Satyajit Ray would have been 97 today, May 2. Soumendu Roy, who worked with the legendary director for many years, looks back on the Genius that was Manikda, as the Master was known to family, friends and admirers.
Lata: 'Do you feel you are happy now?' Kishore Kumar: 'I am very happy. By the grace of God, I want nothing. If there is anything I want, it is to return back home, home is Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. I hear it calling me.'
Rupert Murdoch-led News Corp has acquired 25 per cent stake in real estate portal PropTiger.com for $30 million.
'Extravagant new promises can buy him time, but far from solving the problem, they compound the risk.' 'His main alternative is to stress not aspirations, but resentments.' 'He has already de-emphasised aspirational appeals: Nothing has been heard for over two years of the coming of achhe din,' points out James Manor.
Bhubaneswar-based Akshaya Rautaray and Satabdi Mishra are on a mission to promote reading.
Mukund Rajan, who worked closely with Ratan Tata, recalls the unique experience of working with the corporate titan.
Former Miss India International Sveta Jaishankar's new cookbook has recipes from India's top models and actors.
'A Life With Wildlife is a must for all who are concerned about how a billion Indians will coexist with over 500 mammals and 1,300 birds, not to mention 25,000 flowering plant species in the new century,' says Mahesh Rangarajan.
The markets are in meltdown. Time then to turn to the Master Investor for advice and guidance. Yefei Lu explains how Warren Buffet's investment strategy includes everything from how to look at risk versus reward to how to think about portfolio concentration.
'Imagine a situation where an upright officer refuses to carry out a chief minister's or a central minister's orders that he considers wrong.' 'Can he be summarily thrashed at a meeting at your residence, or in his own office?' 'If AAP legitimises political violence, there are many, many, tougher political leaders elsewhere to draw the wrong lessons,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
'Although the Election Commission remains convinced about the EVM's integrity, as a fair umpire of the game it was necessary to travel the last mile to convince political players that the entire process was not only fair but transparently so.' A fascinating excerpt from former Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla's new book, Excerpted from Every Vote Counts: The Story Of India's Elections.
29 years ago, Karnataka was hurled into a huge political crisis after MLAs withdrew support to S R Bommai's Janata Dal ministry. As the governor recommended that the chief minister be dismissed and President's Rule imposed in the state, then President R Venkataraman disagreed with Rajiv Gandhi's Cabinet and argued that 'the question whether a ministry commanded the confidence of the assembly should be tested in the House and not by the governor.' A fascinating excerpt from President Venkataraman's My Presidential Years, published with the kind permission of the publishers HarperCollins India.
'India must close the missile technology gap with both China and Pakistan as early as possible, or else the credibility of India's nuclear deterrence will remain suspect,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The Quantico star reveals it all.
The celebrations after the 2017 World Cup went on for the next few months. But there was one question that the Indian cricketers failed to respond to in their interviews. 'What was their next assignment?' Nobody knew; the players were waiting for the BCCI to tell them. The BCCI, with barely any time from its endless legal tangles, had nothing in mind immediately. The likes of Australia and England were back on the field, battling it out in the Ashes in front of sizeable crowds. But for Mithali Raj and team, there was no road ahead.
Drones may have been used for non-lethal purposes but state-sponsored assassinations and semi-covert wars are fuelling their boom and not scientific missions or creative activists, says American political activist Medea Benjamin.
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'Sent off to interview him in the late 1970s I met him in a cafe in New Delhi's Regal Building called The Parlour. With impromptu send-ups of Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and the rich, gravelly tones of a well-known All India Radio Hindi newsreader called Devki Nandan Pandey, he soon had the whole restaurant listening in.'
Former RA&W chief A S Dulat, who served as Atalji's adviser on Kashmir, gives us an insider's glimpse of a prime minister he has hailed as the 'greatest after Nehru'.
Follow a balanced diet with a mixture of whole grains, suggests Jeeva Anna George.
Manmohan Singh had joined a pre-medical course as his father wanted him to become a doctor but pulled out after a couple of months, losing interest in the subject, according to a book on the former prime minister by his daughter.
'Smita had it all planned out. She was pregnant then and planning to leave Raj Babbar after the baby was born. In an enthralling new book Smita Patil, A Brief Incandescence (HarperCollins), Maithili Rao reveals the many fascinating facets of the incomparable actress whom we lost too young.
'My age? It keeps changing every year. I can't remember it. I don't like ageing at all,' dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai, who passed into the ages on Thursday, told Jasmine Shah Verma in October 2004. Reproduced with kind permission from Harmony - Celebrate Age magazine.
'An operation such as the Mumbai attacks, which needed expert technical assessment, money and time to prepare, could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the ISI's leadership.'
Experts trace the reasons for the 26/11 attacks to the Pakistan's military interest in three key areas: Kashmir, Afghanistan and nuclear armaments.
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
India's beloved President -- there has been no other who has influenced the nation as much -- never stepped back from inspiring people to be the very best that they could be.
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
From Aurangzeb to Sangh Parivar, the year 2016 offers plenty of hope in historical and modern literature.
Mita Kapur has an irresistible love affair... and she's willing to do anything to keep it going.
Her book is less of a Hindutva-loving diatribe against the Dynasty than its detractors suggest, but it is still hard to agree with much of what she writes, says Vir Sanghvi on Tavleen Singh's latest book.
Shuma Raha finds out how writers are using social media to produce bestsellers.
'Unni swung up his MP5 and fired a burst across the atrium. The bullets hammered into the wall. Then he bounded up the stairs leading to the other set of doors opening into the Palm Lounge. It was a terribly risky move because he didn't have a buddy to cover him.'
Ever heard of 'gosht ka halwa' or 'dal ki dulhan'? Avantika Bhuyan profiles a battery of food enthusiasts who are out to make sure that you do.
Wendell Rodricks's passion for fashion has its roots in food, he reveals in this heartwarming essay.
'People see problems not being solved, they get tired of waiting, they start asking for a "strong leader" -- and what they really mean is a "dictator". They think that will fix everything. But it won't.' A German resident in India tells Dilip D'Souza about Hitler and the Nazis and why he is disturbed by what he sees in present-day India.
'This can lift us out of confusion, misery, melancholy and failure, and indeed guide us when it is contacted.' 'For us to ignite our spirituality, we need to look inward and transcend our egos. We need to recognize, connect with and integrate the eternal spirit within,' says A P J Abdul Kalam in his latest book, Transcendence.
Akshay Manwani traces Aamir Khan's fascinating journey to stardom.
Nilanjana S Roy compiles a list of the most eagerly awaited books next year.
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