Spending at restaurants and bars grew more than 8 per cent compared to the year before.
'It would be too sweeping to say that the elites and the middle-class don't care about liberty.' 'It is just that they are always calculating the trade-offs: What's in it for me, what could it cost me?' 'To that extent, we haven't changed in 40 years,' says Shekhar Gupta.
There is nothing the young Purvanchali wants more desperately than to escape to a place with less hopelessness, and some opportunity, discovers Shekhar Gupta.
To claim that Tamil Nadu was waiting for a messiah of the 'spiritual' Rajini kind is misplaced, if not mischievous, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Much of the pre-2014 peace in our hotspots is diminished. Kashmir is on the boil and the Northeast is anarchic, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Could the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP become the rallying point of new energies that are getting unleashed all over urban India, in quest for a different kind of politics, to such an extent that he can rein in Narendra Modi? It all depends on how it pans out its politics in the coming weeks, says Neerja Chowdhury.
'Modi's brilliance seems to be in combining Indira Gandhi's 'feel' for the Indian pulse and Narasimha Rao's cynicism.' 'By the time the Opposition leaders caught up with Modi over the 'surgical strikes', he had already moved on,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
'Even if the media is partisan, the BJP, governing at the Centre, has the most to lose if India descends into widespread communal violence.' 'Fanning the flames either by vested political interests or by partisan reports only plays into the hands of those seek a conflagration.'
'What Modisaab will accomplish by tampering with the treaty is providing ammunition to ultra-nationalist right wing elements within Pakistan who see India as an existential threat.'
Nawaz Sharif may have permitted the trial of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists for the Pathankot attack. But this fell apart because of General Raheel Shareef's keenness to make Kulbhushan Jadhav the centerpiece of global attention. Ambassador G Parthasarthy, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, reveals the Pakistan army chief's gambit against India.
Using a sledgehammer to fix some ills can cut down a game at its peak, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Buoyed by recent poll victories, BJP on Saturday embarked on a fresh membership drive amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strong pitch for making it all inclusive so that all sections of the society feel their "flower" is represented in this "bouquet" of the party.
Nitish Kumar is on the brink of taking another wrong turn. It is hard to fathom why he would tie up with the Congress, which has little political capital left in Bihar. Aditi Phadnis reports
The Congress appears to be in two minds on the issue of alliance in Bihar despite top leaders of the party having met both Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan in past weeks.
'The talks held in Bangkok, virtually on Indian terms, is an event where Pakistan seems to have blinked first.'
The kings of the ruling family of India's heartland -- father Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi party supremo, and son Akhilesh Yadav, the UP chief minister -- are at war. And as on any chessboard, the queens have emerged as the power centres. Meet Dimple Yadav and Aparna Yadav.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's hot saffronite swami is yoga teacher Ramdev.
'The BJP should realise that a very large number of people -- from the 'perfumed liberals' to the 'illiterate' masses of Bihar -- is trying to tell them that this is not the 'development' they wanted.' 'Stop telling people what to eat, what to wear, what to read, who to love and how not to show dissent.'
According the latest CNN-IBN-CSDS-Lokniti post poll survey, the National Democratic Alliance is projected to win 274 to 286 seats, and the Bharatiya Janata Party is projected to win 230 to 242 seats on its own, it best ever poll tally.
As far as Saffola is concerned, oil and oats have been successful segments.
China's major economic problem has been that its heartland is an agricultural region with about one-third of the arable land per person as the rest of the world.
These fresh new faces, waiting in the wings for their big Bollywood debuts, will take your breath away!
'Already, there is talk of a possible extension for Raheel Sharif in the context of his perceived sterling, but incomplete work in the war against terror, as also the cleansing of crime and extortion networks in Karachi,' says Rana Banerji.
'Since we don't have toilets, we go in the fields. It is worse for the women. Men and women have demarcated different area for themselves. But it is most difficult for us during the monsoon.'
Shekhar Gupta has a question for Kanhaiya Kumar, but a bigger, more vital, one for the honourable judge.
Issaq is a shoddily written film with a cringeworthy performance from its leading man Prateik Babbar, writes Raja Sen.
'India should think big: About how in a multi-polar world, India can indeed be one of the poles, rather than being a secondary power that has to worry about 'alignment' with one of the poles. A G3 in other words, India should look to getting others to align with itself rather than the US or China,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
With days to go before Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh go to polls, the Congress is struggling to make an impact in the two key heartland states which have been ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party for two successive five-year terms.
Tubes gone, Irom Sharmila the brand is dead. As long as she was trying to kill herself, she had value to the cynics trying to build their careers over her fast, says Shekhar Gupta.
Sumit Bhattacharya paradrops into the eastern Uttar Pradesh temple city to find it enjoying its moment in the national sun.
Meaningful devolution of spending power to states could spread more confidence on the ground and stir precisely the sort of change Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised.
The BJP's panicky return to basic-instinct majoritarianism in Bihar has pushed Muslims back into the 'secular' basement, says Shekhar Gupta.
Many in the Bharatiya Janata Party feel that internal democracy in the party is being stifled
Satyagraha attempts to speak about important issues but ends up over-simplifying them.
In the world of harebrained Bhai films, Kick is the best made and the most fun, says Raja Sen.
What got the Jats of Haryana so furious?
Rajdeep Sardesai's 2014: The Election That Changed India, will make him a ton of money, says Shreekant Sambrani, but admits he is more interested in knowing whether the book lives up to its title.
'Think about how he would have handled Hyderabad, and JNU. He would have been very cross if he found two of his Cabinet ministers weighing in on the side of the ABVP.' 'And if Rohith Vemula still killed himself, he would have been the first to speak out in anguish and empathy rather than deny he was a Dalit.' 'And JNU, he would have simply said something like, 'let the boys speak, then they will grow up and join the IAS).' 'A good idea, when in crisis, is to apply the 'Vajpayee test' to your actions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has called a meeting of chief ministers of 12 Congress-ruled states to figure out how to fill out the vacancies in the Rajya Sabha. Highly-placed sources have said that he wants to cajole Amethis's former feudal lord Sanjay Singh; by giving him an RS ticket, in view of his own weak position in Amethi. Renu Mittal reports.
Intensive training and meticulous planning have gone into the making of Dangal.
