'Saeed Mirza was one of the few actors who managed to shine in both British movies like Gandhi and Hindi movies like Chashme Buddoor.' The veteran actor's friends pay tribute to him.
'A pandemic like this will leave behind a trail of political, economic, social and psychological scars.' Coronavirus is going to impact every being on earth even if they do not contract it.' 'Everyone will pay a price,' cautions Ramesh Menon.
Great chefs are alchemists. They put ingredients and flavours together in ways that are sometimes unfathomable, says Rahul Jacob.
'My stay in Mumbai was taken care of by Vinod Khanna, food by Daisy Irani, work was provided by Feroz Khan, and Sunil Dutt paid me without my doing any work. My wife is 12 years younger than me. She was a child artiste. I got the title Shakti Kapoor: Cradle snatcher. But she was too good so I decided to marry her. I will marry Shraddha off after three years. I don't want her to be an older heroine or marry at 40. I want her to marry at the peak of her career. But I will not force her.' Straight talk from Shakti Kapoor.
In an online chat with readers, Prof Ujjwal Chowdhary from Edutainment offered tips on pursuing a career in media, design and communication.
From sports to history, Rediff reader Sabyasachi Dutta shares a selection of books for you to add to your reading list in 2020.
Quantico looks like your run-of-the-mill Homeland-esque drama whose only USP is Priyanka Chopra.
The Information Technology Act needs another tweak to allow a different kind of information intermediary to flourish, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
'I may sound snobbish but I am genuinely tired of responding and saying thank you on Facebook, on Twitter, on phone calls. People are calling from everywhere. There is all this excitement and different groups are throwing parties. I have to attend them or else they will think I am snooty.' Meet Masaan director Neeraj Ghaywan.
'I was a very late child of my father. I was suddenly a little toy, who appeared from nowhere. Everybody experimented.' 'I don't know why I took up dancing. I think I wanted to find one more excuse to drop out from school.' Kamal Haasan gives us beautiful nuggets from his life.
'N Ram and I met on the lawns of Mani Shankar Aiyar's bungalow.' 'I pulled out a rolled printout from my jacket and handed it to him.' 'In the cut-throat world of journalism, this was like high treason.' 'But letting a story be killed because you can't publish it is a bigger crime than passing it to the competition,' recalls Shekhar Gupta.
From Beckham to Nyong'o and Lopez to Lawrence, we look back at the year gone by through these red carpet outings. Don't forget to tell us who your favourite is at the end of this page!
Sujatha Gidla's scathing observations about Mahatma Gandhi and other highlights from Jaipur Literature Festival 2018.
'Our drains are not filled with bodies, our hospitals not run out of beds.' 'That good news, or absence of expected bad news, is the truth that so many in the international community, and also within India, seem unable to handle,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Despite being in the crosshairs of the police, politicians and vigilantes, Malini Subramaniam continues to report from a hotbed of Maoist insurgency.
Namrata Acharya finds out more about a movement aimed at preserving not only the mansions of north Calcutta and the grand colonial buildings of central Calcutta, but also the architecturally modest, yet unique, houses of south Kolkata.
'It's very tough for someone, who doesn't have a filmi background, to get work in Bollywood. It's not a smooth ride unless you are really lucky. But I think one has to be prepared for that. I must have given 30 auditions for films alone.' Rajkummar Rao survived the struggle to give us some brilliant films.
Her train was 8-foot-long and a limousine wasn't enough to carry it! Read on to find out how she finally arrived at the venue.
'There has been a lot of ups and downs, unexpected highs and unimaginable pain, almost thinking that I'm going to die.'
'John Lasseter gave me such good advice. He said the reason why he wanted me to tell the story was because it was about my dad and me. He said if it is a father and son story, it will relate universally.' Star Pixar animator Sanjay Patel tells Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com the back story behind his new film, Sanjay's Super Team, which features Hanuman, Vishnu and Durga as superheroes.
Physicist Kanwal Singh appointed dean of Sarah lawrence College, the first Indian American to head a leading liberal arts college in the US.
'The UPA was the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The NDA is the gang that can't stop shooting. They (the Modi government) are shooting at anybody, everybody, all directions, shooting themselves in the foot.'
Over Dosas in Mumbai, Oscar winner Megan Mylan tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel why she chose India and girls empowerment as the subject of her new documentary.
This Haryana village believes it has 'found' the Saraswati river of the Vedas.
'The majority of transmission will be via people who are within two metres of one another.' 'The closer you are, the more likely that you'll be infected.'
A group of concerned individuals as the India Pride Project and the support of one man dubbed America's Indiana Jones has resulted in the return of India's heritage back to the country, says Vijay Kumar.
'It is the regional parties and their leaders who are the ones we have to watch.'
Thenmozhi Soundararajan works to break the shackles of caste for Dalits.
'Cultural property crimes have been linked, by the United Nations and others, to terrorism.' 'These links show the perpetrators to be associated with major criminal and terrorist networks like ISIS.
India has moved up 16 positions to rank 55th on a global index of the world's most competitive economies, where Switzerland remains on top.
In her book, Make Love Not Scars, anti-acid attack champ Ria Sharma shares stories of the unbreakable spirit of acid attack survivors.
Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College at Tilonia in Rajasthan, was awarded the Clinton Global Citizen Award at a ceremony in New York on September 25.
'Smita Patil was the reason I got into films. She kept telling me to get into films but I said I was happy doing theatre, I don't like films. Today, when I look back, I don't think I disliked films. Maybe I thought who would take me in films? I think it was a complex.' Nana Patekar looks back at his life.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
Time unkindly has a sole endeavour: To drag the person, whose death you are mourning, further and further away from your presence, to some far edge of your falsely anesthetised mind. So your memories are drained of colour, growing faint and grainy. You are left with a more and more distant recollections of that person, their laugh, their embrace, their voice and the moments surrounding their final departure. Vaihayasi P Daniel mourns her beloved father who passed away one December morning last year.
'India stands on the broad shoulders of an extraordinary civilisation. In some ways it is quite surprising that it hasn't fully embraced the power of that.' 'The prime minister speaks about Make in India. Let's remind ourselves also of Made in India. What made India great. What are the great things of the past which will help us make India even greater.' 'India stands on the broad shoulders of an extraordinary civilisation. In some ways it is quite surprising that it hasn't fully embraced the power of that.'
The people who know Tibet will continue to fight the good fight. Long, hard, less than hopeful, but always peaceful.
Nilanjana S Roy compiles a list of the most eagerly awaited books next year.
Creative and confident, these emerging fashion designers are the future of Indian fashion.
