'People ask me if I miss living a normal life, since I don't have privacy, and I tell them I don't want to have a normal life. I want people standing outside my house, I want to be loved by them. I have been fortunate enough to live like a star for 25 years and I would like to die as a star.' Shah Rukh Khan, unplugged.
Zakir Naik, a gentle, rockstar televangelist, is dangerous as young Muslims may be swayed by his fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and justify victimhood and extremism, says Shekhar Gupta.
'I ask for bail in the name of justice.' 'Give me a chance to stay alive and see the trial till its end.'
In an online chat with readers overseas education consultant NNS Chandra addressed queries related to international admissions.
'The new generation voter is hyper-nationalistic, but it isn't essentially illiberal.' 'They will find the rants of Adityanath as laughable as Irfan Habib's. They will also find the BJP's polarising approach to vote-gathering unacceptable if it fails to deliver jobs and growth,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Modi and Shah know their politics. That is why the alarmed switch to reservations, and raising the threat from 'vote bank' politics,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'In this resurgent India, class is the new caste. We are shaken up only occasionally, and briefly, when a battered, tribal teenager from Jharkhand looks us in the eye from our closet,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Usually, the Left backed the Congress and other 'secular' parties on the justification of keeping the BJP out. In Bengal, the alliance targets a truly secular rival,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Do you have the courage to look through failures and unexpected pitfalls?
'The Congress, all these decades, worked on a slow Hindi-isation and Indianisation of Arunachal tribes. The RSS wants rapid Hinduisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The stage on which the Jammu and Kashmir flood disaster played out is littered with protagonists, most of whom did not receive the attention they deserve, says Ajai Shukla
After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again. Four or five months later she met her death. Mekhail referred to their last meeting without overt emotion, clear-eyed.
Indrani called her personal assistant Kajal Sharma from the UK, May 3, 2012, and told her she had to sign Sheena's resignation letter as if she was Sheena signing it. But she had to first practice the signature and send Indrani proof of her proficiency in signing Sheena's name before sending the letter off. Sharma said she was reluctant and told the court that she told Indrani as much, but Indrani demanded it of her.
Yash Birla, one of most prominent businessmen of India, had a lively interaction with rediff.com readers when he hosted a chat on Tuesday.
'... not even a moral one, let alone a legal one.' 'Even if it is assumed that Deepak Kochhar tried to influence his wife into doing something dodgy for his 'social acquaintance', why would she do it?' 'By all accounts she has been granted share options in ICICI Bank of a very substantial amount which easily makes her a multi billion-pati.' 'She did not become CEO against some stiff competition by being stupid and concocting devious cock-and-bull renewable energy stories.' S Murlidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas, unravels the Deepak Kochhar-Videocon controversy.
'Soft power is the power really to win friends and influence people with the strength of your ideas.' 'India's greatest soft power is being India itself. A nation of varied beliefs, states, creeds, castes, languages and yet embodying that spirit of unity in diversity.'
'The incidents have remained confined to the paramilitary forces on both sides with both the armies scrupulously avoiding getting involved. While this incident has been going on, the LOC has been reasonably quiet. Cross border firing achieves no tactical or strategic aims and is more a symptom of hostility. Unfortunately, India has to learn to live with this. Like Israel, we must construct shelters for the border populations and be ready to retaliate in kind,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The Marxists are heading for their worst debacle in many elections. How will May 16, 2014 affect India's Communists? T V R Shenoy surveys the landscape.
'The government has belied the hope that many harboured of change, efficiency and dismantling old practices as the defence ministry continues to pursue the same well trodden and wasteful path.'
Meet Randeep Hooda, the man with a great sense of humour, an actor who loves his craft, an animal lover and, over and above all that, a Jat lad in touch with his roots...
In an online chat with readers, Prof Ujjwal Chowdhary from Edutainment offered tips on pursuing a career in media, design and communication.
India's rivalry with Australia dates back to 1947-48 when Lala Amarnath's team travelled to take on the hosts, who were captained by batting great Don Bradman. The visitors were beaten 4-0 in the five-match series. A statistical analysis of the Test record between the two teams.
'After the 2002 riots when the media and other political parties started blaming Modiji, thousands of people like us -- now, it must be crores of us -- started becoming staunch supporters of Modiji. The more you blamed him the more of our support he gained.' Pramod Singh of Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh is one of Narendra Modi's biggest fans and a member of Modi's India272 Web initiative, spreading the leader's message on social media and the Internet.
The cricketing world is all set for another feast with the Indian Premier League.
