'Professor C Y Bayly was undoubtedly the tallest of his generation. For so many of his students who were privileged to be taught by him he was much more than the rarest of rare scholar.' Professor Seema Alavi remembers a teacher who left an indelible imprint on India history.
'The reason I call Dadri a landmark turning point in our politics is the relatively muted response of the self-styled secular forces.' 'Top leaders of the Congress haven't even taken a padyatra to the village, just a 40 minute drive from Delhi. Lalu, Nitish, Mamata, all claimants to the secular vote, are afraid of messing with an issue involving the cow.' 'Holiness of the cow has now become as multi-partisan an issue as hostility to Pakistan,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Raghav tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier how he and his cousin Mukund co-founded Renew IT, which refurbishes discarded computers and makes them affordable for the poor in rural India.
The Biju Janata Dal will not oppose the government simply for the sake of opposing it, BJD Member of Parliament Bhratruhari Mahtab tells Aditi Phadnis.
Sumit Jain, CEO and co-founder, Commonfloor talks about serendipity and his entrepreneurial destiny.
The successful effort to combat Cyclone Phailin threatens to put disaster mitigation, and a fundamental overhaul of how disaster management in India is structured, on the back-burner, says Anand Sarkar.
'We're going to see a defence relationship that really takes off -- now that India is a major defence partner of the US, the sky is the limit for arms sales.' 'The economic partnership will lag behind the security relationship, but the meeting and joint statement give cause to believe that it will progress more robustly than many of us would have expected.'
'There are hundreds of items from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra, Rajasthan, Gujarat in Subhash Kapoor's loot. The Tamil Nadu Idol Wing wants to just prosecute Kapoor for three cases and close it. To me that's myopic.'
Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini are trying to improve education across India.
'That cannot be done till they roam around free, get money from Pakistan and seek attention.' 'The cycle of violence was very cleverly generated.' 'During night patrolling when it was discovered that dumper trucks were unloading heaps of stones in various places, it was the first indicator that there would be trouble.' 'Wherever stones were dumped, the stones were taken by the police to construction sites.' 'It was a laborious task, but we did it rigorously.' 'We had to use some smart tactics and soft skills to defeat the cycle of violence.''
In a weekly chat with readers, Rediff.com's Love Guru offers relationship advice.
BJP President Amit Shah -- arguably the second most powerful politician in the nation -- granted a rare television interview to the Network 18 group of news channels. Rediff.com's Rajesh Alva checks out what the BJP boss said in this word cloud assessment of the interview.
Moushumi Chatterjee, one of the biggest stars of her time, gives us a peek into her life.
A G Padmanabhan's dream is to make India a 'no food waste economy' and promote sustainable ideas.
'Bangladesh is a country of immensely organised terror outfits.' 'His murder has left a deep scar. Why, why, why, my mind asks me. How could this happen to my Avijit?' asks Professor Ajoy Roy.
Shubham Kumar Gautam, son of a farmer and a Super 30 student, recounts how, in a journey laced with perseverance, grit and determination, he achieved what seemed impossible.
Zoho founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu noticed that there was not much of a correlation between an employee's academic credentials and his performance at work.
'I wondered what mistakes I made in my life to be a businessman. Deep down, I still have doubts about it.' Shobha Warrier meets the amazing Dilip Kapur who built a Rs 160 crore business with just Rs 25,000.
'After Rajan is back in India, our resident dons are almost down. I won't say that they are out. So, now the obvious question is about Dawood, and the present government, I think, is more than willing to address that issue.' 'I think the political system made this kind of people; the corporate world made this kind of people. I have mentioned in my book that even the banks were using these outlaws to get their money back.'
In Tamil Nadu, the alternative to one Dravidian party has been another, and for one actor-politician CM, there is another. Their initial popularity may owe to their filmi charisma, but their continued acceptance owed to their government's policies and programmes targeting the poor and the needy in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
International Ski Federation (FIS) president Gian-Franco Kasper has warned FIFA against holding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar at the same time as the Winter Olympic Games.
'My father knows that he was not good in Parinda. He himself told me that he messed it up because he was so successful at that time with Ram Lakhan and Tezaab. He was so iconic as Munna that he tried to recreate it all the time. It is not necessarily the best thing to do.' Harshvardhan Kapoor says why he's blessed to be an actor in today's days.
In a weekly chat with readers, Love Guru offers relationship advice.
A first-of-its-kind travel show explores the special bond a father and daughter share.
Digvijaya Singh is no longer in Rahul's close circle of advisers. His move to the Upper House was to ensure that the senior leader does not meddle in Madhya Pradesh politics in the run up to the crucial Lok Sabha polls. Anita Katyal reports
'Rishi Kapoor and I come from two different schools of filmmaking. I like to approach scenes in a certain way, and take multiple takes. Rishi sir comes from a school where things were much simpler. I think that's where the friction comes in.' But in the end, Kapoor & Sons director Shakun Batra is still smiling!
While all political parties have been talking about following in the footsteps of the debutant Aam Admi Party by fielding fresh faces in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-U leader Nitish Kumar has set the ball rolling by deciding not to renominate his party's three sitting MPs in the coming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha scheduled for February 7. Anita Katyal reports.
Men and women from mofussil India are buying designerwear either on their laptops or their cellphones.
'As the night wore on, we could hear insects, see fireflies and slowly, the stars took over the naked sky.' 'For those of us who spend the largest part of our lives in a cement jungle and wake up to machine sounds, this was music.'
Besides a great idea, it takes pluck, and some luck, to get going.
Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar is underwriting the revival of a vintage Dakota as a gift to the Indian Air Force.
From odd to heartwarming, the best of Twitter conversations in 2014.
'ISI mouthpieces in the media have been quick to blame India for the attack. Clearly, the intellect and worldview of these characters (which includes fairly senior retired military officers) is based on Bollywood movies like Ek Tha Tiger and Agent Vinod... More seriously, the fact that ISI touts have been using this opportunity to train their guns on India raises serious questions about all the talk of the army being on the same page as the civilian government on the issue of improving relations with India,' says Sushant Sareen.
Scriptwriter of Baar Baar Dekho Sri Rao gets candid about his film and Bollywood.
Three hatchbacks have been muscled up to offer a more adventurous driving experience.
From planning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign trips to playing a key role in the Jammu and Kashmir elections, former RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav is become increasingly important in the BJP
The chaos on its stock markets, a fierce battle between the old and new guard in the Communist Party and the restive border provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang forebode tough times ahead for China, says Claude Arpi.
Each 'adarsh village' should have piped drinking water, connectivity to the main road, electricity supply to all households, library, telecom and broadband connectivity including CCTVs in public areas. Emphasis will also be on e-governance, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
'We use the word "historic" perhaps too much, but the prime minister's visit certainly was historic in so many ways.'
After spending seven years a corporate slave, with all his spare time spent on this hobby -- Anshum Mandore finally did what so many brave have done before him. He quit and started a brand new career from scratch.
