Trade analyst Vinod Mirani gives us the weekly verdict.
The hits and misses of the week.
No one was surprised when Rajendra Singh was found shot and killed in broad daylight, not far from the local police station, notes Geetanjali Krishna.
What happens when you are in a life-and-death situation and, as it happens often in such situations, you just have a moment to make a choice? Director Amit Kumar's Monsoon Shootout makes you sit on the proverbial horns of such a dilemma.
When these villagers had no work, an NGO stepped in and transformed their lives, says Geetanjali Krishna.
Trade analyst Vinod Mirani gives us the weekly verdict.
The dead boy was a first generation learner in a government school, with all odds stacked against him. While everyone celebrates this year's toppers, Geetanjali Krishna wonders about the failures, and how our system has failed them.
'One of the most important lessons I learnt from Babulal was on stoicism.' 'As a young man, he had lost the fingers of his right hand in an accident.' 'Without missing a beat, he taught himself to use the spade and shovel with his left hand and carried on working,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'The social security system in India provides minimal support to the elderly poor,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'We're going to campaign across the country to convince more candidates to endorse some/all of these issues -- and hold them to their promises if and when they are elected.'
'Our throwaway culture today has little room for mochis and rafoogars who concealed rips and tears with imperceptible stitches and great skill,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'The easy availability of funds has enabled us to not only hire the best faculty, but has also made it possible for us to retain them with the best possible infrastructure -- labs, grants etc,' Ashoka University VC Malabika Sarkar tells Geetanjali Krishna.
The Naz Foundation is trying to sensitise workplaces towards the LGBT community, reports Geetanjali Krishna.
Aseem Chhabra lists the best non-Hindi language films he watched in 2020, with the hope that they will have a wider reach in the new year.
'I sighed, wondering what we'd eat if all farmers took jobs in the city and all their fields degenerated into land for sale,' notes Geetanjali Krishna.
Here is a look at some of Aseem Chhabra's favourite memories of 2020 in Hindi cinema, performances by well-known and new actors, special moments in films and shows.
'Whether it's a morning walk, an evening swim or an afternoon workout in the gym, just get moving.'
'I had the strangest feeling that my childhood home had burnt and disappeared on my parents' funeral pyres,' he said. Hardly any of his family lived there now. Migration or death had claimed them all. It seemed to be full of strangers. 'Then I realised that from their perspective, perhaps there was only one stranger -- me..." Babu Lal tells Geetanjali Krishna.
'No one really knows whether it is somehow better to go raging and fighting into the dark night, or close one's eyes quietly and give in to fate.' 'But a funeral with music, tinsel and acceptance -- not unlike most New Year festivities -- seems like a better send-off than any other,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'I don't know how long the small-scale handmade sector can survive,' a shoemaker from Hisar tells Geetanjali Krishna.
'Dangal gives people the impression that Geeta and Babita Phogat's rise to fame as wrestlers is a one-off phenomenon.' 'Many young wrestlers in Haryana are capable of reaching the same heights as the Phogat sisters, but there are few opportunities to train or make a living from wrestling in the village.'
'Whether she pursued academics or art, there was one sort of tyranny she'd probably never escape -- her father's,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'It is the common people, not lawyers and judges, who are the stakeholders of the judiciary.'
'If we're able to make a child laugh or feel happy to come to school, more than half the battle is won,' Katha Founder Geeta Dharmarajan tells Geetanjali Krishna.
Moushumi Chatterjee on her co-stars and how they guided her throughout her career.
Geetanjali Krishna explains why this may slow down India's fight against corruption.
Man loses Rs 1.5 lakh from under his pillow. Geetanjali Krishna reveals what happens next.
In rural Bengal, people still believed that widows were simply biding their time on earth after their lord and master had departed from it, says Geetanjali Krishna.
He will now have to submit to the two-year jail term handed down to him.
'Around the dawn of the millennium, it seemed that the sun was finally setting on these elaborate home weddings.' 'As the clamour for 'live' counters of grilled fish, pasta and khao suey grew, without even realising it, Gopal Pandey slowly started going out of fashion,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
God bless Ritesh Batra, raves Sukanya Verma.
'The children of today see Bollywood heroines dancing to item numbers in clingy georgette saris with bright gold machine embroidery.' 'To them, the Sambalpuri saris look and feel like shapeless, dull sacks.' 'The tragedy of the weaver isn't that he doesn't get enough respect and understanding from people like us,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
The Human Rights Law Network -- a group of committed lawyers, paralegals and social activists -- is making justice accessible to people who can't defend themselves.
'It's the children that matter. They are the future,' Bhagaban Mohanta, who was born without legs, tells Geetanjali Krishna.
Flesh-and-blood people can be invisible even when they are standing right in front of us, says Geetanjali Kishna.
Perhaps, more daughters will feel more loved if the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme were to be replaced, says Geetanjali Krishna.
A journey that can teach us all a thing or two about resilience.
