Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi, chief imam of the All India Imam Organisation, who led a delegation of 30 Muslims to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 3, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com how the meeting came about and what was discussed during the 75-minute convivial meet.
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.
This year on Teacher's Day, we take a tongue-in-cheek look at the 10 invaluable lessons Bollywood has imparted.
'They will talk about secularism, but communalism -- they just won't say there exists such a beast.' 'It's harmful for society to brush it under the carpet.' 'If we talk about secularism, we must talk about communalism.'
Among many things that Amitabh Bachchan's onscreen credentials remains unrivalled for, dying is right at the top!
Is the Bharatiya Janata Party back to its hackneyed Hindutva agenda? The question is being raised following the party's decision to entrust the leadership of the party's campaign for the forthcoming state bye-election in Uttar Pradesh to the saffron clad rabble-rouser Mahant Adityanath.
'I am just making a creative film. It has nothing to do with propaganda.'
Mumbai visarjans take place with military precision. Thousands and thousands of Ganpatis are immersed across 11 days with hardly an incident. And minimum traffic disruption given the scale of the festival. Meet the the folks who ensure visarjans happen smoothly and efficiently.
Responding to the donkey remarks made by Akhilesh, Modi said the criticism of donkeys by the UP CM only reflected his 'casteist mentality' and 'the feeling of hatred does not suit him'.
Salman and his never-ending list of controversies!
Mekhail delivered the most deliberate heart-tugging line of the day: "If a son asks his mother for money is wrong, then tell me." At the back Indrani gave one of her most beaming smiles that was meant to convey the exact opposite. This was no mother happy that her son had said he turned to her when he needed money because she was his mother.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
One couldn't help feeling a certain melancholy viewing these now vagrant documents and photographs that would never be rightfully cherished. The pictures spoke to you. They offered slices of extinguished lives. They breathed sadness too, for what could have been and will never be. The sweet promises that Life made and insolently, arrogantly never kept.
Union ministers fanned out across the country to highlight the crackdown on black money to mark the first anniversary of demonetisation on Wednesday which the Bharatiya Janata Party celebrated as "Anti Black Money Day" while the Congress-led Opposition observed it as "Black Day" with street protests.
'When Sultan released, I got greedy. I decided to make another film with Salman because he gets me a lot of box office.'
'I am an accidental lyricist,' confesses the superstar who has written Haanikaarak Bapu, Emotional Atyachar, Abhi Mujh Mein Kahin, the songs for Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and many, many, more chartbusters.
We revisit the actor's many controversies over the years.
With the festival of colours just around the corner, we dig out some lively bhang-soaked ditties just for you.
'Acting is the toughest job in the world.'
'A government which is so inefficient, what hope of justice can we have from them?' RSS leader Indresh Kumar tells Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore.
'I have to fight to ensure something like this doesn't happen to any other child, that no other parent faces what we are going through.' 'That is how I will find strength.'
The question being silently telegraphed around the court room was: When did this happen? Wasn't this trial about Indrani murdering her daughter to prevent her from marrying Rahul Mukerjea, her husband Peter Mukerjea's son from his first marriage?
'I returned to jail at 4.45. I was body searched and sent back to my cell.' 'A bowl of dal was kept there covered.' 'Another guard gave me a tablet and I became unconscious.' Accused One spoke about a similar incident happening to her in October 2015 and also with a bowl of dal.
Balbinder Singh Dhami, who has played an inspector, for over a year, in The Zee Horror Show, took on the role of a witness on Monday. It was a part he had no experience of.
Half of the screenplay's job is done the minute Dilip Kumar's hypnotising gaze falls on Nargis. The screen bubbles with intense chemistry and sexual tension every time this incredibly handsome pair converse from a distance. Revisiting Kidar Sharma's 1950 classic, Jogan.
'If you look at my career, I am among that rare species that has always worked in non-mainstream films. And people liked it. As for TRPs, popularity, and 100 crore club, I have never thought about it.' Amol Palekar gets ready for his television comeback.
More than two decades after Michael Jackson wowed us all with Thriller and Bad, his iconic dance moves continue to inspire Bollywood's best dancers.
'It is very easy for me to choose different genres, but a lot of actors are still stuck in the same rut.'
'Can't make Munnabhai Chale Amerika kyunki mere ko American visa nahi milta hai, toh Amerika cancel hai.'
On the actor's 54th birthday on November 2, we write another tome about the boy with big dreams and a regrettable haircut, who defied incredible odds to become one of the most loved actors on the planet.
'Ishaqzaade released on May 11, 2012. It has been seven years. But if you had spoken to me on May 10, 2012, and said that I would do 13 films with so many good directors and actors, I would have said, 'Chal jhoota.''
Sukanya Verma shares her exciting filmi week with us!
Former Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar is one of the few Indian police officers to speak to Dawood Ibrahim at length after the fugitive gangster fled India. A gripping excerpt from his new book, Dial D For Don: Inside Stories Of CBI Missions.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Saturday dismissed a petition against the Uttar Pradesh government's ban on Vishwa Hindu Parisha's proposed Yatra from Ayodhya.
Harvard, age and experience have changed Ekta Kapoor in ways that will stand her in good stead as she attempts the biggest transformation Balaji Telefilms has seen.
As Peter sits outside the court with his sister, Indrani walks in with a request. It has been three months since Peter has started speaking to Indrani again, after a long silence of two years.
He is, at the closing of 2018, a man quite different from the Peter Mukerjea who entered judicial custody three-and-a-half years ago. He is a man not yet convicted of a crime, but already suffering for it, like the hundreds that enter these courts every day and the thousands Peter shares jail space with in a central Mumbai prison.
In our special series re-visiting great Hindi film classics, we look back at Sunny Deol and Dimple Kapadia starrer Arjun, 1985.
Pasbola wound up his cross examination, tabling a new narrative in the murder case. That Sheena Bora had been murdered not by her mother. But by her brother.
She is changing India one village at a time.