Here's looking back the Bollywood's judges over the years.
'What we are today witnessing is the final act of the Pakistani army trying to retain its turf,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Most successful and ambitious business leaders feel persuaded that they have no competent successor, says R G Vilakudi.
Ataturk and Nehru, two liberal secular modernisers, are in peril of being disowned by their successors, says Sunanda K-Datta Ray.
'Aurangzeb, who had destroyed the Hindu temples of Mathura and Kashi and many others in the north, was a very different ruler when he came to Maharashtra.' 'He did not touch a single temple in Maharashtra.' 'It was possibly the greatest triumph of Shivaji's statesmanship,' notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd), the well known military historian.
'After it was finished, Shah Jahan visited the Taj only twice.' 'There is a letter from Aurangzeb to him after a visit, reporting that the dome was leaking and needed to be fixed.' 'Shah Jahan wasn't bothered: He had moved on to designing his next project, Shahjahanabad,' reveals Aakar Patel.
Bajirao Mastani has the potential to do for Maratha 'history' what Mughal-e-Azam did for Mughal 'history', says Mohammad Asim Siddiqui.
'Kriti Sanon is a superb actress, she looks Maharashtrian, and has not done a historical either.' 'Sanjay Dutt has gone to another level of persona. He hasn't done a historical either.'
So many films have been made with Muslim characters. But how many have actually got them right?
When Correa was hailed as India's greatest architect in 2013, he said, 'Greatest is so...so definite. Most innovative might have been better'
'Physically, he was a strong man, but given to moments of emotional weakness.' 'He had to be put back on the right track by the women in his life.'
Akbar is rumoured to have once asked the navratnas of his court what the greatest pleasure in the world was. The stock answers came back: wealth, power, women, food, wine and so on, with the emperor's own contribution being hunting. Birbal was the outlier; he asserted that the greatest pleasure in the world was surely a good bowel movement.
Valmik Thapar's book -- Wildfire: The Splendours Of India's Animal Kingdom -- is a reminder of India's sumptuous wildlife wealth at a time when there is a steady dilution of conservation policies
'For the last 10 years the Congress made the RSS an idea of intolerance, anti-minority, especially anti-Muslim, and an idea of fascism.' 'That has been demolished now by Pranab Mukherjee.'
'Disgruntled, disillusioned, Muslim youth -- of whom there is no dearth, given the Muslim world's sorry state -- are ready to take on the might of the West and attack it in any way they can.' 'For them, it is their faith, and not the reasoning of Newton or Descartes that has stayed with them, sustained them through the misery their world had sunk into,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
The 1960 epic continues to enthrall unlike any Indian film ever
Things are off to a good start when a lead movie character appears for the first time against strategic music or swaggering drama and the audience bursts into wholehearted whistles and applause.
'Surprised by the absence of any sloganeering or even mild protest in an ambience so free and self-regulated, I asked a friend from Delhi whether he too, with sharp political antenna, was surprised at how smooth and easy going everything was,' notes Ambassador B S Prakash.
Has Owaisi's MIM become an albatross for Imtiaz Jaleel, former journalist and the party's candidate in Aurangabad?
'There is a remarkable link between the eating of beef (or at the very least, tolerating the eating of beef) and India being a superpower.' 'In India, whenever an empire was strong, religion took a back seat.' 'Alternatively, whenever religion asserted itself, the main empire of India crumbled...'
As Maharashtra and Haryana show, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah completely control the BJP and are taking it to the next level ruthlessly, without carrying forward any past baggage.
From banking reform to financial reconstruction, the bullet train, Navi Mumbai airport, choosing a new medium fighter aircraft to be made in India... time is running out for Modi. How could a leader as energetic and astute as Modi have left it for so late, asks Shekhar Gupta.
Educationist Dr Shashi K Pande on how he sees India, and how he would like to see it change.
'The real test will be in defence-related deals, for instance the Javelin anti-tank missile: Is the US willing to co-develop something with India, on terms that will support the 'Make in India' initiative? Is there defence technology transfer? Or will it dump old junk on India?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
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