'If the museum in his memory inspires and instils among Brahminical British Indians an attitude of equality towards Dalits, the edifice would be worth it,' reports Ashis Ray.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that India will contribute an additional battalion of 850 troops for United Nations peacekeeping operations, but also raised concern that troop contributing countries have no role in decision-making.
The ultimate was surely Yudhishthira's immortal "Aswathama hatha...", followed by a whispered "iti narova kunjarova..."," says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
Rediff.com takes a look at some personalities who are likely to win the prize this year.
'The majority community needs to accept that the Indian Muslim is peace loving, not communal and treat them accordingly.'
The debate on the Rafale jet fighter deal saw a head-on collision between the government and the Congress in Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
As much as Rs 4,300 crore was generated by 2019 movie releases. But 2020 is all set to be bigger and better!
Donald Trump and General H R McMaster: It is almost like the Chinese monarch Helü with Sun Tzu at his side.
Siva Sankar looks at S P Balasubrahmanyam's fantastic repertoire.
'Why does Mr Modi only attack Nehru from the Dynasty?' 'At one level, it is pure politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'One of his most famous scenes is set in a prison in Delhi where the British try to subvert Karla, the legendary Soviet spy who is being transferred back to Moscow and is being temporarily detained by the Indian agencies.' Ambassador B S Prakash salutes John le Carre.
'We have lost one of music's most revered and prolific visionaries.'
AMU has once again been pulled into a crossfire of crass political opportunism. In these post-truth times, that the university also had political stirrings not subscribing to the Muslim League is chosen to be forgotten, says Mohammad Sajjad.
She spins Bollywood tracks when she's not doing her investment consultant job.
'One big problem for the RSS is, while they spread their ideology of hard, Hindu-ised Indian nationalism, the absence of their own pantheon of modern nationalist giants. They missed out on the freedom movement quite comprehensively, in some ways comparable to the Muslim League and latter-day Communists. They have to find heroes elsewhere.' 'They borrow who they can from the Congress, like Madan Mohan Malviya and Sardar Patel, and then steal the entire lot of revolutionaries, from Bhagat Singh to Netaji, never mind that many of them were extreme leftists.'
Parkasho Devi has witnessed every conflict between India and Pakistan in the Arnia region which is situated five kilometres from the International Border, but feels that latest onslaught from the neighbouring country has been unprecedented one as even at the peak of hostilities civilian areas were not targeted the way they were being now.
With Sheikh Hasina as Bangladesh prime minister, all is well with the world of India-Bangladesh relations, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino likes to erase bad memories and cherish good ones and it is a trait he hopes his players have acquired ahead of Saturday's clash at Premier League champions Manchester City.
Hockey greats Vasudevan Baskaran, M M Somaya and Mervyn Fernandis relive India's gold medal-winning campaign at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
'We were firing at Patton tanks that were moving towards India.' 'Fighter aircraft are the biggest menace for tanks because they come at great speed, attack from a height and their rockets are lethal.' 'The Hunter travels at 400, 420 knots. One knot is 1.6 times a km, so it was at a speed of 700, 800 km/hr.' 'You come at great speed and when you see the tanks, you pull up because attacks are always done in a dive.' 'You go up to 3,000 to 4,000 feet and then dive on to the target and let off your rockets...'
From a Sri Lanka cricket legend Kumar Sangakkara's final Test innings, Virender Sehwag's felicitation ceremony, FC Barcelona's Luis Suarez celebrating the La Liga title with his family, these and many more scintillating moments are frozen in time in this beautiful photo-feature.
'The summer of 1857 saw violence, perpetrated by the Indians and the Britons, on an unprecedented scale.' 'Never before and never after in the history of British rule in India was there violence at the level that 1857 witnessed.'
Robbed of prey as people fled, Omar Perez came marching back and shot bullet after bullet into Prudhvi Raj Kandepi's head, thus ensuring that a man he had never met before, known nothing of, would never get up again.
'Most Assamese don't understand a word like ghuspethiya and its insulting connotation.'
'As India and Pakistan observe the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war, the one lesson that ought to have been learned by Pakistan is how vulnerable its heartland is to a sudden attack. The only alternative to this inherent geographic weakness is to have a policy of peace with India. In an extreme scenario, India can destroy Pakistani strategic targets by just artillery shelling, crossing of the border is not even necessary,' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd)
The debate on Sardar Patel's legacy is less about the Sardar and more about the acute sense of threat felt by the Delhi establishment at the rise of Narendra Modi and questions he has raised about the disproportionate share of credit given to a single family, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
Meanwhile, Australia skipper Michael Clarke, who was entangled in a war of words with Cricket Australia over his availability, is still a doubtful starter for the first Test following question marks over his fitness.
'Modi's political economy is more inspired by Indira Gandhi than Vajpayee.' 'She so wanted an Opposition-mukt Bharat.' 'Sounds familiar?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
The failure to restructure our armed forces in line with contemporary needs 14 years after the Kargil war will impose strategic costs beyond just delays and scandals, says Nitin Pai
'We have never had a policy regarding Pakistani artistes working in India.' 'We welcome them with open arms and that remains the official policy of the Indian government, including the current dispensation.'
Aseem Chhabra is impressed by Rima Das's Bulbul Can Sing, Ritesh Batra's Photograph and eight other outstanding films.
No other foreign leader seems to have been extended such a warm welcome by an Israeli Prime Minister in the past few decades.
A look at the top tweets from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
On planes, on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Zee5, Hulu, MUBI, Kanopy, film festivals... Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 309 films in 365 days.
'Here was a man who played a major part in helping the Bengalis of East Pakistan create a new nation, secured the merger of Sikkim into the Indian dominion and built R&AW into a formidable outfit, comparable to the best in the world.' Rameshwar Nath Kao shunned the limelight, hated to be photographed and preferred to work behind the scenes. A revealing excerpt from Nitin A Gokhale's much awaited book, R N Kao: Gentleman Spymaster.
Despite the Indian government's recent efforts anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been little change in the extortionist behaviour of a significant proportion of tax and police officials, says Jaimini Bhagwati.
A 'soft' approach must be nurtured to complement the hard-line of spending billions in physical conflict; that is the only way to 'degrade and destroy' ISIS.
The summit is being seen as an effort by India and China to rebuild trust and improve ties that were hit by the 73-day-long Doklam standoff last year.
Sweden's Charlotte Kalla won the first gold medal of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Saturday after powering away from the field to secure victory in the women's 7.5km + 7.5km skiathlon.
'Obama probably thinks, "He is quite a guy!" Americans on Capitol Hill think, "He has guts. He is a big player".' An Indian official explains the importance of the Modi visit to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
