A diamond bracelet and jewelled decorative elephants from Jaipur are some of the Indian heirlooms that made up a collection of 350 personal items belonging to Patricia Mountbatten, Lord Louis Mountbatten's eldest daughter, which fetched over £5.6 million (Rs 56 crore) at an auction in London.
Prince William and Duchess Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, have named their newborn baby George Alexander Louis.
The Viceroy's House features Lord Grantham playing Lord Mountbatten...
'Had these leaders known that Jinnah was dying...'
'If you can have Rampur flown magically to Pakistan's borders, I might ask the nawab to accede to Pakistan. Else, I'm afraid we have no choice in the matter but to join India.'
'When you watch Freedom At Midnight, I want you to feel like you are sitting on a ticking time bomb.'
A 1930 Ford will once again be the cynosure of all eyes at the 38th Statesman Vintage and Classic Car Rally.
India's struggle for freedom is one of the most unique and compelling stories of the 20th century.
The BJP and the AIADMK are unable to sort out ideological differences, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Partition was a two-sided story in a very big way.' 'We've oversimplified it, blamed the British, thought of ourselves only as victims.' 'We've been both victims and perpetrators.'
The BJP seems wanting to return to a 'Tamil Hindutva' agenda for elections in Tamil Nadu, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
At sunrise the following day, a hunt was organised for the queen to shoot a female tiger. But she decided a monarch should not make the kill and handed her gun to one of her staff to deliver the fatal shot.
The festering dispute over the accession of Jammu and Kashmir stands out as one of the world's most volatile fault lines that divides regions, countries, societies, communities and ethnic groups, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs, on Sheikh Abdullah's 39th death anniversary.
Historian Stanley Wolpert's book -- Shameful Flight -- revisits Partition, and lays the blame for one of the most horrific episodes of the 20th century squarely on the shoulders of a Briton, finds Arthur J Pais.
Attlee said Great Britain had concluded that the Indian element of the army was no longer reliable and that Netaji's Indian National Army had demonstrated that. That had shaken the foundation on which Britain's Indian empire rested, argues Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
'If Ruttie had been alive, Jinnah would never have turned communal.'
Gilgit Baltistan's large frontage with Kashmir and Ladakh across Kargil and the Siachen Glacier gives Pakistan and China the perceived scope for conduct of collusive operations against India and wrest control of the major course of the Indus and Shyok, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Historian Stanley Wolpert, author of several books on India, passed into the ages recently. We remember Professor Wolpert with Rajeev Srinivasan's March 1997 interview published on the occasion of his controversial book on Jawaharlal Nehru.
'Patel was more in tune with the popular mood than Jawaharlal Nehru. While the principle that Hindus and Muslims should be able to live together remained central to Nehru's vision for India, the Sardar was less sentimental.' 'Nehru would angrily face down mobs himself, rushing from trouble spot to trouble spot. A veritable tent city, filled with Muslim refugees, sprouted on the lawns of his bungalow... Mountbatten feared Nehru's impulsiveness would get him killed, and assigned soldiers to watch over him.' Nisid Hajari's Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition casts fresh light on the events and personalities behind the horrific division of the subcontinent which haunts the India and Pakistan to this day.
'The extended Bose family is insisting that the Japanese government must release all the information they have on Bose's ashes. It cannot be forgotten that Bose was in Japanese care when his 'death' occurred. Ultimately, it is the Japanese who hold the secret about what happened to him.'
'Once accession to Pakistan appeared unlikely, the British instituted Operations Gulmarg and Datta Khel respectively to foil possible accession to India.'
'Our policy seems to be to give away part of J&K, even though we are entitled to the entire state.' 'The Congress has done so, and the BJP is following the same policy.' 'No one is applying their mind to the legal position.' 'Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution.'
Generations of Indians don't quite grasp that there would barely be an India had it not been for the Sardar whose steadfastness and guile stitched together that which had been united only in philosophy and spirituality and sometimes not even then -- for thousands of years. A fascinating excerpt from Hindol Sengupta's The Man Who Saved India, Sardar Patel and His Idea of India.
In her sit-down interview with Oprah, Meghan said the palace decreed that Archie would not have any title, a move she says was "different from the protocol."
'It's only been two and a half days, three days, but we're just so thrilled to have our own little bundle of joy'
'The Maoists want the tribals to boycott the election while the police think the election is a farce and do not want to risk going deeper in the conflict zone.' 'Newton (played with sincerity and deep felt passion by Rajkummar Rao) wants to make sure that the locals cast their vote, a right given to them by the Constitution.'
The name of Prince William and Kate Middleton's newborn son is now a hot topic in Britain, with George being bookmakers favourite for the christening of the future King.
'Rightly or wrongly, 1962 got ascribed to Krishna Menon and him alone. That's unfair.' 'Certainly, he was one of the guilty men, but he was not the only guilty man. Mistakes were made all around.'
'The non-violent movement would not have brought freedom to the country, that had to be an armed struggle.'
'The creation of Pakistan was integral to Britain's grand strategy.' 'If they were to ever leave India, Britain's military planners had made it clear that they needed to retain a foothold in the NWFP and Baluchistan because that would provide the means to retain control of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar.'
'Nehru had multiple chances to make compromises, that would have preserved a united India, and he chose not to,' Nisid Hajari tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
Twenty two years before Kabir Khan's The Forgotten Army streams on Amazon Prime on January 24, 2020, his documentary of the same name was telecast on Doordarshan. On that occasion, Kabir Khan spoke to Amberish K Diwanji/Rediff.com about Netaji's Azad Hind Fauj and its many battles for India's freedom.
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