'It is possible that in his perambulations from the company of Baba Ramdev to that of Anna Hazare and finally to the BJP, he hasn't had time to refurbish his memory of what he may have read earlier,' says Amulya Ganguli.
In a first of a 12-part series, we list out all the places you should visit and all the festivals you should celebrate through the New Year!
What is a migrant going through today on the walk home? What is it like to be a Muslim and watch the news on television every night in India? Is there a bureaucrat who is noting down the absurdity of what is announced and what is actually happening in her domain? A medical resident who has gone through three weeks of 12-hour shifts while her seniors abstain from coming to the Covid hospital? They may be our everyday experiences, but they are how history will understand what happened to us all in this strange and surreal time, points out Aakar Patel.
De Niro is in India for Tehelka's Think Festival in Goa, which begins later this week. This is the actor's first visit to India.
'The fruition of Nobel's hope lies in the response of a caring government that can rise above politics and propaganda, not in the frenetic raptures of a public that worships fame for fame's sake,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'People in Pakistan opened their homes and hearts to me because I was an Indian. I didn't feel alien at all and I felt as if I was in my own country.' 'I believe that there is a strong chance that the Taliban can win over Pakistan. In an era of ideological confusion these people (Taliban) thrive.' 'The Pakistani State is an enemy state not just for India but for Pakistan itself. By funding non-state actors, the Pakistani government is destroying itself.' Film-maker Hemal Trevedi speaks on her experiences when filming a documentary on Pakistani madrasas
'Now with many itchy-fingered ex-bosses being raked through the mud, their marriages ruined, their careers trashed, their finances hit, the inclination of many male hiring managers will be to hire fewer women,' believes Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Lord Ram's history has reached Indonesia, but not Owaisi's home.'
A string of film celebrities like Waheeda Rahman, Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad among others set to explore the intertwining of cinema with literature at the fest.
'The scope of social networking as a form of journalism is limited. Yes, you can tweet a photo or write about, say, a policemen beating a protestor somewhere. But a real news story is complicated and analytical and it needs to be worked on... Journalism is not that simple,' Jonathan Franzen, arguably the greatest American novelist of his generation, tells Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya in a fascinating interview.
'He had a continuing interest in life, people, and the society in which he lived,' remembers Shyam Benegal, who collaborated with the polyglot playwright and actor through the 1970s and remained his friend for more than five decades.
Aakar Patel tell us why we must travel with open eyes and discover ourselves.
'Anantkumar Hegde will be pleased that those thousands who formed a long line to enter the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral on Christmas Eve night were both aware of their 'parentage' -- to use his insulting term -- and would describe themselves as Hindu,' says Rahul Jacob.
The eighth edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival kicked off on Wednesday to a grand start with a bevy of authors, poets, Nobel Laureates along with some Bollywood celebrities, trooping in to the pink city to participate in one of Asia's biggest literary jamboree.
'We demonise the Others.' 'We are constantly reminded that they are different and are an existential threat to Us.' 'The toxin of Nellie in 1983, Delhi in 1984 and Gujarat in 2002 is not yet flushed out of our body politic,' says Shreekant Sambrani.
'I doubt very much if I will ever move on from his music, as I have from so much else through the years,' says Aakar Patel.
'Everything they read on social media, they believe, is the truth.' 'One of the biggest challenges in the country today is how to counter fake news and propaganda.'
Subhash K Jha remembers conversations with the legendary actor who the world lost on Friday.
'The more I lived in India, the more I realised that America was my home too.'
Twenty years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, India is in rebirth mode. Whether there is a Babri Masjid or a Ram temple or not in Ayodhya, India will go on. And it will see many tomorrows, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
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.
In this May 2014 interview with Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com, the politically conscious Karnad spoke of why he is concerned about Modi coming to power.
The change of government in Goa changed THiNK's character. Literary or intellectual luminaries were replaced by big-ticket celebrities, says Sunil Sethi
'Chetan Bhagat is not great literature. Is that like you write third rate books and people can't do much better than to read those third rate books. Is it really an achievement?'
Meet the man behind MS Dhoni: The Untold Story.
'We used to say two things are found everywhere: A potato and a Sikh. I think you can substitute Gujarati for the Sikh because Gujaratis are everywhere.'
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.
India has undermined its own credibility.
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