak accident. Today she is a dedicated social worker, a motivational speaker and model for accessible clothing in India.
'I was very wary about stepping into the limelight and the populist role like Sherlock Holmes, but the minute I saw who was involved and read the script and the quality of it I thought: I've got to do this.' Benedict Cumberbatch tells CNN International why he nearly turned down the chance to play Sherlock Homes.
'The failure of the ECI to follow the Registration of Electoral Rules and create verified and audited rolls or even verifiable and auditable ones, highlight that the entire electoral roll is merely a compilation of names without any effort or intention for completeness, correctness or fair play.' 'We are fooling ourselves by electing our representatives based on faulty electoral rolls that do not represent the people of the constituency. Elections based on these rolls are neither free nor fair. Democracy is under siege,' says Dr Anupam Saraph.
The Manmohan Singh government's rush to pass the Food Security Bill reflects extreme paucity of logic and action, says Neeta Kolhatkar
'Human rights violations are there in rural areas and in cities. In rural areas it is crude and in the open. In urban areas it is well hidden.' 'Awareness has grown several fold. India has 160 national and state human rights institutions. No other country in the world has this.' 'Unfortunately the right to association, right to assembly, freedom of expression, right to protest and discuss are all being curtailed systematically one by one.'
In villages in Palghar district -- in Mumbai's backyard -- more than 254 children have died from malnutrition.
'There are hundreds of items from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra, Rajasthan, Gujarat in Subhash Kapoor's loot. The Tamil Nadu Idol Wing wants to just prosecute Kapoor for three cases and close it. To me that's myopic.'
Nehru's sentimental attachment to the Mountbattens deeply vitiated the Kashmir issue. It was certainly the most important factor for the failure to find a solution in the first years of the conflict.
'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'.'
Over Dosas in Mumbai, Oscar winner Megan Mylan tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel why she chose India and girls empowerment as the subject of her new documentary.
'Over one million people served in various battlefronts during World War I. And yet, even today, we know so very little about them.' 'It is absolutely essential to acknowledge this part of India's colonial history,' Santanu Das tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
'If the State does want to come after you, in India, it can do pretty much anything. And often it isn't as though the orders are coming from the President or prime minister, no, the systems have been built in a way -- or we have allowed them to be built in a way -- that almost encourages crushing of liberties.'
The sluggish legal system in India makes it extremely difficult for law-enforcing agencies in the ministry of finance to punish violations of foreign exchange laws. Unfortunately, it is not just FEMA. The Prevention of Money Laundering Act too has significant infirmities, say Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Pranati Mehra.
Desis in the US recall their earliest celebration of the festival of lights on American soil. Chaya Babu reports
'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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